95% of the time I am asked “what photo camera lens I must buy?” I answer with one of the options that I describe at the end of this article. If you are also looking to buy lenses for your camera, chances are yours is below.
Owning an DSLR or EVIL/Mirrorless camera provides incredible photographic opportunities when playing around with interchangeable lenses. Each goal opens up new worlds and possibilities for us.
Of course, this raises a new question: “what goals am I interested in having?”
With today’s article, precisely, I come to answer that question and others. I’m not going to give you abstract theories, nor are we going to go into too technical aspects (just enough). I will try to answer your question as precisely as possible and resolve any doubts that may arise regarding buying lenses.
I know that deciding on one is a chore, so my goal is to clarify the matter for you and help you to be clear about that objective that is missing in your backpack today. Also, my idea is to make it clear to you:
- What types of lenses exist in the market.
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of each range of lenses.
- What you should take into account when buying an objective / lens.
For all this, I think it is important that you save this information somewhere that you have at hand, or in a favorites folder.
Let’s go there.
INSIDE THIS ARTICLE… 📖
Before you start shopping for lenses
Before we get into the matter, I want to quickly clarify two things:
you take the photo
What types of camera lens can you buy?
When it comes to buying lenses, you have different possibilities. Beyond its characteristics, which we will see below, you have the option of buying new, second-hand, of the same brand or others, etc. We better take a closer look:
Buy branded or compatible lenses
Very easy, here I am not going to expand too much. Well, that, to buy an additional lens for your SLR camera, you usually always have a generous offer from the camera manufacturer, be it Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony or any other.
Now, you should know that there are also brands that manufacture lenses to be used with other brands. Here I mainly refer to two: Sigma and Tamron, although there are others such as Tokina, Samyang or Yongnuo.
These two brands make lenses for virtually all cameras. Of course, when buying a Tamron lens, let’s say, for your Nikon camera, make sure it is compatible with Nikon and not with Canon or another brand.
These lenses are usually slightly cheaper than buying from the same manufacturer as your camera, and the quality doesn’t have to be lower.
Buy new or second-hand lenses
Buy objectives, although there are all prices, they are not usually exactly cheap and, sometimes, the one we want is out of budget. For this reason, you need to know that you have the possibility of resorting to second-hand optics (following these tips).
Buy analog lenses
Yes, as you hear. There is a whole world of analog lenses waiting to be used. It may be that you inherit one or that you find second-hand, for a ridiculous price, a lens that you fall in love with.
Believe it or not, you can use analog lenses with your digital camera as long as you use the right adapter.
However, keep in mind that has its limitations but if you want to know more, in this article Alexa tells you what you need to know when adapting an analog lens to a digital camera.
What should you take into account when buying lenses for your camera?
Before I recommend my favorite selection of lenses, let me first tell you what I normally look for in a lens before signing it.
The first thing I look at when buying lenses
These are the three points that I have to be clear about before starting to look.
1. My budget
The following criteria are important but if I don’t have the money for a goal then we’re not going anywhere. Before I go to buy a lens, I always try to be clear about the money I have for that purchase. This allows me to discard those objectives that are too expensive for me.
2. The type of photography I like
Choosing a lens is mainly based on the type of photography I want it for. There would be little point in buying a macro lens if 90% of my photos are landscapes.
3. Light, lots of light
Lowering the amount of light in a photograph is relatively simple. Increasing it is much more complicated. There are lenses on the market that capture more light and others that capture less. I always look for the ones that can catch the most light because that later gives me tremendous flexibility when it comes to taking photos.
The issue of the amount of light that a lens can absorb has to do with the diaphragm or aperture of the lens, as I will tell you about in more detail below. The larger the opening, as you might imagine, the more light will enter.
It sounds silly but the most affordable, run-of-the-mill lenses tend to have a relatively small aperture. The good ones have wider apertures and they are amazing because you can take photos in moments of relatively low light and nothing happens, the photo comes out perfectly lit.
That same photo with a cheap or bad lens would come out much darker, you would have to eat your head to illuminate it, play with the manual settings of the camera to configure a slower shutter speed, thinking that this way you capture more light, but of course , you end up getting the blurred photo.
Or maybe you have to touch the ISO to get that illuminated photo you are looking for, but of course, with a very high ISO, in addition to capturing light, you capture noise, a lot of noise.
To what I am going, a luminous objective is the best tool that you can incorporate into your photographic equipment. It will give you all the light you need and will save you more than one headache when it comes to adjusting the camera to later shoot the photo. We will come back to talk about this in more detail.
4. The evaluations of other users when buying objectives
I don’t like being the guinea pig. When a brand brings a new lens to the market I am never one of the first to buy it. I prefer that other users have that first contact.
After a few months I go to Amazon or any other online store where there are opinions and ratings from buyers, and I look at the number of stars that a certain objective has. As much as a lens appeals to me, I would never buy it with a rating of 2 stars out of 5. Ideally, it should have a 4 or 4.5 out of 5. If it only has 3 stars or less, I don’t even think about it.
EYE! This is important!!!!! For ratings to have weight, there must be a significant number of users behind them. A goal with a rating of 5 out of 5 but based on a total of 3 or 4 users only, that is not very significant.
When you come across a goal that 50 or 100 users have rated well, that’s a more “solid” grade.
That said, let’s see some details to take into account when buying your lens. And I highlight the details because although they are aspects that are sometimes not taken into account, they are important.
Full frame or APS-C lenses
Not all lenses are valid for all cameras even if they are of the same brand. As you know, some cameras are full format or Full Frame and others have a smaller sensor, it is what is known as APS-C.
Lenses made for Full Frame cameras can be used on APS-C cameras, however, those made for APS-C will not work on full frame cameras as strong vignetting is created and only the center portion is illuminated of the image while the edges appear dark.
The advantage of APS-C lenses is that they are cheaper.
This is identified in each mark with an acronym, for example, targets that are for APS-C have these acronyms in the following marks:
To each type of camera its objective
Pentax it has its peculiarities, I’ll put aside its different mounts (K, Q and 645).
The same happens with Olympus or with Fujifilm, Depending on the type of camera you have, you will have to choose one type of lens or another, although there are adapters to use them on other types of cameras:
Olympus
- OM-D and PEN lenses: Micro Four Thirds
- DSLR lenses: Four Thirds System
fujifilm
- X Series: X Mount
- GFX Series: G-Mount
Sony
Sony has two types of A and E Mounts:
- Type A mounts: for cameras with mirror or translucent. His name begins with SALT and can be used on E-mounts with an adapter.
- Type E mounts: for mirrorless cameras. They are named with the letters SELF and cannot be used on type A mounts.
The important thing is that, when buying your optics, Make sure the mount is the right one for your camera.
Speaking of compatibilities, do you know my free lens compatibility tool? It allows you to check if the lens you want to buy is compatible with your camera. Although I dream of being able to do it for other brands, for now it is available for cameras and lenses of the brands:
Zoom or fixed focal length lenses
Surely the objective that you have tried is a zoom. That is, you have been able to approach or move away from your subject without taking a step. Zoom lenses cover different focal lengths (we’ll look at the focal length in more detail later) and are therefore more versatile.
However, there are also fixed optics, with which you cannot zoom, but which are usually of Best Quality.
Both zoom lenses and fixed lenses have their advantages and disadvantages, you must be clear about what you need and based on it, choose your best option.
autofocus
While it is now difficult to find new targets that are solely of manual focus, It should be noted that all lenses have a manual focus mode, but not all necessarily have an autofocus mode.
This is useful when you want to take pictures quickly by letting the camera focus on its own. These situations often occur, so when buying a lens for your camera, make sure it has an autofocus mode.
Although there are also cameras, for example from Nikon, that have an internal focus motor and can work with lenses that do not have this system. If your camera is Nikon and it has this system, you can resort to targets AF Nikkor. Otherwise you will have to search AF-S Nikkor. And if what you are going to do the most is video, let it be AF-P.
On the other hand, if you have a Canyon you should know that:
- The objectives STM they have a smoother and quieter focusing system, making them more suitable for shooting video.
- The…