Tag Archives: prime lenses

Why You’re Investing in The Wrong Photography Gear

It’s not the camera, it’s the lens, but not just any old lens; the right kind of lens. I’ve only owned just two digital SLR’s, a Canon 400D, and a Canon 50D, which I currently use. Neither of these cameras contributed to the quality of my photos much at all, although it is nice to be able to boost the ISO a little more in a newer camera. I bought my Canon 50D secondhand, two years ago, for £600, and it’s not needed replacing yet. That’s because it’s not about the megapixels, it’s about the lens that you use.

It’s time to stop investing in the wrong photography gear.

Lenses are an investment. If you buy the right ones, then they’re a much more sensible purchase than a new camera, which you more than likely don’t need. Purely from an investment point of view, lenses do three main things for you.

They keep their value long after you’ve bought them.
They rarely go out of date (will continue to fit on new cameras).
They will still fit more expensive cameras when you do decide it’s time to upgrade your body (if you choose the right ones, but we’ll get to that).

That alone should be enough for you to realise that you should be investing in lenses, but wait, there’s more…

Quality

Without a doubt, the best thing you can do to increase the visual quality of your photos, is to invest in good lenses. That means replacing your kit lens and never looking back. Sure, a better quality noise at a high ISO on your camera will help too, but good lenses will allow you to take photos will less light anyway. Also, more megapixels are nice if you want to print a lot of your photos, but to be honest, they’re largely unimportant; I can’t even remember how many my camera’s have each.

If you choose the right quality lenses, such as Canon L lenses, then it’s going to get very expensive, but you will see a drastic increase in quality. When you compare them to the kit lenses that come with cameras, particularly Canon’s one, which is notoriously bad, you will be blown away by the quality. This isn’t without it’s downside though, and as I mentioned before, it’s the price.

I’ve bought 3 Canon L lenses in the past year, and they’ve cost me £2600 collectively. Not cheap at all, no, but they will last me for as long as I look after them. There’s no reason for them to stop working, or go out of date, which can’t be said for camera bodies. If it’s not the technology that puts them out of date, it’s the lifespan on the shutter that will.

It seems that every month, there’s a new digital SLR on the market, which claims to boast new features that your camera can’t do, and every release pushes down the value of your camera. No matter when you buy a new camera, it’s always going to be out of date very quickly, and that’s why it makes sense to upgrade every 3-4 years, and invest your money in lenses in the mean time. You’ll find that although these new cameras claim to do more, when it comes down to it, they all do exactly the same thing.

Choosing the Right Lens

I’ve actually written a lens buying guide in the past, which you can view here, but it doesn’t quite cover choosing the right lens in terms of investment. I’m going to tell you something here that you’re probably not going to want to hear, but it has to be said. That amazing 18-250mm Sigma is rubbish. You may own it, or have been considered buying it (even I have in the past), but I’m about to make you regret your decision. It may be good if you don’t want to carry around lots of lenses, or want to go travelling, but I’m afraid that if you want quality and versatility, then carrying lenses is exactly what you’re going to have to do.

Let me explain. My go-to lens is a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L, which I shoot on a crop sensor body. That means that all of my photos are slightly more zoomed, so they’re more like 38-112mm. I’ll get to crop sensor lenses further down the page. Because I’m shooting on a more limited zoom range, this allows the lens manufacturers to improve other aspects of the lens, because there is less moving parts getting in the way.

My lens maintains an aperture of f/2.8 across the entire zoom range, which allows a lot more light in than the f/3.5-6.3 of the Sigma. It allows nearly twice as much light in than when the Sigma is zoomed out, and over four times as much light as when the Sigma is zoomed in. This all has to do with the aperture, which you can read more about here.

It’s not just about the amount of light that the lens will let in, which will ultimately improve the performance of the lens, but it’s the quality of the glass as well. The quality of glass that is used in high end lenses is by far superior to the cheap all-in-1 lenses that you can buy, and this provides much better results. If you want to see this for yourself, but don’t want to invest just yet, then I would suggest renting a lens, or perhaps buy and old film SLR, with an excellent, but cheap prime lens.

When you do eventually come to upgrade, you will still be able to fit these professional quality lenses onto your new camera, if you do decide to go for a full frame camera. Have a look at the diagram below which demonstrates the difference in sensor sizes. The black circle is a lens projection from a full frame lens, which covers both sensor sizes. If you choose certain other lenses, such as the Sigma mentioned above, or a Canon EF-S lens, or Nikon DX lens, then this projection is only going to cover the red square. And this means that all the money you thought you were saving by buying a cheaper lens, is now wasted, as you can’t use them on your new camera.

To counteract the problem of the crop sensor, I’ve simply purchased a 17-40mm lens instead, which will allow me to reach the wider angles, while still maintaining excellent quality photos. It doesn’t do it all in one lens, but I use them at different times, and so long as you think about what you’re going to be taking photos of in advance, it’s not a problem.

This all sounds a little too expensive…

So buying lenses isn’t cheap, that’s true, but there are some simpler options out there for you. For example, I’m sure you’ve heard me rave in the past about the 50mm f/1.8, which can be picked up for only $100-200. This is the best lens to get learning about your aperture on, and start taking better quality photos. It’s not amazing quality, but it will be a huge difference to what you’re currently using.

Not looking to upgrade to a full frame camera in the next 10 years? That’s not a problem either. Check out these lenses, which both boast an aperture of f/2.8 across the zoom range, and excellent quality glass.

Both around the $1000 range, but at least you’re getting the quality, aperture, and the zoom range. There’s nothing wrong with not upgrading to a full sensor SLR

Thinking about upgrading your camera in the foreseeable future, and want the best lenses to go with it? These are three that I own.

Invest in the right lens now and you won’t regret it. Ok, you might regret getting addicted to buying amazing quality lenses and spending all of your money, but there are worse things that could happen.

When it comes to buying a lens, you should be reassured by how expensive it is, how wide the aperture is, and how limited the zoom range is. If you want to know more about choosing the right lens for you, check out this lens buying guide. Oh, and hit like below if you’ve enjoyed this post .

Prime Vs. Zoom Lenses

Prime lenses are lenses with a fixed focal length, which means that you can’t zoom them at all, which may sound odd, but they do have distinct advantages. Zoom lenses have their obvious advantage, as they allow you to change how the photo is cropped, but this comes at a price; quality and aperture. The post should clear up any misconceptions you have about either, and help you to find the right lens for you. So which is best; prime vs. zoom.

Prime Lenses

As I stated above, prime lenses simply mean that you can’t change the focal length, which is both a good and a bad thing. It’s bad because it means that you may not be able to get the photo framed exactly how you want it, but it’s good at the same time because it forces you to experiment more, and think of a different way around taking a photo, which you may have missed before. There are two distinct reasons that people buy prime lenses though, and that’s the quality and the aperture.

Quality

The quality of a prime lens is often vastly superior to that of a zoom, as they don’t have as many moving parts as zooms, so the glass inside of a prime lens is very precise, which results in much sharper images. This used to be a much bigger difference when zoom lenses were first around, because the technology wasn’t as good, but now you can get zoom lenses that are just as good as some primes, it they comes at a price.

I paid £1000 for my 24-70mm f/2.8, and £1040 for my 35mm f/1.4, and the quality of the zoom lens is very good, but it’s not quite up to scratch with the f/1.4. Even when you’re investing a lot of money in a zoom lens, you’re still making a compromise. You can see how sharp the image is below, it’s hard to believe that this was shot at f/1.4; the widest aperture I have.

Aperture

Prime lenses have a lot less moving parts, so they’re not constricted by the zooming action, and can focus on the job in hand, which is the aperture. This allows them to open up to much wider apertures than zoom lenses, in fact, the prime lens that I mentioned above, allows almost four times as much light into the lens, than the zoom, even though f/2.8 is very good for a zoom lens.

The main advantage of having a wide aperture is that you can take photos in low light, because the wider aperture allows more light into the lens. This makes it ideal for shooting indoors, perhaps in a bar or club, or in a dimly lit room, where you don’t want to push your ISO. Along with aperture, we also have the advantage of being able to produce a shallow depth of field, which can have a whole range of creative uses. Again, the photo below was shot at f/1.4.

Price

Another big advantage of prime lenses is that they can be picked up very cheaply, although they tend to get expensive very easily, as you probably saw above. A 50mm f/1.8 ranges from around $110-$220, and for that price, you’ll see a dramatic increase in quality over your kit lens, as well as the ability to play around with depth of field.

Zoom Lenses

Zoom lenses are a lot more complicated, and the prices range a lot more, depending on what they do. It’s a common misconception for a beginner to think that a 18-250mm lens should cost more than a 24-70mm, because it zooms further, but that’s not true, because it does it at a price. When it comes to zoom lenses, you really do get what you pay for, and it would be hard to compare the two lenses that I just mentioned, because they’re built for very different purposes.

An 18-250mm is built with a hobbyist in mind, who doesn’t want to carry around multiple lenses, perhaps for someone who travels a lot. A 24-70mm is for a much more serious shooter because they understand the compromises that are made when building a lens with a much longer zoom range, but at the same time, need to be able to freely change the way they’re framing a photo, which you can’t do with a prime lens. A 18-250mm is built for someone who only wants one lens, whereas a 24-70mm is built as a kit lens for professionals.

Quality

The overall quality of a zoom lens is catching up with that of a prime lens, but I reckon it’s still got quite far to go. I still notice that my zoom isn’t as sharp as my prime lens, but I knew that when I bought it, and I’m still very happy with the results that I’m getting. You could call it a happy compromise. One thing I have noticed from using both types of lenses is that the photos appear to be a lot softer when the aperture is all the way open, and the photos look better a stop or two narrower. This was definitely more noticeable with a zoom lens, but that’s just part of the compromise.

Aperture

Because the aperture is f/2.8 throughout the zoom range, I always know what I’m working with, which is not often the case with cheaper lenses. A cheaper zoom, such as a Canon 18-55mm kit lens, will have an aperture of f/3.5 when it’s zoomed all the way out at 18mm, but it will slowly narrow the aperture to 5.6, which is less than half the amount of light. To reach f/2.8 throughout the whole range is a really good achievement, and is not very common with crop sensor lenses.

Price

The price of a good zoom lens can get pretty expensive, but they do reach a limit, because a good zoom lens can only do so much, before the lens maker has to stop making compromises and start making a new lens, for a different focal range. When you start buying lenses, it’s often cheaper, and a more sensible option to buy a zoom lens, because ultimately, you can do more with it.

Conclusion

There will always be prime lenses, and zoom lenses in my camera bag, because they have very different uses. I will use a prime when I know what I’m shooting, and the focal length that I’m working with, or if I’m shooting in low light and want to allow more light into the lens, but I probably still use a zoom lens more often. It’s not a better lens, but it allows me to do more with it, and even though it’s heavier, it’s worth the extra weight.

I would encourage everyone to use a prime lens, because not only did I find that my photos were coming out a lot better, but it actually taught me a lot about aperture and depth of field.

Great Advice For Your First Photography Job

Introduction

Because of the time in which we live, we’re fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of new camera technology at a much lower cost that ever before, and with that comes a whole new range of photographers. It’s one thing to develop your skill, it’s another to start your own career, but hopefully this article will help you on your way.

Advice

When you’re looking for a photography job, you may find yourself applying for positions that are way above your skill and experience level, and this is something you need to watch out for. Only apply for jobs that you’re qualified for because otherwise you’re doing your client a disservice, by not providing the results that they’re expecting and you’re giving yourself a bad name before you even start your career. Start with a small or relatively stress free job where you’re not going to be under the pressure of only being able to have one chance to get a photo.

Try out as a second shooter first to get some more experience before going it alone. Second shooters are often found at weddings, so if you find another, well established photographer, and show them your portfolio, you may be in with a chance of some paid work. Always try to get paid for this sort of job though because there will be no doubt that the photographer will also be charging for you.

Make sure that you’re charging the right amount of money, because it’s common for photographers when they’re starting out to feel like they should charge less than a full time photographer. Don’t do this as it makes it harder for you to start charging proper money in the future. You need to remember that a good photographer can easily charge $500+ a day, so if your client is looking for a proper photographer already, they would have already been quoted this sort of money, so you shouldn’t feel bad quoting the same.

As a photographer, you’re there to get the photos that are required of you, nothing more and nothing less. When you’re working with large groups of people or speakers and events, you’ll start to feel like you stand out, making lots of noise snapping away, but this isn’t necessarily so. If you move slowly, rather then quickly, you won’t make any sudden movements which attracts attention to yourself. If you keep cool, calm and collected, you’ll find that you’ll be more focused and end up taking better photos, as well as looking more professional.

If you’re going to be taking professional photos, then you need professional gear. Make sure you’ve got an external flash unit (pop-up flash won’t cut it), and a couple of decent lenses. I know that you can get great photos from entry level SLRs, but it would reflect badly on you if that was all you turned up with. If you’re starting to get paid jobs, then you should really be investing in better gear too. If you can’t afford to buy better gear, then you should consider camera rentals – there are companies everywhere which will provide you will all the top quality gear that you could possibly need.

If your camera has them, then I thoroughly recommend using custom dials. I have 2 on my camera so I can easily switch between different settings, depending on what I’m shooting. This is very useful as you’ll find that you may only have one chance to get a photo of certain situations, and if your camera is not set up for that shot then you might miss it. I typically have them both set to manual, but one set up for flash, and one without flash.

Events usually have pretty poor lighting so make sure you carry a flash and some fast lenses with you. Wide apertures are really important in low light, as you won’t want to push your ISO too much for fear of noise. Be careful when you’re doing group photos though as people will likely be at different distances from the camera, so you’ll want to make sure that they’re all in focus by using a narrower aperture and possibly a flash. This is all basic gear that you should have before you start quoting for photograph jobs.

Get everything in writing. I’ve turned up to events in the past and found that something had happened to their main speaker and they may only need me for 1 day, rather then 3 they had booked me for, but because I had it all in writing, it wasn’t a problem. If you’re interested in more tips of writing up an agreement for your future clients, I go over everything that I cover in my post on corporate event photography.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, then I’d encourage you to come and join me and other photographer over at the Facebook page, where we share photos and more tips and techniques.

The Ultimate Lens Buying Guide

Whether you shoot on Canon, Nikon or Sony, or use solely third party gear, this post is designed to give you the best available information, to help you in your lens buying future. To make sure you know what you’re doing when it comes time to replace that old kit lens, I’m gonna walk you through focal length, aperture and what all those little letters on your lens mean.

Step 1 – Focal Length

I’ve written about this in great detail in the past in this post, and I very strongly suggest that you read it, but for the basis of choosing the right lens, the higher the focal length (number before ‘mm’), the more zoomed the lens is going to be. Of course, it’s a little bit more complicated than this, but more information can be found in the post mentioned previously.

Different focal lengths have different uses for different situations, but it’s all about choosing the right lens for you. Ask yourself what lens you currently use the most and what you like to take photos of, and that will give you a good idea of what sort of lens you want. Here’s a list of focal length ranges listed below, taken from my post on focal length.

Ultra Wide Angle 14-24mm

These lenses are often considered specialty items and the range is not often included as part of a kit lens. They create such a wide angle of view that they can look distorted as our eyes aren’t used to seeing that sort of range. They’re often used in event and architectural photography for getting a lot into a photo when shooting in a confined space. Wide and ultra wide lenses are about putting yourself in the middle of it all, not just about getting the whole of a scene in. These lenses are not particularly suitable for portraits as they enhance the perspective so much that the facial features can look unnatural.

Wide Angle 24-35mm

This is where you’ll find most kit lenses for full frame cameras will start at. 24mm is roughly the point at which the distortion that appears to stretch the side of the image stops appearing unnatural. They are used widely by photojournalists for documenting situations as they are wide enough to include a lot of the context and still look realistic.

Standard 35mm-70mm

It’s in this range at about 45-50mm that the lens will reproduce what our eyes will see (excluding peripheral vision). I personally like to use this range when shooting on the street or in situations with friends in a close setting such as at a dinner table or the pub. A standard lens such as a 50mm f1.8 is an excellent, inexpensive addition for a camera and will provide excellent results. Prime lenses (lenses with a fixed focal length – can’t zoom) will always provide better results than your kit lens as the lens is built with a single purpose in mind. It does one job well rather than multiple jobs poorly.

Mild Telephoto 70-105mm

This range is often where kit lenses will stop and you’ll start to get into the range of telephoto lenses and portrait primes (around 85mm). This is a good range for portrait lenses as the natural perspective of the lens will separate the face from the background without completely isolating the face.

Telephoto 105-300mm

Lenses in this range are often used for distant scenes such as buildings or mountains. They’re not suitable for landscapes because of the way they will flatten the perspective of a scene. Lenses higher than this range are mostly used for sport and animal photography.

These lengths vary depending on what type of camera you’re using, and it’s worth noting that the majority of camera users are using a crop sensor camera, meaning that the size of the sensor is smaller and that, in turn, crops the image. What this effectively means is that a photo you’ve taken on a crop sensor at 50mm, is going to look more like 75mm – more zoomed.

Kit lenses typically range around 18-55mm on a crop sensor lens and these lenses won’t fit on a full frame camera. If you’re looking to upgrade to professional quality gear, you’ll still want to find a focal length as close to that as you can, because if you step your lens up to 24mm, you’re going to be losing a lot of the wider angles. If it’s unlikely that you’re going to be upgrading to a full frame, professional camera in the near future, I would strongly suggest that you upgrade to a better quality crop sensor lens.

Step 2 – The Right Aperture

Aperture can be a confusing thing when it comes down to buying a lens, and as usual, I have an in depth article telling you everything you need to know, that can be found by clicking on that link. The lower the number (f/1.4, f/2), the wider the aperture will be and the more light the lens will allow in. When buying a lens, you should try to get this number as low as you can afford to go, without sacrificing the focal length that you want.

The lens that I use the most is my 24-70mm f/2.8 as it allows me a good zoom range and a very wide maximum aperture, which allows me to let loads of light into the lens and achieve a shallow depth of field. My lens is an f/2.8 and that means that no matter where I’m focusing, I can still set my aperture to f/2.8, which isn’t something that you can do with every lens.

A typical Canon kit lens will have the marking f/3.5-5.6, which means that the maximum aperture will change throughout the zoom range. The lens will stop at f/3.5 at 18mm, narrow to f/4 at 24mm, then f/5 at 39mm and finally f/5.6 at 47mm. These stops allow progressively less light into the lens into the lens, with a total difference of 1 1/3 stops, meaning that f/5.6 allows less than half the amount of light into the lens as f/3.5 does.

As you can see, this will really hold you back when shooting in low light, so I thoroughly recommend that the first upgrade you look for when looking for a new lens is one what allows you to have a wider maximum aperture that doesn’t change throughout the focal length.

Step 3 – What do all Those Letters Mean?

Well, they’re acronyms, and they vary between cameras, but they all essentially mean the same thing. Here’s a little diagram below that demonstrates that these letter mean by brand. With the exception of the crop sensor marking, every time you get some extra letters, your lens is getting more expensive and better quality.

For those that don’t understand what the terms above mean, here’s some definitions for you, along with a couple extra that aren’t listed.

MF

Manual focus only. This is typically only found on either very cheap lenses, or much older lenses, and the acronym is the same throughout brands.

II

This is the version of the lens that you’re using. Lenses that have been around for a long time and have become very popular, aren’t usually replaced completely, the lens designer will take the lens and find ways to improve it and release it again under the marking of II – version 2. The higher the number, the better the lens.

Full Frame

These lenses will still fit crop sensor cameras, but you’ll end up with the crop factor that I mentioned in step 1. These lenses are specifically designed for full frame cameras and project a larger image onto the larger sensor, inside the full frame camera.

Crop Sensor

These markings tell you that they’re built for a smaller camera, with a smaller sensor and you’ll find that the focal length has also been adjusted accordingly. It also means that the projection from the lens is much smaller and will not work on a full frame camera; if you were to put it on a full frame camera, it would produce very heavy vignetting.

Image Stabilistaion

We all know what this is, it’s a way of stabilising the camera or lens so that you’re able to take a photo at a slower shutter speed. Different cameras have different techniques and locations for this, but they all essentially do the same thing.

Silent Wave Motor

This is a much faster focus motor, with clear advantages, but it’s also fairly silent and the end of the lens doesn’t tend to move when focusing. This has the added advantage of being able to put a filter on the end of your camera and not having to worry about it rotating as you focus.

Pro Lens

Most lens manufacturer produce lenses to a price, so your kit lens isn’t usually very good quality, and this is especially true with my experience from Canon kit lenses. Stepping up to pro lenses, you’ll find a difference in quality and usually a wider maximum aperture, which is very useful for low light situations.

Low Dispersion Glass

This is used to reduce nasty chromatic aberration that is produced by cheap glass. You’ve probably seen it before, but may not have known what exactly it was called, but here’s an exaggerated example of it – notice the blue on the face:

A Note to Finish On

If you’re looking to improve the physical quality of your images, the best way to do this is to replace your kit lens (or don’t buy one to begin with) as soon as possible. Prime lenses are always going to provide better quality images for cheaper, and are excellent low cost alternatives to kit lenses.

Buy the best lens that you can afford for the focal length range that you use the most, and you won’t have too many complaints. Don’t worry if you’re using a crop sensor camera and you’re buying a full frame lens, just work with what you got. If you’re a good photographer, these obstacles won’t be a hurdle in taking great photos.