- All camera systems offer a dizzying selection of lenses.
- focus on what you plan to shoot
- Less expensive lenses will generally have variable apertures
- all major camera and lens manufacturers offer a variety of focal lengths to satisfy most budgets.
- More expensive lenses have a fixed aperture
- Wide angles give an expansive view
- Wide angles are also handy in tight areas, like small rooms, cars, caves, etc
- wide-angle lenses have the potential to drastically change your photography
- Standard zoom lenses are great walkaround lenses
- standard zooms tend to cover moderate wide-angle focal lengths all the way down to a medium telephoto
- prime lenses offer just one focal length, such as 35mm, 50mm, or 85mm
- So a standard prime falls somewhere in that 35mm to 85mm standard range
- the most popular standard lens was a standard prime: the 50mm
- a prime does force you to think more about composition and point of view, simply because it can’t zoom
- And prime lenses also tend to be cheaper than optically-equivalent zooms
- Telephoto lenses get you close to a subject without actually approaching them
- The most popular telephotos seem to be various flavors of 70-300mm or 70-200mm
- Telephoto zooms allow you to stand back when the subject isn’t quite as approachable or when your subject might be feeling overwhelmed by the presence of the camera
- Telephoto lenses also compress distance, making everything appear closer together, as opposed to wide-angle lenses, which distort perspective and make things look separate.
- telephoto lenses are also excellent for sports, nature, and wildlife photography