CHOICE OF LENS

CHOICE OF LENS

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Logically , once you have selected and purchased your new acquisition , called DSLR body, the next and very important step (in my opinion even more important than the choice of the body) is to choose lens or lenses. The choice of lens is not so easy to take because of the huge variety of lense , which is really amazing .

Here I will open a bracket, so to speak, and I will tell you personal opinion based on personal experience in buying and choosing lens / s. Since you are still a beginner photographer who do not have any idea in focal length, chromatic aberration and depth of field, the most logical step is to buy the body and lens kit. Do not rush . You are familiar with the saying " cheap always comes out expensive" . The truth per se. This does not apply to high-class kit lenses of Canon or Nikon because in  that class the companies can not afford to compromise the quality ... so do it in the low end ! With great certainty I can tell you that even an amateur , for sure, if you want to progress as a photographer , you will change the lens kit most in a month working with him. And for sure you will lose money – personal experience. So far I have bought and sold 5 lens when I did not properly assess the qualities or I was unhappy with them! And of course, always lose money. My advice is to read a lot before you decide to buy a lens, because if you don’t,  not prepared to throw a lot of money for nothing - more personal experience! So buy the body and the lens separately, even if you give a little more money, they will inevitably pay off because you will save yourself the difference of purchase as a new lens and sell second hand despite you have not used it much. The question here is whether you want to shoot cats (sounds really nice J) and flowers (nothing wrong in that) or you really want to grow as a photographer .

TYPES OF LENSES

The types of lenses are usually separate the fixed and zoom lenses . It is recommended that before you purchase a lens that you are headed to a particular genre of photography. This is because each genre has its unique shooting preferences and the lens is part of it. For example , if you are landscape photographer, as a main lens you need a wide angle lens- in other words, to " fit " more of the landscape. In portrait photography usually we use a fixed lens with a small aperture ( for better bokeh behind the model) and a longer focal length , which does not distort the facial features of the model. Again, if you have not pre- oriented genre will inevitably change the starter lens very quickly , so spend a little more time researching to get comfortable with the choice then .

FIXED LENSES

They are called fixed because they have a fixed focal length or in other words can not " zoom " .For example, there is a prime lens Canon 50 mm Aperture F 1.8. Usually, these lenses are better as construction since they have not so many parts, needed for the zoom lenses. Another feature for the fixed lenses is that they’re aperture is larger , which gives them two advantages- allows you to shoot in low light without bluring the image , and bokeh shots when it is clearly an attractive example of a lens with aperture 4 . The disadvantage of these lenses is that they can’t zoom without you moving closer or further away from the object of your attention. I.e. to zoom in and zoom out you can not rotate the focal length ring ( it does not exist) , but must activate your feet. Work only with fixed lenses leads you to develop your creative vision as a photographer , but this is very subjective statement. I think the only fixed lens that you must own is 50 mm 1.8, and Canon and Nikon have it, and it  is a pretty low price compared to the price of other lenses.

ZOOM LENSES

These are lenses with variable focal length , which means that they can approach or depart the object of attention without the photographer to move physically. Zoom lenses are suitable for beginner photographers for the simple reason that when you shoot you can try different focal lengths, different perspectives and angles . Therefore, all a starter kits include zoom lens which then it must be sold (if desired for further development). One difference between cheap and expensive zoom lenses is that the low-end by changing the focal length change its aperture – Canon’s 55-250 aperture is not fixed, but it is 4 / 5.6 . On the other hand, high-end , for example the Canon 17-40 mm aperture is 4 both in a focal length of 17 mm and at 40 mm. Avoid lenses with extreme focal lengths such as 18-135 mm, it does sound quite appealing because they cover a huge range , but it is at the expense of the image quality . I use 24-105 mm F 4L and 17-40 mm F 4L of Canon and now it runs great job, covering the focal lengths.