Knowing Which Digital Slr Camera Lens is Right for You?
Knowing Which Digital Slr Camera Lens is Right for You?
When shopping for a Digital SLR Camera people often overlook or skimp on the camera’s lenses. Camera Lenses serve as the digital SLR cameras “eye,” the lens determines what and how your camera will see your subject and how well that view is transmitted to the camera’s sensor chip for recording. The way I like to look at camera lenses is as painter’s brushes, broad strokes, medium stokes, all purpose brushes, and small detail brushes. There is a lot to learn about digital slr camera lenses and this article will serve as a basic outline to understanding them. The following sections explain the basic types of digital SLR camera lenses, how they work, and how to select them.
Focal Length
On a digital SLR camera the focal length of the lenses measures the distance between the lens and the image sensor, measured in millimeters. Lenses can be classified into subgroups like prime, macro, wide angle, normal, telephoto, and zoom lenses. They are also rated in regards to f-stop or speed an example would be a F2.0 50mm lens or a 1.4F 80 mm lens. We will explain this later in this article.
Prime Lenses:
Prime lenses are fixed focal length lenses like a 50mm 1.4f lens. To zoom with these types of lenses you need to use your feet and to get closer or farther away from the subject. Traditionally prime lenses are sharper and faster then zoom lenses. If you’re on a budget you can pick up some amazing used older prime lenses off eBay or your local camera store.
Macro Lenses:
Marco Lenses are your detail brushes they enable you to get up close and personal with your subject. These types of lenses are used for extreme close ups on small objects like daisies, pennies, and food but not limited to these types of subjects. Examples of macro lenses are 50mm and 100 mm macros. These lenses are also great for selective focus types of photos.
Wide-angle Lenses:
Wide-angle lenses are your broad stroke brushes; these types of lenses have short focal lengths. The short focal length has the visual effect of “pushing” the subject away from you and making it appear smaller. The beauty of wide-angle lenses is you can be relatively close to your subject and fit a broad stroke of the background into the scene.
One problem with wide-angle lenses is known as convergence, a distortion that makes vertical structures appear to lean toward the center of the frame. A way to check if the wide-angle lenses you are interested in has convergence is to take test pictures before buying the lens. With high quality wide angles lenses like Canon “L” series lenses address this convergence issue well. Examples of wide-angle lenses are 15MM, 17mm, 24mm and 28mm lenses.
Normal Lenses:
Normal Lenses try to mimic how the human eye sees and are some of the most versatile lenses you can use. These are my all purpose brushes, and are somewhere between a wide angle and a telephoto lenses. If you buy just one lens try and buy the fastest normal lenses you can like a 50mm 1.4f lenses. Some examples of normal lenses are 35mm; 50mm, 65mm and some consider a 80mm a normal lens.
Telephoto Lenses:
Lenses with long focal lengths 100mm and higher are called telephoto lenses. A long focal length seems to bring the subject closer to you and increases the subject’s size in the frame. Telephoto lenses also give your subjects a graphic look and flatten out your subject. These lenses are my short stroke brushes.
Zoom Lenses:
Zoom lenses are special because they can be very versatile. These types of lenses vary in their focal lengths and come in many in wide-angle, telephoto, and wide-angle to telephoto. In my bag I carry a 17mm to 35mm my wide–angle broad brush, 24mm to 70mm my medium brush, and a 80mm to 200mm my short brush. With these three lenses I get a very board range of focal lengths for any situation. All of my zooms are at least f2.8 through out the lenses range, which means my f-stop can stay constant while I am zooming in and out. These types of lenses are very expensive but so get what you pay for. When shopping for a zoom lenses check out the f-stop range rating. An example is a 24mm to 300mm f3.5-f5.6 lenses meaning the lowest f-stop you can shoot is at the 24mm range of the lenses and when you zoom to 200mm the lowest you can go is f5.6. Zoom lenses can give you flexibility and versatility all in one lenses. When buying a zoom lens try and get one that is made of glass and is the fastest you can afford, you will not regret it.
Understanding what these different groups of lenses can do will help you make more informed decisions on what lenses to purchase and what to put in your camera bag.
Comments
926 Responses to “Knowing Which Digital Slr Camera Lens is Right for You?”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying about this post...Websites we think you should visit…
[...]although websites we backlink to below are considerably not related to ours, we feel they are actually worth a go through, so have a look[...]……
Dreary Day…
It was a dreary day here today, so I just took to piddeling around on the internet and found…
Just Browsing…
While I was browsing yesterday I saw a great post concerning…
Its hard to find good help…
I am forever proclaiming that its difficult to get quality help, but here is…
Its hard to find good help…
I am forever saying that its difficult to get good help, but here is…
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really cool info…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG today I noticed this…
Tumblr article…
I saw a writer talking about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG yesterday I found this…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG today I found this…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG today I noticed this…
Informative and precise…
Its hard to find informative and precise information but here I found…
… [Trackback]…
[...] Informations on that Topic: theslrcamerastore.com/knowing-which-digital-slr-camera-lens-is-right-for-you [...]…
Yahoo results…
While searching Yahoo I discovered this page in the results and I didn’t think it fit…
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really cool topic…
Wikia…
Wika linked to this site…
Trackback…
[...]we find pleasure in linking to other places on the interwebz, even though those places don’t happen to be similar to us, by pointing them out. Here are a couple URLs worth browsing[...]…
Dreary Day…
It was a dreary day here today, so I just took to messing around on the internet and realized…
Just Browsing…
While I was browsing yesterday I saw a great post concerning…
Just Browsing…
While I was surfing today I noticed a great post concerning…
Informative and precise…
Its hard to find informative and accurate info but here I noted…
Recent Blogroll Additions……
[...]usually posts some very interesting stuff like this. If you’re new to this site[...]……
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really cool info…
Tumblr article…
I saw a writer talking about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
Yahoo results…
While browsing Yahoo I found this page in the results and I didn’t think it fit…
Yahoo results…
While searching Yahoo I found this page in the results and I didn’t think it fit…
Tumblr article…
I saw a writer writing about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
… [Trackback]…
[...] Read More: theslrcamerastore.com/knowing-which-digital-slr-camera-lens-is-right-for-you [...]…
Wikia…
Wika linked to this website…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG today I noticed this…
Just Browsing…
While I was browsing yesterday I saw a excellent article about…
Just Browsing…
While I was surfing yesterday I noticed a excellent article about…
Looking around…
I like to look in various places on the online world, regularly I will just go to Digg and read and check stuff out…
Trackback…
[...]Top story; reckoned I could include some unrelated info, although still worth looking[...]…
Informative and precise…
Its difficult to find informative and precise info but here I found…
Dreary Day…
It was a dreary day here today, so I just took to piddeling around online and realized…
Informative and precise…
Its difficult to find informative and precise information but here I found…
Wikia…
Wika linked to this site…
Informative and precise…
Its hard to find informative and precise information but here I noted…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG yesterday I noticed this…
Wikia…
Wika linked to this place…
Dreary Day…
It was a dreary day here yesterday, so I just took to piddeling around on the internet and found…
Its hard to find good help…
I am regularly saying that its difficult to get quality help, but here is…
… [Trackback]…
[...] Informations on that Topic: theslrcamerastore.com/knowing-which-digital-slr-camera-lens-is-right-for-you [...]…
Its hard to find good help…
I am constantnly proclaiming that its hard to find quality help, but here is…
Tumblr article…
I saw someone writing about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really cool info…
Its hard to find good help…
I am constantnly proclaiming that its hard to get quality help, but here is…
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really interesting information…
Yahoo results…
While searching Yahoo I found this page in the results and I didn’t think it fit…