Modern digital cameras are all about the features. While your camera may come with a standard sized lens that can allow you to take a wide variety of photographs, you may be at the point where you want to branch out into different photography styles.
To do this, you must invest in new lenses that can help you to achieve different sorts of image styles. Here, we take you through the types of lenses that you need in your kit.
Kit lens
There’s no going past the versatility and function that your kit lens offers you. Buying additional lenses can get expensive, but there’s almost nothing that you can’t do with the lens that comes with your DSLR.
This 18-55mm kit lens allows you to take all kinds of shots, and with a little bit of creativity and some clever thinking, you can emulate just about any kind of effect that you’re looking for. No matter how many of the best canon lenses you stock up on, the kit lens will always be your go-to.
Telephoto lens
When you’re starting to feel comfortable in your photography skills, you’re going to want to extend your camera’s ability by adding a lens that takes you further than your kit lens can. The obvious next step is to purchase a telephoto zoom lens.
You may be lucky in that your camera came in a kit that included a telephoto lens, but learning how to use it properly can take some time. With a zoom that extends beyond your standard lens to 200mm or more, you’ll be bringing the farthest targets close so that you can get the perfect shot.
Portrait lens
At some stage, you will want to add a portrait lens to your kit. These lenses, with their inability to zoom and their wide aperture, are perfect for capturing large amounts of light, which means that using them in low-light situations is possible.
These lenses are usually fixed at 50-75mm, and often they have a fixed aperture width of f/2.8 or less. This means that you’ll be able to achieve a shallow depth of field, keeping your subject in focus whilst giving the background and foreground a gentle blur, but you’ll have to spend a lot of time trying to perfect your shooting distance due to the fact that you can’t change the zoom.
Macro lens
Capturing the highly detailed beauty of the world can be difficult if you’re working with your standard lenses. Even a zoom of 18mm means that you have to get right up into whatever you’re trying to focus on, which may not be easy to do in some situations. If this is fast becoming your photography style, then consider a macro lens.
These powerful lenses give you the power of telephoto zoom so that you can get right up into the detail of your subject, but feature a wide, fixed aperture so that you can blur out any distractions using the principle of depth of field.
Whether you’re just starting your photography career, or photography is your life, at some point you will want to consider adding some different lenses to your kit. These lens styles can help you to achieve a stunning variation of shots, taking you far beyond the capabilities of your standard lens. These four very important lenses are a must-have for any level of photographer, so you should consider adding one or all of them to your kit.