Photography For Beginners - Understanding Lenses

Interested in expanding your camera kit with an extra lens or two? Not sure about lens design and terminology associated with SLR lenses? Here is some information that may help in making that important decision. Good lenses are expensive and you need to get the optimum value for your purchase.

Types of Lenses

There are many types of lenses on the market today, too many to cover in detail here, but here are the most common types you will come across in your pursuit.

Prime or Zoom?

The first consideration is to decide whether you want a zoom lens or a prime lens. A zoom lens has variable focal length so it can function as several lenses in one package. A prime lens is fixed in focal length, so it is restricted to photography that is related to its size.

Photographers will still argue that a prime lens is always going to achieve a better result than a zoom. This is an optically sound argument; however, there have been some serious advances in optical technology over the past decades and the difference is now minimal.

Normal Lens

This lens is a prime and has a fixed focal length of 50 or 55mm. It is called a normal or standard lens as it provides a result the same as our normal viewing perspective. It is considered to be an all purpose lens and usually the first choice if purchasing a prime.

Zoom Lens

A zoom lens covers a variable focal length, the most popular being the 35 to 70mm zoom. This lens will give the same coverage as several prime lenses over this range.

Telephoto Lens

A telephoto is any prime lens with a focal length longer than 50mm. Lenses greater than 300mm are called super telephotos; these are generally in the 300, 500 and 1,000mm range. The greater the telephoto focal range, the greater the price tag.

Mirror Lens

A mirror lens is a telephoto lens but uses a combination of lenses and mirrors to achieve its telephoto capability. The main difference between conventional telephotos is its size, generally a lot shorter. This is great for handling and a cheaper alternative. The downside is it has a fixed aperture and provides less resolution.

Shift Lens

This lens is also known as a perspective correction lens, and has a rising and falling front panel that corrects perspective distortion and converging lines. These are mostly used in architectural photography.

Soft Focus Lens

These lenses are designed for different formats, are not that common and so are very expensive. The lens provides varying degrees of softness and is mainly used in fashion and portrait photography.

Macro Lens

Macro lenses are generally prime lenses and come in various focal lengths (not to be confused with the macro setting that most lenses come with). Macro lenses are for the serious macro photography as they are very expensive. Macro lenses are for extreme close-ups at a ratio of 1:1, 2:1 or larger.

Teleconverters

These lenses provide a cheap and simple way to extend the range of focal lengths without having to buy more lenses. These are fitted between the lens mount and the lens and increase the magnifying power of the original lens. A typical ratio is 2x and 3x converting a 50mm lens to 100mm and 150mm lens respectively.

These are a few ways to increase the capabilities of your camera that enables you to explore a greater variety of photographic subjects. Some are expensive, but others such as described here are not. There are some cheap alternatives available to help you take a further step in your photography.