Archive for SLR Lenses
How to Choose a Super All Purpose Walk Around Lens For Your DSLR
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It may be time to consider a single new lens that will handle more of your photography needs. Granted, there are many wonderful lenses available for each different DSLR, and when you have time to think about and set up your shot, you should reach into your camera bag and get that special lens that will handle the shot to perfection.Prime lenses are considered by many photographers to be the best quality you can buy. And if your budget allows, you can fill up your bag with the best glass that money can buy. But even then, you will want to have a great all purpose lens so you can take quick action when necessary.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Image Quality – this is always the first consideration when choosing a lens. If all the other factors are tops, but the final photo is not clear and sharp, you may as well leave your wallet in your pocket. Image quality is king when it comes to choosing a camera, lens, or any peripheral camera equipment.
- Glass – the quality and treatment of the glass used to manufacture the
lens is of great importance. Manufacturing technology has advanced greatly over the past few years. Now there are special techniques and coatings that will eliminate distortion, lens flare, and other things that cause deterioration of digital images. - Build quality – some lenses are just built better than others… better materials and better glass. Cheaper lenses may use plastic parts that break more easily.
- Focal Length – for an all purpose lens, you will want a greater focal range. 18mm at the short end is optimal to get the landscapes and wide angle interior shots. And now that there are better manufacturing methods, you can get good lenses with 12x or greater zoom, so that the long end would be 200-270mm with still good image quality.
- Image Stabilization – lenses with built in image stabilization (or optical stabilization) make it possible to hand hold your camera in low light and still great sharp shots. Without image stabilization, you will be much more dependent upon your tripod.
- Cost – there is an extremely wide range of costs when selecting a walk
around lens. The kit lenses will be your least expensive, however, kit lenses do not meet all the other criteria mentioned above. You should plan on spending $500 or more for a good quality all purpose walk around lens. You should also look into manufacturers other than your camera maker. Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina make some excellent lenses that fit on Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Sony.
Recommendations for great all purpose walk around lenses can be found at digital-photographic-resources.com. Especially if you are a first time DSLR camera buyer, you will want to visit http://www.digital-photographic-resources for reviews on fantastic cameras and lenses. Happy Shooting!
SLR Lenses: How To Choose
Posted by: | CommentsHave a nice, shiny SLR? Happy that you now have the ability to change lenses whenever you want? Have no clue what kind of lens you should get?
Welcome to the typical plight of the first time SLR purchaser.
Unless you’re a fairly serious hobbyist (in which was you can probably stop reading this article), you might be a little baffled at all your lens options as an SLR owner. You’re probably asking yourself which types of lenses you need, and what all those crazy letters and numbers in front of the name mean. How is a poor consumer to choose?
Let me make it simple for you. I’m not going to give you a complete course in everything you need to know about camera lenses, but hopefully after this, you have some ideaJhe magnification of your lens (we’ll start calling it by its proper name, the “focal length,” from now on. These are extremely convenient, and very high quality these days, so there really is no reason to choose a fixed focal length, or “prime” lens.
So, the first thing you’ll notice when shopping for zoom lenses are the focal lengths. Focal lengths for zoom lenses are designated using the number hyphen number system, such as 18-70. These numbers represent the focal length in millimeters, and the larger the number, the more “zoomed in” your picture appears. Assuming you’re using a digital SLR, this particular example would zoom from a moderately wide angle view (28mm) to a moderately close up view (70mm). This would be a good, everyday lens to carry around.
The second set of numbers represent the “speed” of these, which basically means how much light the lens lets in. In photography, the more light, the better. This is what the “f” number means, and the lower it is, the better. For example, a 18-70 f4 lens is better than a 18-70 f5.6 lens. Sometimes, you’ll see two numbers, like “f4-5.6,” which means that the speed gets slower as you zoom out. This is perfectly normal, but its something to be aware of.
So, which lenses should you buy? Well, the easy answer is to buy something with a huge range, like 18-300, and be done with it. However, a general rule of thumb is that the longer the 1000zoom range is, the poorer the image quality. However, many of these lenses are a lot better than they used to be, and for many casual photographers, the image quality trade off is worth the convenience.
If you want better lenses, try to get a wide angle zoom to cover the wide angle ranges, and a telephoto zoom for when you really need to get up close and personal. Buying first party lenses (i.e., Canon lenses for Canon cameras) will almost always get you better quality than third party lenses, though you’ll pay more. Also, be sure to check up on reviews for a lens before you purchase, it will make for a happier decision.
I hope this has helped take some of the mystery out of shopping for a lens for your SLR. Remember, its not the camera, the lens, or any other piece of gear that makes your pictures great. Its you, the person behind the camera. So learn how to take better pictures, get a solid set of lenses, and you’ll be on your way to becoming a great photographer.
By: David C. Wilson
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Learn Digital Photography .. Slr Tricks Of The Trade
Posted by: | CommentsYou should look at a real digital SLR if you need any or all of the following features:reliability; bodies of the SLR almost never fail as opposed to point and shoot cameras which are built for light weight and low cost SLR cameras have large, bright, accurate optical viewfinder SLR cameras produce good quality images in low natural light, e.g., indoors without blasting everything with flash SLR’s have the ability to attach specialty lenses, e.g., very wide angle lenses for interiors, scenery, and architecture, or long telephoto lenses for sports photography
Accessories You might want a lens cleaning kit.
A must have is at least one additional memory card. Most of the compact digital cameras take SD cards. If you are taking JPEG photos rather than RAW, you’ll be able to fit between 250 and 500 images in a 1 GB card.
1 GB SD cards: SanDisk 2 GB SD cards: SanDisk 4 GB SD cards: SanDisk (good for a long trip into a remote area where you can’t copy images to a computer) You may find that it is more convenient to use a single memory card for an entire project or trip rather than juggling multiple cards.
If you plan on wearing the camera on your belt you may want to consider purchasing a small padded case. Lowe and Tamrac are generally the highest quality brands. The manufacturers’ own brand cases are generally the lowest quality.
Tamrac publishes a useful fit chart. Lowepro’s is a huge PDF.
Tamrac Ultra Compact Tamrac T17 Tamrac Digital 1 (slimmer digital cameras, plus extra pocket) Tamrac Digital 2 (compact cameras) Tamrac Digital 3 (SLR-like) If you have time and a good local shop, it is best to buy the case in person so that you can make sure you like the fit
By: DanFeildman
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