Table of contents for Lenses Guide 1st Edition in Lenses Guide

When purchasing a lens for your interchangeable-lens camera consider the following factors. 1. The Lens Mount Each camera manufacturer has its own lens mount with proprietary physical and electronic connections. Consequently, one company’s lenses won’t work on another’s cameras, with the following exceptions: The Four Thirds System, which is now mainly seen as Micro Four Thirds (M4/3), is based on a ‘universal’ mount adopted primarily by Olympus and Panasonic. Third-party lens manufacturers, like Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, Voigtländer and Samyang produce lenses with mounts to suit different camera brands. Some third-party lenses can match (or better) camera manufacturers’ equivalent lenses, often at a lower price. Lens Choices Check out the range of lenses available for the camera you own (or plan to buy) when deciding which ones to invest in. Currently,…

The second lens in a twin-lens kit is usually a telephoto zoom lens that picks up where the range of the standard zoom lens (which we covered in the previous chapter) ends. These lenses take in focal lengths that are ideal for portraiture, sports and wildlife photography. Like standard lenses, kit telephoto zooms are usually built to a price and typically cover 35mm equivalent focal lengths of 55-200mm. They also tend to be relatively compact and portable and make a versatile addition to a basic kit of camera plus standard zoom. Telephoto Zoom Characteristics Telephoto lenses narrow the photographer’s field of view and, in doing so, make distant subjects appear closer. Nearby objects also appear to be closer in size to more distant objects of the same size because the…

Although most lenses can be used for portraiture, fast telephoto lenses with moderately short focal lengths have long been the first choice of professional portrait photographers. Focal lengths typically considered ideal range from about 70mm to 135mm in 35mm format, with a bias in favour of the 85-105mm section. There are several reasons to choose short telephoto lenses for portraiture: 1. They provide a good working distance, enabling the photographer to fill the frame with the subject’s face (or head and shoulders) without imposing on their personal space. 2. The slight compression of perspective provided by a telephoto lens is usually flattering. With careful posing of subjects, prominent noses and chins appear smaller in relationship to the rest of the face. 3. Fast maximum apertures (f/1.8 to f/4) provide optimal…

The main accessories for lenses are hoods, filters and adapters and all have benefits and drawbacks. Some manufacturers supply lens hoods with lenses; others offer them as options. Filters and adapters are always sold separately. Lens Hoods Lens hoods help block stray light from entering the lens. They vary in size and shape and are usually short and rectangular or petal-shaped for wide angle lenses. Longer lenses normally use cylindrical hoods. Hoods for zoom lenses are often petal-shaped, with cut-out sections to cater for the wider field of view covered by shorter focal lengths. To be effective, the internal surface of a lens hood should be non-reflective. Most hoods have matte surfaces, sometimes achieved by flocking. Hoods for zoom lenses must be correctly orientated in order to block stray light…

There are many reasons to buy a camera with just one lens – and not all of them are economic. It’s very convenient to have an ‘all-in-one’ zoom lens that covers most, if not all of the angles of view you’re likely to require, particularly when you’re travelling. For travelling photographers the socalled ‘convenience ‘ zooms provide a camera-plus-lens combination that is compact and easy to carry, yet versatile enough for most situations. It’s also less likely to attract thieves in crowded areas. Today almost all lens manufacturers have at least one convenience zoom lens in their ranges. And many of them cover a wider zoom range than the 7.1x offered by the original lenses. So-called ‘super-zoom’ lenses often span a range of up to 19x magnification and even larger…

Whether it’s photographing your kids on the sports oval, taking pictures of animals in a zoo or wildlife park or venturing off on a birding expedition, in each case, there’s likely to be a considerable distance between the subject and the camera. To fill that gap, you need a longish telephoto lens. Choosing the right one requires you to allow for the shooting situations you can expect. Fortunately, there are plenty to choose from, depending on your requirements and budget. Unlike wide angle lenses, where a small difference in focal length can make a large difference in angle of view, for telephoto lenses the opposite is the case. Jumps of 100mm or more in focal length deliver relatively small changes in angle of view. You can get a rough idea…

Most people buying an interchangeablelens camera for the first time will opt for the ‘kit’ lens bundled with the camera. When you’re buying an entry- or midlevel camera, it’s a convenient way to get a lens (or two) that suits the camera. Professional and pro-sumer cameras are usually sold in body-only configurations, although some manufacturers may bundle suitable lenses with them. Bundled lenses are usually affordably priced and they generally cover popular focal length ranges for everyday photography. The most popular kit lenses have zoom ranges that extend from a moderately wide angle of view to a modest telephoto (typically 28mm to around 85mm in 35mm format). Kit lenses are relatively small and light, so they are a popular starting point for building a camera kit since they enable you…

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what constitutes a ‘macro’ lens. True macro capabilities require the lens to be capable of 1:1 or ‘life size’ reproduction. Lenses that provide a 2:1 reproduction ratio (or greater) also qualify as macro lenses but they are usually highly specialised and not widely available. Macro lenses are designed to focus much closer than a normal lens. This can create some problems photographers need to be aware of with respect to camera-to-subject distances and the risk of blocking light from reaching the subject. Many zoom lenses claim to have ‘macro’ capabilities, although this is more of a marketing term than a true description of their capacities. Some digicams include ‘ macro’ focusing modes that can capture sharp images of subjects as close as one centimetre…