PCPhoto 
Buyer's Guides Lens Buyers Guide Lens Buying Guide
Buyer's Guides Lens Buyers Guide Lens Buying Guide
Lens Buying GuideEverything you need to know about focal lengths, maximum apertures, new technologies and more! |
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A
trip to the camera store these days will show you an astonishingly vast
array of lenses, from tiny zooms on compact digital cameras to big
telephotos for digital SLRs. Many of these lenses are based on designs
that were unheard of just a few years ago. They offer you new
opportunities to expand your photographic capabilities—knowing what the
lenses can do for you will help you make a better decision in your
camera and lens purchasing, whether that means checking the zoom range
of an advanced compact, buying a new lens for a digital SLR or
comparing lens speed among any group of lenses. Lens focal length is a key element. It affects angle of view, or magnification, perspective and the physical size of the lens itself. Angle Of View And Magnification. For any camera, the longer the focal length of your lens, the narrower its angle of view becomes and the more it magnifies distant objects and seems to bring them closer. Short focal lengths do just the opposite, giving you a wider angle of view while making objects seem farther away and smaller within the image. Choose a focal length, then, by what you want to accomplish—if you often find yourself trying to capture a large part of your subject, but can’t back up enough to include everything, a wide-angle lens may solve the problem for you. Wide-angles are great for photographing indoors, landscapes or any tight situations. If you’re always pursuing the smaller details of your subject and you can’t come close enough to isolate them, then a telephoto is your answer. Tele-photos are ideal for people photography, wildlife and making the sun’s image larger at sunrise and sunset.   |
