Camera Lenses: Guide for Beginners
February 15, 2023
Lenses are a crucial piece of photographic equipment; without one, your camera is essentially an expensive brick. The lens collects light from a scene and bends it precisely as it travels toward the sensor or film via a collection of carefully arranged glass elements. The number, shape and arrangement of these elements combine to form the look and feel of an image.
With the sheer number of lenses available on the market, it can be overwhelming to know what you should be looking for and the best options for expanding your kit. This post will cover some things to consider before buying a lens and how thoughtful lens selection can dramatically improve your photography.
1. Understanding Focal Length
Probably the most important difference between lenses is focal length. Whether taking photos for creative expression or documentation, understanding how focal length impacts the look and character of images is essential.
Focal length is the distance between a lens's rear nodal point (or optical center) and the camera’s sensor or film. It is measured when a lens is focussed at infinity and is represented in millimeters (mm). Focal length affects several image properties, the most noticeable being field of view and magnification. The shorter the focal length, the less magnification of the subject and the wider the field of view. The longer the focal length, the larger the subject will appear and the narrower the field of view.
Once you start experimenting with various focal lengths, you’ll notice other differences, such as perspective. Perspective distortion is more prominent when using lenses with shorter focal lengths. Because these lenses require you to move closer to your subject to fill the frame, the distance between the camera and the subject is reduced. Relative to this close distance, background elements are much further away, making them appear smaller and giving the impression of more space between your subject and their background.
Photo by Athena (Pexels)
In contrast, longer focal lengths force you to increase the distance between you and your subject, which decreases perspective distortion. Consequently, foreground and background elements within the frame appear larger and much closer together.
Depth of field is also impacted by focal length. A greater depth of field can be captured using lenses with short focal lengths, making them an ideal choice when you want to get a broad range of elements from foreground to background in focus. Conversely, lenses with long focal lengths deliver a more shallow depth of field, making them perfect for blurring the background to isolate a subject.
In the same way long focal lengths magnify a subject, they will also magnify any camera shake. When using a lens with a long focal length, it’s often necessary to increase your shutter speed to compensate for any movement. Image shake can be further prevented by using a tripod and, in the case of DSLRs, even locking the mirror up to eliminate the vibration that occurs when the mirror flips up.
Focal Length Differences (Short vs Standard vs Long)
- Short Focal Length: Commonly referred to as wide-angle lenses, these have a broad field of view, allowing them to capture a greater portion of the scene within the frame. Their distorted perspective and ability to fit more into the frame make them ideal for landscapes, astrophotography and cramped interiors, as they easily convey a feeling of depth and space.
- Standard Focal Length: Also known as normal-focal length, these lenses approximate the field of view seen by the human eye. Film size or a camera's sensor size determines what focal length will deliver a ‘normal’ field of view. For a 35mm full-frame camera, a 50mm lens is considered standard. These lenses are excellent for general use and suit a variety of photographic genres. They work well for street photography and photojournalism but are also ideal for portraiture, fashion, travel and landscape. Standard lenses are generally considered the most flexible lenses and, therefore, the best to start with.
- Long Focal Length: Commonly referred to as telephoto lenses, these capture a narrow field of view and magnify the subject, making it appear closer. They are great for wildlife and sports photography, allowing you to fill your frame with the subject without getting too close. They are also a favourite for portraiture as they deliver a more flattering perspective and easily blur backgrounds.
Quite often, environment and circumstances will drive lens selection. But when you have the flexibility to move about, you can exploit particular lens characteristics and compose more intentionally to control depth and mood. The best way to learn this is through experimentation. Take the same image at different focal lengths and compare what happens to your subject and the surrounding environment.
Note: There is no universal consensus regarding the transition points between wide-angle, standard and telephoto lenses, but generally speaking, focal lengths shorter than 35mm are accepted as wide-angle, and focal lengths greater than 70mm are considered to be telephoto. As their names suggest, ultra-wide and super-telephoto lenses have focal lengths that fall at the extremes of those categories.
2. Prime vs Zoom
Prime lenses have a single, fixed focal length and are available in a broad range of focal lengths. Because these lenses have been specifically designed for a particular focal length, they typically (not always) offer superior image quality and wider apertures. Other benefits include being smaller in size and less expensive.
Using a prime lens requires you to physically move closer to or farther away from your subject when framing. The advantage of being forced to move around is that you are more likely to explore your scene and subject in greater depth while searching for the best composition, thus discovering more unique angles and lighting opportunities.
However, shooting with prime lenses does come with a few restrictions and potential costs. Moving closer or further from your subject is not always an option. Getting up close and personal with a lioness and her cubs may not be in your best interest. Or perhaps you need to capture a wide interior of a room, and your back is already pressed up against the wall, yet essential features are still missing from your frame. You may need several lenses in your kit to cover all scenarios, which could cost you more in the long run and end up weighing more overall. Not to mention the additional time involved in changing lenses during a shoot.
Zoom Lenses is the versatile player in your team who performs well in many positions but will never be a star in any one role. Maybe that’s a bit harsh. Modern, professional zooms perform exceptionally well across their range. However, they’ll certainly come with a premium price tag to match and may still not perform as well as their prime counterparts.
A zoom lens will provide you with a focal length range to work with. If you find yourself shooting several genres in varying locations and working quickly is important, then a zoom lens will offer excellent versatility and convenience. Having one lens in your bag that can adequately do the job of 3 primes will save you money, weight, and time.
CameraPro Most Viewed Prime and Zoom Lenses
Click here to browse all Prime and Zoom lenses available in CameraPro
Within the two main categories of prime and zoom lenses, there are many lenses with varying focal lengths, as described earlier, and some specialist lenses for unique applications.
Fisheye lenses: Delivering an extremely wide angle of view, up to 180 degrees, they significantly distort perspective, making objects and people very close to the lens appear large, while those further away appear much smaller.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko (Pexels)
Macro lenses: Specifically optimized for capturing sharp images at extremely close range. These lenses are great for nature photography, enabling you to photograph exquisite detail in small items like flowers and insects that wouldn’t be possible with a general lens. Although designed for macro work, they are versatile and often a favourite among portrait and product photographers.
Photo by Ray Bilcliff (Pexels)
3. Cleaning your Lens
As you have probably already discovered, lenses are expensive. And there’s absolutely no point spending all that money to get beautiful clear photos if you don’t keep your lenses clean. Fingerprints and dust can most certainly degrade image quality, but if care is not taken when cleaning your lens, you can easily damage it.
Photo by Ikaia Pal (Pexels)
Using an air blower to gently clear away any dust, dirt, or sand particles is the best first step and often the only thing that needs to be done. Don’t be tempted to blow on the lens yourself, as even the gentlest blow can end with spit or food on your lens. Keeping an air blower in your kit is an excellent way to maintain your lenses and camera sensor and ensure dust is removed safely.
If, after using the air blower, you find your lens has a fingerprint or smear on the glass, a microfibre or lens cleaning cloth is the next best step. These cloths are made specifically to get rid of prints without damaging the lens, but be sure you have removed any loose dirt or sand from the glass before going in with a clean cloth. A rogue piece of sand could easily scratch the lens if wiped across it with any pressure. Using a circular motion, gently work from the centre outward to remove fingerprints and oil from the lens.
Click here to browse Cleaning Essential tools available in CameraPro
Note: If stubborn prints or spots remain, you can use a small amount of speciality lens cleaning solution. Do not add the solution directly to the lens. Instead, apply the solution to your clean cloth and then use the cloth to clean in the same circular motion as described earlier. Paper products or anything else that might scratch the lens should also be avoided.
4. Experiment with Filters
Photo by Stephen Kraakmo (Unsplash)
These days, with advancements in editing software and digital sensors, the question of using filters is polarising (pun intended). Some photographers are devout users, while others think they’re a waste of money. We believe that is reason enough for you to experiment for yourself. Many filters are available, each applying a unique effect to the image; here, we discuss just a few of the most common.
UV and Protection Filters
UV filters act to minimize the ultraviolet light rays entering the lens and hitting the film or sensor. Rays from the UV portion of the light spectrum can cause photos to appear hazy or have a blue tint, and this is a particular issue when shooting film, which is highly sensitive to this light. Modern digital cameras, however, have an inbuilt UV filter over the sensor that virtually eliminates this issue.
The second popular reason for attaching a UV filter to a lens is for protection, and this is where either a UV or a protection filter will do the job. Protection filters are clear filters designed to protect the front element of your lens from damaging knocks or scratches. The idea being it’s far better to break a $100 filter than a $1000 lens. Again, those adverse to filters argue that a lens hood will deliver much better protection than a filter.
There are plenty of sub-par filters on the market that will definitely degrade image quality. However, high-quality protection filters have no visibly adverse effect on image quality. They are specially coated to repel environmental pollutants such as dirt, oil, and water from their surface, making them easier to clean than a lens.
A lens hood might offer better protection from knocking your lens on a brick wall and reduce the risk of fingerprints, but it won’t stop sand and salt-water spray from hitting the lens. The good news is you can use them simultaneously. Try experimenting with both to see what you prefer.
Neutral Density (ND) Filters
Neutral Density filters absorb all visible wavelengths of light to evenly reduce the amount of light entering the lens, thus leaving the colour balance unchanged. ND filters are available in a range of densities and are described in stops corresponding to the amount of light they cut out.
With so much talk about letting in more light and photographers spending thousands on lenses with fast apertures that do just that, why would you deliberately cut down the available light? Sometimes you may want to intentionally introduce motion blur into the image, such as water, clouds or vehicles. Other times the light in a scene might be too bright to achieve a shallow depth of field. Reducing the light entering the lens increases the exposure needed, allowing you to slow down your shutter or open up to that f/1.2 aperture that you dropped a heap of money on.
Graduated Neutral Density (ND Grad or GND) Filters
As the name suggests, graduated ND filters are a type of ND filter with neutral grey density fading across the filter. This effectively controls the light entering the lens to reduce exposure in one part of the scene while leaving the remaining part unaffected by the filter.
These filters are a favourite among landscape photographers who strive to perfect an image in camera rather than in post. They are typically used when the sky is several stops brighter than the foreground. The grad filter successfully balances exposure by reducing the number of stops between the foreground and sky to fall within the camera’s dynamic range capabilities.
Grad filters are available in various density strengths and in a range of gradations, from soft to very hard transitions to suit virtually any landscape scene.
Types of GND Filters
- Hard-Edge GND Filter - Transitions quickly to clear at the filter's centre. Typically used to balance high-contrast scenes with an unbroken horizon, such as seascapes with bright skies and a dark foreground.
- Soft-Edge GND Filter - Delivering a subtle transition between the dark and clear areas. An excellent choice for scenes with mountains or uneven horizons where a hard-edge grad may produce a noticeable line.
- Reverse GND Filter - Used by landscape photographers to capture stunning sunrises and sunsets when the sun is close to the horizon. Like a standard grad, they darken bright skies while unaffecting exposure in the foreground. However, rather than having the darkest part at the top of the filter, a reverse grad is darker in the middle and gradually becomes lighter towards the top.
Circular Polarising (CPL) Filters
Polarising filters transmit light waves vibrating in one plane and restrict light waves vibrating at right angles to that plane. The polarising effect is at its maximum when shooting at 90 degrees to the sun. As the direction of light vibration is entirely random, light waves vibrating within that angle will only be partially restricted. Unlike other filters, CPLs have specific applications that cannot be achieved in post.
Polarisers are particularly useful for reducing and even eliminating reflections from water, glass, metal, foliage and other shiny objects. When used with water, they can sometimes facilitate subsurface visibility so you can see the rocks and aquatic life beneath the water’s surface, thus enhancing depth in your image.
In controlling the light waves entering the camera, colours may become more saturated, and this is particularly noticeable in scenes with blue skies, white clouds and brilliant greenery. Landscape photographers regularly exploit the unique effects of a polariser to enhance contrast and drama in their images.
There are a couple of practical considerations when using polarising filters. Because they restrict light, polarisers have a similar effect to an ND filter in that they reduce exposure, usually by about 2 stops. Secondly, scenes can appear uneven because the light is polarised at different strengths depending on its angle. This is especially evident in clear blue skies photographed with a wide-angle lens where one part of a sky receives maximum polarisation, and another area is completely unpolarised.
Click here to browse All Camera Filters available in CameraPro
5. What to Consider when Buying a Lens?
Photo by Hunter Moranville (Unsplash)
Focal Length
What do you want to photograph? Generally speaking, wide-angle lenses are a good choice for landscape and architectural photography. Standard and short telephoto lenses work beautifully for portraiture. And long telephoto lenses are optimal for wildlife and sport.
Prime or Zoom
Do you need the flexibility of a zoom lens or the exceptional image quality and much wider apertures typically found in a prime lens?
Aperture
Do you need to shoot in low light conditions or want a super shallow depth of field? A lens with a wide maximum aperture will deliver excellent results in both scenarios. But there is a cost for all that extra light. These lenses will be heavier and more expensive than those with smaller apertures. It’s also important to note that if purchasing a zoom lens, less expensive options will have a variable aperture indicated as an f-stop range, e.g. f/4-7.1. The maximum aperture available decreases as you zoom the lens to its longest focal length. You can get zoom lenses with a fixed maximum aperture available throughout the focal range, but again, these are heavier and more expensive.
Lens Mount
All camera manufacturers have different lens mounts for their cameras, and even within a single manufacturer, there may be a couple of options. Particularly with the introduction of mirrorless bodies, manufacturers will have one mount for their older DSLRs and a different mount for their new mirrorless bodies. It’s essential to know the lens mount type of your camera before buying a new lens.
Sensor Size
As mentioned earlier, a camera's sensor size determines the field of view a particular focal length will deliver. It is important to know what size sensor your camera has. If you are not using a full-frame camera, you will need to know your camera's crop factor to calculate the lens's effective focal length. For example, a 50mm lens will have an effective focal length of 75mm when used on an APS-C camera with a 1.5x crop factor, and therefore the angle of view will be smaller.
Stabilization
Lens stabilization helps to reduce blur in images and can save a photo when working handheld or in low-light conditions. It is more commonly found in lenses with longer focal lengths as these are more susceptible to camera shake. To make things fun, each of the lens manufacturers indicates the inclusion of image stabilization technology in their lenses differently:
Canon - IS (Image Stabilisation)
Nikon - VR (Vibration Reduction)
Sony - OSS (Optical SteadyShot)
Fuji - OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation)
Sigma - OS (Optical Stabilisation)
Tamron - VC (Vibration Control)
Hopefully, you have found the information and advice here helpful and feel more confident selecting the best lens for your next project. As with many things, the best way to improve your photography is to take chances, try new things and evaluate the results.
Enjoy the learning process and share your stunning photographs with us and the rest of the world. Follow us on our social media for more inspiring photo and video content.
Got pro tips on photography and filmmaking?
Share your tips with us, and comment below.