Think More About Lenses, not Just Your Camera Body

Are you still confused about which lens to buy and why it matters so much? Is it hard to stop thinking about that brand new Canon camera body you want to badly? Stop for a minute, read my article and hopefully you'll understand why it's the lens that matters most when taking photos. 

photo by www.photographybay.com

I've said it probably more than once, but I'm going to say it again; DSLR camera bodies these days are SO GREAT. You could spin in a circle and point to one at the store and be happy with it! Even bodies that were new 2-3 years ago are still GREAT. The difference is made when you are using a good lens. What do you need to consider when choosing a new lens? 

• FOCAL LENGTH

• MAXIMUM APERTURE

The focal length of your lens is the mm of length it offers. For example, the 18-55mm kit lens your camera most likely came with, zooms in and out from 18mm - 55mm. A 50mm lens is FIXED; it offers one focal length, doesn't zoom and that's that.

The maximum aperture means the lowest your f/stop # will go on your lens. Every lens has a limit to how 'wide' it can open up to let in light. For example, on that 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, at 18mm (zoomed all the way out) your f/stop will not go past f/3.5. At 55mm (zoomed in) your f/stop can only go to f/5.6. Lenses that offer larger maximum apertures, such as f/2.8 or f/1.4 will be more expensive, because they let in more light and are more versatile. If your budget can afford it, a lens with a larger maximum aperture is always a good choice! Unfortunately, they can get quite expensive. 

Something to Think About: 

• Fixed lenses are good quality and offer SHARP images and a lot of the time, let in more light allowing you to take photos in lower-lit settings. About that budget? You can get a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens for only $125! The Nikon 50mm f/1.8 is $216.95. 

• Zoom lenses will allow you to zoom in and out on subjects without physically moving, but have moving parts so they aren't quite as sharp as FIXED lenses. 

Ask Yourself These Questions:

1. What do spend most of my time photographing? What is my subject matter? 

2. Which is more important, image quality or having an all-around lens with the ability to zoom? 

3. What is my budget for gear? 

Once you determine what style or look you are going for, what you will be shooting and how much you have to spend, you will be ready to narrow down your lens selection and find one that works great for you! If you photograph products, food or take portraits, the 50mm fixed lenses mentioned above are an AWESOME addition to your camera bag, at a low price. Having that lower maximum aperture will change your photography! 

If you want MORE about understanding lenses, head to my article here about understanding lens selection!

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Full-Frame and Crop Sensor Cameras - Understanding Lenses

Now that we've covered full-frame vs. crop sensor cameras, how do lenses collaborate with these types of cameras? Can we use any Nikon lens on any Nikon camera? Not exactly. I'll tell you why!

With a Canon camera, EFS is the term for a crop sensor lens and EF is the term for a full-frame sensor lens. With Canon, full-frame EF lenses can work on crop sensor cameras, but a crop sensor EFS lens doesn't work on full-frame cameras. 

Nikon's lenses for crop sensor cameras are called EF-S and the full-frame lenses are called FX. With Nikon, you can also use FX lenses on crop sensor camera bodies; however, if you mount an EF-S lens on a full-frame camera body, the edges of your image will be dark (vignetting). The image circle of the crop lens isn't big enough to record the image on the sensor and get the full photo; you'll get dark vignetting if you take a photo with a crop lens on a full-frame camera. The example below shows what the circle of view might look like through a full-frame lens. 

Canon's crop lenses won't even mount on to a full frame sensor camera. Nikon's crop lenses will mount on a full-frame camera body just fine, but the functionality is basically toast because of the dark vignetting that will show in your image. You can get an idea of what this looks like in my example below; the circle-of-view on a crop lens is smaller.  

Another thing to consider if you go with a crop sensor camera is the focal length of your lens. A crop sensor changes the focal length of your lens because it changes your field of view. To find your true focal length, you can use a focal length multiplier.

Nikon lenses have a crop factor of 1.5x. Canon's crop factor is 1.6x. To find the focal length, use the focal length of your lens and multiply it by your crop factor. 

Here are a few examples of how to calculate the actual focal length of your crop lens!

• A Nikon 50mm lens would really be 75mm (50 x 1.5 = 75). 

• A Canon 50mm lens would really be 80mm (50 x 1.6 = 80). 

So your 50mm lens would have a longer focal length, bringing you much closer to your subject because it acts like a 75mm lens. With crop sensors, you basically get free zoom :)

I will include my same example from the previous post to illustrate how focal length varies between a full-frame and crop-sensor camera. The image on the left was taken with a full frame camera; the image on the right was a crop sensor camera. The images were taken from the same spot with a 50mm lens.

When it comes to lens selection, remember that on a crop sensor camera, your lens will be longer than it seems.

Don't get too worried about the full-frame vs. crop sensor camera dilemma if you're just starting out and budget is an issue. I've used crop sensor cameras for years; they are still fantastic cameras, especially when paired with a good lens. 

It is smart though, to think about which lenses you'd prefer to invest in; if you can spend a little more for the full-frame lenses it will benefit you greatly if you decide to upgrade to a full-frame camera in the future!

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