by Camera lenses come in a variety of types, each suited for different purposes. Understanding the core lens types can help photographers choose the right lens for various scenarios.
Wide-Angle Lenses
As the name suggests, wide-angle lenses capture a very wide field of view, allowing photographers to fit more content in the frame. They are ideal for landscapes, interiors, architecture photography and group photos where fitting everyone into the frame is important. Wide-angle lenses also have relatively minimal distortion compared to fisheye lenses. However, wide-angle lenses do introduce some distortion at the edges of the frame which needs to be corrected in post-processing. Popular wide-angle zoom lenses include 16-35mm f/4, 17-40mm f/4 and 10-20mm lenses.
Telephoto Lenses
On the opposite end of the spectrum are telephoto lenses which have focal lengths longer than standard lenses, allowing photographers to zoom in on distant subjects. Telephoto lenses range from 70mm to 300mm for full-frame cameras and 55mm to 200mm for crop sensor cameras. They are perfect for sports, wildlife and portraits from a distance. However, telephoto lenses also compress the perspective, making subjects appear closer together. Popular telephoto zoom lenses include 70-200mm f/2.8, 70-300mm and 100-400mm lenses. Telephoto prime lenses like 85mm, 100mm, 135mm and 200mm are also commonly used for portraits.
Standard Prime Lenses
Standard prime lenses have focal lengths that deliver a natural perspective similar to what our eyes see. On full-frame cameras, standard lenses are around 50mm while on crop sensor cameras a 30mm or 35mm lens would be considered standard. Standard prime lenses don’t zoom but their fixed focal length means they can have a wider maximum aperture for excellent low light performance and shallow depth of field. Popular standard prime lenses for full-frame include 35mm, 50mm and 85mm while 24mm, 35mm and 50mm primes are commonly used with crop sensor cameras.
Macro Lenses
Macro lenses are specialized lenses that can focus extremely closely, allowing photographers to capture subjects at life size magnification or even greater. Macro lenses come in two categories – dedicated macro lenses with very close minimum focus distance and macro zoom lenses that double as normal lenses but also offer close-up capabilities. Popular dedicated macro lenses are 60mm, 100mm and even 200mm lenses while macro zoom lenses include lenses like the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM and Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro. With macro lenses, photographers can explore the world of close-up, extreme close-up and even microscopic photography.
Tilt-Shift Lenses
Tilt-shift lenses have a unique tilting and Camera lens swiveling front element that allows photographers to manipulate perspective in creative ways. By tilting or shifting the lens, perspectives can be made to look like miniatures or extended depth of field similar to view cameras can be achieved with these lenses. Popular tilt-shift lenses include 24mm, 45mm and 90mm focal lengths from Canon and Nikon. These versatile lenses are used for product, architectural and landscape photography where controlling perspective is important. However, tilt-shift lenses are quite expensive due to their specialized optical design.
Lens Baby
Lensbaby is a brand that produces tilt-shift type lenses with a twist – their lenses use a movable element to control the zone of focus instead of perspective. This distinctive blurry zone of focus effect has made Lensbaby lenses very popular for creative, artistic and documentary style photography. Popular Lensbaby models include the Composer, Sweet 35, Edge 80 and Control Freak. With Lensbaby lenses, unique out of focus areas can be precisely controlled, allowing photographers to creatively separate subjects from backgrounds.
Lens filters
Lens filters screw directly onto the front of lenses to add useful photo effects. Common lens filters include UV filters for lens protection, polarizing filters to reduce reflections and enhance colors in landscapes/seascapes, neutral density filters to allow longer shutter speeds in bright light and graduated neutral density filters to balance exposures between skies/landscapes. Specialty filters like color correction and special effect filters also exist. CPL (circular polarizer) and ND filters are most commonly used for creative photographic flexibility. High quality, multicoated lens filters are recommended for best optical clarity.
From standard zooms to macro primes and specialty lenses, there is a huge variety of lenses available for any photography situations. Understanding lens types will help photographers choose the right tools to capture creative images. With so many great lens options on the market today, photographers have the flexibility to find lenses perfectly matched to their creative vision.
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1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
2. We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
