Tag Archives: lenses

Photographer’s Tips: Week #7 - Prime vs Zoom Lenses

April 15, 2008 – 8:03 pm

Most of the photographers I know have an obsession with prime lenses.

When you’re first starting out, prime lenses seem like a terrible idea. Why have a lens that just covers one focal length when you can get a zoom lens that covers many?

Convenience is the name of the game with zoom lenses.

You can’t beat the convenience of a lens that goes from wide angle to telephoto without having to make a lens change. But I am a lover of prime lenses. And here’s why:

Prime lenses only do one thing, so they do that one thing very well.

My 50mm lens only has to look at the world at a 50mm focal length, so it can do that job incredibly well. It doesn’t have to worry about 35mm or 24mm or 70mm–it only has to worry about doing the best little job that it can at 50mm.

My 24-70mm lens has a lot more to worry about. It’s got to cover 24mm, 70mm, and everything in between.

Many non-L series prime lenses are sharper than L-series zoom lenses. And when you get an L-series prime lens? Oh my, baby. The image is so sharp it could cut through streak.

Prime lenses only do one thing, so they can be cheaper.

To get excellent sharpness from a zoom lens, and a reasonably fast aperture, you have to pick up an L series zoom for over $1000k. But you can pick up a great prime lens that is very sharp and very fast (even faster than that L-series zoom lens) for $300.

Prime lenses are faster

Dollar-for-dollar, you’ll get a much wider aperture in prime lenses than zoom lenses. Wide apertures not only allow you to blur away backgrounds into prettiness, but they allow you to shoot in much darker situations (like indoor nighttime family snapshots).

Prime lenses are lighter/smaller.

This isn’t that big of a deal, but for going-to-the-park-with-Will lens, I like something that doesn’t make me look like I might also be peeking into people’s bedroom windows.

Prime lenses make me a better photographer.

I can’t really put it into words (so excuse me while I blubber like an idiot for a paragraph or two), but shooting with prime lenses requires more thought. Instead of standing where you’re standing and then zooming in and out until your composition is the way you want it to be, first you must decide on your focal length. Do you want a wide angle look? A normal look? Or a telephoto melting-of-the-background-and-compressing-the-image effect? Once you know that, you fix that focal length in and use your feet to compose the shot how you want it.

I like the way I move and think and compose shots when I shoot with prime lenses. They fit my style well. In fact, I shot 99% of my recent engagement portrait session with Julie and Marc using the 50mm and 135mm. That’s how much I love primes!

And now for the exact opposite

I use primes as my first choice, but here’s a review where the photographer’s first choice are zoom lenses. This is another case where what someone loves might not be your favorite. Give both a try and see what feels best to you!

By Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer | Posted in Photographer Tips | Also tagged photographers, tips, tutorial | Comments (2)

Photography Tips - Week #6 (lenses, part 3 - my recommendations)

April 10, 2008 – 10:37 pm

Continuing in our lens extravaganza…today I’ll go over my lens recommendations for different budgets/situations (another post most useful for Canon photographers–sorry)!

Recommendation #1: Don’t buy the kit lens by default.

The kit lens that Canon bundles with their dSLRs has increased in quality in the last couple of years, but if the lens isn’t a useful focal length for you or fast enough, it is still a waste of money. If it was me buying my first dSLR, I would buy the camera body only and pick the lenses I want to use and just buy those (which is what we did).

Recommendation #2: www.the-digital-picture.com is your best friend.

This is my all time favorite review site. Great in-depth reviews about Canon photography gear. This lens comparison feature is the coolest thing ever. Plug in two different lenses in the top two boxes, then select a focal length and aperture, and you get to compare the sharpness of the two lenses by moving your curser over the image and then back off to the side (don’t feel badly if you didn’t figure that part out straight away–I wasn’t so quick on figuring that out, either). It becomes very clear exactly what a difference a good lens makes!

Recommendation #3: Pay attention to how you like to take pictures

Will your camera mainly be brought out for vacation, or outdoor pictures, or macro shots, or inside pictures? The way you like to take pictures will make or break a lens for you. No matter how much my photographer heros love the 85mm f/1.8, it didn’t change the fact that it didn’t work for how *I* like to take pictures. So these recommendations may work for you, but they may not. Do plenty of research on the pros and cons of any lens you’re considering and then think about whether those pros and cons are important to your style.

Recommendations for your first lens, your everyday lens

Unless you’re a Rockefeller, you are probably wanting to buy just one lens to start out. This is a great way to go. You can become a lens collector and slowly add to your camera bag in a way that doesn’t make your checking account cry.

Or better yet, get your spouse equally addicted and you can start buying each other camera equipment for every holiday, anniversary, and birthday. Just remember that even if you bought a particular piece of equipment for your husband for his birthday, it’s still yours. And whatever he buys you for Christmas is also yours. It’s just all yours.

If your budget is tight - camera body + 50mm f/1.4

If you are looking to take pictures of your family and plan on being indoors for a goodly percentage of those pictures (the every day stuff), you cannot go wrong with this combo. I could be very happy taking our family pictures with just my 20d and 50mm f/1.4.

Do not attempt to save $100 and buy the 50mm f/1.8. The f/1.8 does not have pretty bokeh, and apparently it manages to fall apart all over the place. Invest a teeny tiny bit more and get a truly fantastic lens.

If your budget has a little more wiggle room - camera body + 24-70mm f/2.8 L

This was my first lens and first love. The image quality is fantastic, and the extra range of the 24-70 focal length is great. The 24-105mm IS also gets wonderful reviews, but I would miss the extra background blur you can get from having f/2.8 as an option. When I’m taking indoor pictures, background blur is my friend. I don’t need all of my relatives seeing exactly how many piles of laundry are in the background. Much better for them to be just blobs of color.

Next up– telephoto time

Your first lens needs to be an all-around lens with an easy focal length for everyday shots. But you’ll probably find that you are wanting to add a telephoto lens to the mix to be able to reach the animals at the zoo a little better, or sneak shots of your kids in the living room while you’re standing in the kitchen.

I could make out with my 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens, but it’s the sort of lens that you have to sell your firstborn child for. The 70-200 f/4 IS lens is $700 cheaper, lighter, and even a bit sharper. You’re probably not going to be using this lens indoors anyway (too much zoom), so unless you’re planning on shooting weddings in a church, the f/4 IS should cover you.

And then — going wide

Everyone needs to find their own priority list for lenses, but in my list, wide angles go toward the bottom. I think they are the hardest lenses to use well, the least flattering, and therefore the ones I pull from my bag the least often.

The tough thing about 1.6 FOVCF camera bodies is that it makes “normal” lenses out of wide angle lenses. In order to get a truly wide angle from a 40d or Rebel, you’ll want the 10-22mm EF-S lens.

***

I hope that was helpful! Let me know if you have any specific questions. I’ll be answering a few next week!

By Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer | Posted in Photographer Tips | Also tagged cameras, equipment, Photographer Tips, photograpy, review, tips, tutorial | Comments (0)

Photography Tips: Week #6 - Lenses (part 2 - my lenses)

April 9, 2008 – 10:29 pm

Continuing with our lens themed week (yesterday I wrote about basic lens information and last week I wrote about what to consider when purchasing a camera), today I’ll cover what lives in my camera bag (as well as the lenses that got booted from it).

Sorry Nikon photographers…this is a Canon post.

My Lenses

Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS

It is hard for me to pick a favorite lens, because I love them all, but if I had to pick just one favorite, it would probably be this one.

Pros: I love the beautiful bokeh it creates for portraits, and being a long (telephoto) fast (the maximum aperture is f/2.8) lens with 3 stops of image stabilization (I can take pictures in places that are three times darker), it is my best friend at indoor wedding ceremonies. I recommend it wholeheartedly to wedding photographers–I wouldn’t want to be without it. I also use it a lot for portraits–long lenses are more flattering, they condense a scene making it possible to bring a mountain or city skyline closer to your subject, and long lenses can also isolate a subject from a cluttered background better than a normal or telephoto lens.

Cons: It’s expensive. I think it would be hard to justify this lens if you couldn’t make money from it. People also complain about the weight…but I don’t think that’s a good reason not to carry the best equipment for the job. And needing to carry heavy equipment is a great reason to stay in shape. :)

Canon 135mm f/2.0 L

Since purchasing this lens last month, it has been a disproportionate amount of time on my camera. It definitely comes a close second to the 70-200 as my favorite lens. It’s the lens I keep on my camera for taking family pictures.

Pros: This is a long fast lens, so it has all the benefits of the 70-200 (with the exception of image stabilization). It’s faster than the 70-200 (f/2.0 instead of f/2.8) so the bokeh from it is even more amazing. It’s relatively lightweight. And this is one super sharp lens. The pictures I get from it are incredibly sharp and it focuses very quickly. A fellow photographer and friend of mine calls this her “magic lens.” At $900, it’s also a fantastic deal for such beautiful quality.

Cons: This is a fantastic focal length for my style and on my full frame 5d camera, but on a 1.6 FOVCF body (rebel, 20/30/40d, etc) I can see it being too long (or too “zoomed in”) for many people’s liking.

Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L

This was our first lens, and it is a fantastic multi-purpose lens. Many pros list it as their favorite lens, or the one lens they would keep if they could only have one.

Pros: It is fast, sharp, focuses quickly, and has a great range–a perfect “every day” focal length range.

Cons: I like the 24-70 more on a 1.6 FOVCF body than I do on the 5d–it’s a little too short for my style on a full frame body (but is great in tight quarters or for groups). This is another on-the-big/heavy-side lens.

Canon 17-40 f/4 L

This is our wide angle lens, and it does a great job of that. Perfect for wide angle wedding scenes.

Pros: It is a great wide angle lens. It is a fantastic deal–$650 and fairly small and lightweight. When I need a wide angle shot, I know I’m going to get a great one.

Cons: I’m not a huge fan of wide angles (though I know they are popular right now in portraits)–I prefer the flattering telephoto lenses. So this lens doesn’t get used much.

Canon 50mm f/1.4

This gets my vote for the one I recommend most to new photographers. If you are on a tight budget and can only get one lens, this is the one to get.

Pros: It is very fast, fantastically inexpensive ($250), and has beautiful bokeh (unlike it’s cheaper illegitimate sister, the 50mm f/1.8). This one also spends a lot of time on my camera at home. It’s wide aperture and multi-purpose “normal” focal length makes it a great bet for family photos. It is tiny and very lightweight. (And it’s the least expensive lens in my bag, so if something gets dropped or damaged from being out, at least it’s not an expensive loss!) You are also able to get very close to your subject with it–it has a minimum focusing distance of 1.5 feet, which means I can very nicely fill the frame with my little two year old subject.

Cons: Can’t think of any. Unless not having a pretty red “L series” stripe can counts as a con.

Lenses I have kicked to the curb

Canon 70-200 f/4 L

Pros: This baby is a fantastic value. One of the least expensive L lenses. It is sharp, relatively lightweight, and a great lens for traveling. We broke this one out for vacations and it was fantastic.

Cons: As a telephoto f/4 with no image stabilization, this was not a good indoor lens. The 70-200 f/2.8 IS kicked its butt, and then when we got the 135mm, we sold this one.

Canon 85mm f/1.8

Another prime lens (so far I’ve discussed the 50mm f/1.4 and the 135 f/2.0). Prime lenses are my faves and I plan on discussing the difference between primes and zooms later this week. But in short, prime lenses are usually a totally fantastic value because they only have to do one thing, and they can do that one focal length extremely well.

Pros: A lot of people like this lens.

Cons: I was not one of those people. To be fair, it IS a nice lens with great image quality and fast focusing at a great value (around $350). I think on a 1.6 FOVCF I would like this lens, but it was useless to me on the 5d. Every time I framed the shot how I wanted it, it would turn out I was too close and I’d have to take a step back. It has an almost 3 feet minimum focusing distance (compared to the 50mm’s 1.5 feet). I bought the 135mm to combat this problem (it also has a 3 feet min focusing distance, but being a much longer lens means that I can frame the shot just how I want it from that distance).

By Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer | Posted in Photographer Tips | Also tagged camera, canon, Photographer Tips, photographers, photography, review, tutorial | Comments (3)

Photography Tip Tuesday: Week #6 - Lenses (part 1)

April 8, 2008 – 6:50 pm

Hurray! It’s the day to talk about lenses!

Last week for Photography Tip Tuesday I covered advice for purchasing a camera. This week we get to talk about my favorite subject: lenses. There is a lot to say, so I’ll be breaking this “lesson” up over the course of the week so that no budding photographers give up and stop reading.

Lenses are important investments

Brace yourself: you will probably spend much more on lenses (or at the very least just as much) than you will on the camera body that holds them. But there is good news.

As I said last time, your dSLR is pretty much disposable. You purchase it, it will decline rapidly in value over the next couple of years, and then you’ll upgrade to a newer better model that has made your old body seem ridiculously slow, noisey, and old in comparison (not unlike a first wife–ha ha ha).

Lenses are much better investments. As long as you keep the lens in great condition, you can expect to sell it on ebay or a photography forum and lose only $50-$100! If you purchased the lens on sale or with a rebate, you can even expect to charge what you bought it for–I recently sold a lens for the exact price I purchased it for–all I lost was the shipping fee of $15 (not a bad price for using a lens for five months)!

This is a great argument for purchasing less camera than you can afford in order to buy better lenses than you can afford. When allocating money, the emphasis is safely placed on your lenses–it’s money you can get back. Not to mention that a fantastic lens will make a bigger difference on your images than whether you shoot with a 40d or 5d.

The numbers

When you shop for lenses, the numbers at first look a little alien. Let’s use one of my favorite general-purpose lenses as an example:

Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L

The Canon part is easy–it’s a Canon lens. The “L” at the end stands for “luxury” and means it’s an L series lens–the optics and build quality of the lens are professional. L series lenses also either have a red stripe at the end or are cream all over. This is so that when you’re out and about with your lens other people can ooh and ahh over how awesome you are for having an L series lens. :P

Focal Length

The first set of numbers (24-70) is the focal length of the lens. The higher the number, the more zoomed in you are.

50mm is considered the “normal” focal length. When you look through a 50mm lens, you see what your eye sees. Anything larger is “telephoto” (or seems “zoomed in”) and anything less is “wide.”

50mm lens on 5d - \

telephoto lenses smush backgrounds, making the buildings seem closer

wide angle engagement portrait

These guidelines are based on 35mm film cameras. Most dSLRs have a “crop factor.” (The notable exceptions to this rule are the Canon 5d and Nikon D3). In the case of the Rebel, and 20/30/40ds, they are 1.6 FOVCF bodies, meaning any lens focal length will need to be multiplied by 1.6 to find out its real focal length on that camera body.

So, a 50mm lens isn’t really a normal lens on a Rebel, because it acts like an 80mm (50mm x 1.6) lens.

The next number–aperture

When we bought our first two lenses, I thought we were set for life. We had a 20d, a 24-70 f/2.8 L, and a 70-200 f/4 L lens. In my thinking, we had 38mm-320mm covered (remember that 1.6 FOVCF). We were set. (Luckily Nic knew better and bought me my first fast prime lens–the 50mm f/1.4…and then I was hooked.)

A lot of newbies make that same mistake–looking only at the first set of numbers. The second number, the one after the “f/” is equally important, because it affects how much light you need to take a decent photo without flash.

The lower this number, the wider your lens can open. Why does this matter?

When your lens has a narrow opening, you get a large depth of field–your foreground will be in focus, as well as your background. But because only a little light is getting through, your shutter speed will need to be longer. When your lens has a big opening, your subject will be in focus, but everything else will be blurry. Much more light is able to get in, so you are able to have a much shorter shutter speed.

This is why lenses with a large maximum opening (like f/2.8 or lower) are called “fast” lenses–because they have the ability to open up wide and allow lots of light in, they can have short shutter speeds.

Time for examples. For this group shot, everything is in focus–the feet in front, to the grass in the back.

larger depth of field for a big group

This shot shows a much narrower depth of field–only the front pamphlet is in focus. The rest melt into the background:

shallow depth of field means the booklets melt into the background

Why wide apertures are awesome

When the aperture is wide, not only do you get beautiful background blur (called “bokeh”)…

the individual blades of grass in the field disappear into a pretty yellow blur

…but you have a lot more flexibility indoors and at night. In dark situations your lens will let in enough light that you can still have reasonably short shutter speeds.

The difference at the low end of these numbers is huge. The difference between f/16 and f/11 sounds like a lot, but it is really only one stop of light. f/2.8 and f/2.0 also represents a one stop difference. If the kit lens that a camera comes with is an f/5.6, the difference between it and a good fast lens like the 50mm f/1.4 is four stops of light! You would need a shutter speed four times slower with the f/5.6 lens than with the f/1.4 lens…and that will kill you indoors!

“Image stabilized” or “vibration reduction” lenses [as with the 18-55mm example] compensate for that hand shake, but they won’t compensate for your subject moving all over the place [as with a child]. Image stabilization isn’t a reliable substitute for a fast lens, but it is a great complement.

What is a reasonably short shutter speed?

The minimum shutter speed you can use without getting “hand shake” (blur from your own movement) is relative to your focal length. There is an easy mathematical trick for knowing what your minimum shutter speed is when holding a camera:

1/your focal length

If you have a 50mm lens on a 1.6 FOVCF body, the slowest you want your shutter speed is 1/80 sec. (In this shot I braced myself, held really still and squeezed 1/50 sec out of it)

a fast lens captured this scene without needing a flash

Whew!

I could go on and on and on (and will in the coming days), but for now that is the basic info. Next I’ll cover the lenses in my bag (and the ones that once lived there) and then finally my recommendations for different situations and budgets.

By Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer | Posted in Baby Photographer, Engagement Portrait Photographer, Family Photographer, Photographer Tips | Also tagged canon, equipment, photographer, Photographer Tips, photography, review | Comments (3)