LENSES BASICS

Inter-changeable lens and wide variety of lens availability makes DSLR and Mirrorless the most versatile cameras.

1. Types of lenses

· Prime lens

They have fixed focal lengths which means one cannot zoom in to the object. My personal opinion is using the prime lens can improve your photography by moving and finding the best composition rule. They provide most sharp and crisp images even in the low light situations.

· Zoom lens

They have the advantage of zooming in to the subject or sometimes cropping the image to fit the frame. A zoom lens can cover the range of 2-3 prime lenses and therefore it’s suitable for shooting the scenes far away.

2. Focal length

It’s the amount of zoom your lens can achieve usually represented in (mm).

Higher the focal length the more you can zoom but it reduces the width of view you can capture. For capturing wide view lower focal lengths are preferred. E.g. 15-45mm kit lens the number shows its focal lengths from 15mm to 45mm.

Some preferred focal length s for photography.

· Landscape photography 10-18mm

· Full body portrait 24-45mm

· General family purpose lens 35-90mm

· Head shot 55-140mm

· Macro shots 10-18mm

· Wildlife photography 200-850mm

· Outdoor sports photography 200-400mm

3. Aperture

It is the opening of the lens which controls the amount of light to pass through the lens thereby affecting the exposure of the image. It helps in creating this blurry effect in the photographs.

f/16 Small opening

less light

deep depth of field

f/1.4 large opening

more light

shallow depth of field