Lens

I've just found a great website,

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm

It offers loads of tutorials for your digital camera and I've just been reading one about lens. I have three lens and until now I didn't really know in detail what they could all do and which ones to use when photographing particular subjects. After reading this article I feel much more confident in making the right desisions on which lens to use and aperture also.


I have a 55mm - 200mm zoom lens which is a telephoto lens which is good for landscape photography, wildlife and sports. I have also found it really good for taking pictures of bands, as it's difficult to get close up to them and this lens allows me to take good pictures from a distance. It only goes to 4# at 55mm so isn't much good in low-level light conditions. Telephoto lenses, suprisingly to me, are also good for portraiture because they have a long focal point which results in a narrow angle of view. This compresses or flattens your image, basically making people look abit prettier and even featured, i.e disguises big noses etc.





I also have a 50mm prime (fixed focal length) lens. This was the most expensive and I always wondered why as I thought it was at a disadvantage as it was fixed and therefore did not have the variety of perspectives as a zoom lens. But what I've learnt is that even a inexpensive prime lens often gives much better image quality than a high-end zoom lens, offering greater apertures and they are lighter and easier to carry. It drops to 2.8 which is really good for night time photography and portraiture.

My 18-55mm lens is pretty much an all-rounder though not appropriate for long distance shots. It drops down to 4# which is quite good for low-light levels and creating a narrow depth of field which is good for portrait photography when you want to separate your subject from the background. This type of lens is also supposed to be alot easier to use manually due to it being able to create narrow depth of field as you can distinguish more clearly the foreground and background, which is something I'll have to try as I never manually focus my camera.