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Monday, November 4, 2013

A guide to buying your next camera lens


many photographers have thought to use only the kit lens that their camera or camcorder with interchangeable lens came. despite that there are cameras that have been specifically designed to take and make use of different lenses, but it is not a surprise, because choosing the right next goal can be intimidating, and our guide will help you choose the kit lens.
The lens represents the most important part of your camera set-up, this is the part that make or break your pictures. the party that controls the image that is projected onto your imaging sensor,  and ultimately what photos you are taking home.

many photographers prefer to use a proper camera and a great lens to take pictures,than use a camera with a ho-hum glass attached. But knowing the importance of a good glass is one thing,the second thing is to know what the lens will give you the creative freedom to capture the photos you want to get.

Firstly (To the uninitiated),the lenses are baffling tubes of glass with numbers and confusing acronyms printed on the side. We will help you in this guide to understand which lenses that can be used to achieve what, why others can cost more than a family car to buy a camera … and how there are some bargains sub $150 which could change your photography forever.






What is my next lens?

if you have the cash available, you should go out and get a fast normal prime lens or a telephoto zoom. but before,You need to understand how different lenses could improve your current photos and allow you to take ones that you currently can't,and this is what you will learn in this article.read on.

Decoding the lens jargon:

The almost sentence-long collection of letters and numbers on the side of a lens barrel can tell you all sorts of things about a lens.But the details that you should pay attention are those that detail this FOUR: maximum aperture,focal length, lens mount and format type.

Maximum aperture:


Maximum Aperture refers to the the maximum amount of light which the lens can gather.it is shown in a number of ways, but whether it's f/2.8 F2.8 or 1:2.8, it all means the same thing.Lenses with larger maximum apertures are capable of gathering more light.
For example ,the F1.8 lens is able to use more light than an F4 lens,that means it could be used in lower-light situations without using the flash, and is capable of producing a shallower depth of field

Some zoom lenses have a variable maximum aperture meaning that it changes depending on focal length. So, 18-200 mm F3.5-5.6 lens would have a maximum aperture of F3.5 at 18 mm, it would be be F5.6 by the time you zoomed to 200 mm.
Focal length:

Focal length is a value expressed in mm ,which the higher number means a bigger zoom, whilst the lower number mean that the lens can be used for wider shots. let's take this rough reference, the human eye is said to see about the equivalent of 30-50 mm on a full frame camera . A number lower than 30-50 mm will take in a bigger view than you naturally see, while higher numbers mean focus will be on a smaller aspect of your view.


If the lens has a focal length range with two numbers (say 24-80 mm) this means it's a zoom lens and is capable of zooming and being used at any point across that range. However, if there is a single focal length number (50 mm for instance) it's a prime lens, so taking in more or less of the view will require you to get closer or further away from your subject. Traditionally, primes have been considered to be optically superior to zooms, because trade-offs have to be made when producing zoom lenses. But that's not to say that some zooms are not better than some prime lenses.
To make understanding focal length more difficult, the same focal length lens gives different views on cameras with various sensor sizes, because of the crop factor (the sensor only takes up part of the projected image). As a result, many manufactures give a 35 mm-format equivalent on lenses designed for cameras with smaller sensors and in this article descriptions are based on on 35 mm-format. Therefore, if your camera has a smaller sensor, and there's a good chance it does, you'll need to consider this when deciding which lens you need.
If you're using a full frame camera there's no calculation needed, a lens will give you the field of view you'd expect from its number. If your camera has an APS-C sensor (Nikon DX DSLRs, Sony NEX…) it has a crop factor of 1.5 - meaning you multiply the lens focal length by 1.5 to get its equivalent 35 mm-format focal length. For Canon APS-C cameras that number is 1.6, for Micro Four Thirds cameras it's 2.0 and for the Nikon 1 series it's 2.7.
That means a 35 mm lens would give a field of view equivalent to 56 mm on an APS-C camera like a Canon 70D and equivalent to 70 mm on a Micro Four Thirds camera like the Olympus OM-D E-M1. On a Nikon 1 it would act like a 95 mm lens does on a full frame camera.

 Lens Mount:

It goes without saying that you want to buy a lens that will attach on your camera, and this is known as the lens mount. Camera manufacturers generally make lenses with proprietry mounts which will only fit their devices, sometimes having multiple lens mounts for different camera lines. The major exception to this is Micro Four Thirds lenses which can be used on respective Olympus and Panasonic cameras. Third party manufacturers also make lenses with mounts to fit various brands.

It's important to know which mount your camera uses before heading out to buy a lens. Example lens mounts for DSLRs include the Nikon F-mount, Canon's EF or EF-S, the Pentax K and Sony's Alpha (A) mount. For mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, these are things like the Canon EF-M, Fujifilm XF, Nikon 1, Sony E, Samsung NX and Pentax Q. As mentioned earlier, Olympus and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds cameras take any Micro Four Thirds mount lenses.

Format:

In addition to being able to mount the lens on your camera, you need to be sure it will produce an image big enough to cover the image sensor. Because different cameras use different size sensors, manufacturers produce specific lenses to work with them.

Because different cameras use different sized sensors, there are a variety of lens formats...
For example, while Nikon DSLRs come with full frame or APS-C sensors - and both take F-mount lenses - its DX lenses only produce an image big enough to cover the smaller of the two sensors. Meanwhile, FX lenses cover the full frame and can also be used on DX and even Nikon 1 cameras (with an adapter). This is done because lenses designed for smaller sensors can be physically smaller and lighter themselves.

In the next Post I talk about "The Different types of lens" ,Follow us On  Facebook ;Twitter.


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