Research On Lenses

Lenses

There are three basic types of lenses:

• Standard
• Wide angle
• Telephoto

Lenses are measured in millimeters which is known as the focal length of a lens. A standard size lens is 50mm for a 35mm camera, if a camera lens is shorter than the average size it is considered as a wide angled lens, but if the focal length is longer it is a telephoto lens.

Wide Angled Lens


These lenses are great for landscape photographs as the lens lets you have more in a picture than a normal lens would. They are also good for highlighting foreground objects with the background fading into the distance. The average focal length for a wide angle lens is 24mm and 28mm.

Telephoto Lens


This lens is the opposite of a wide angled lens, it is good for sporting events and reducing the depth of field. With this lens you can focus on your object and get a very nice and clear photo while the background surrounding it is out of focus.

Macro Lens


Macros lenses are great for close up photography, the quality of the image is very high, it has similar properties to a normal lens but it is better at focusing a lot closer to an object. The common focal lengths are between 50mm and 105mm.

Fisheye Lens


The reason why this lens is called fisheye lens is because it look like a fisheye, it gives you the effect that the center is popping out at you. This lens bends the photo so the sides of the picture seems to be further away.

Shift/Perspective Control Lenses


These type of lenses are good for when you are taking photos of buildings especially tall buildings, when you use this lense you don't have to worry about tilting your camera to get the whole building in because the lens can be adjusted so you can get all the building in the shot while keeping your camera upright.

Teleconverters


This converter sits between your camera and the lens, These are not the best to use especially if you are on a tight budget because it doesn't give a good quality photo, it makes focusing harder and you need to use a slower shutter speed than you usually would. These problems don't occur with a 1.4x converter (most professionals use these). Standard models are the 2x and 1.4x converters. The good thing about this is that it increases the focal length of the lens.

Filters

Filters are used for increasing the contrast, changing the exposure, capturing visible light and minimizing reflections.

UV filters

UV stands for Ultraviolet. It is light that is invisible to the human eye. UV filters are used for many things like cutting down on haziness, like in mountains and coastal areas, it is also used for protecting the lens, if you have the filter on at all times it protects the lens from scratches and dust.

ND filters

ND stands for Neutral Density. It helps the photographer use a larger aperture for a longer time. Without a ND filter most lenses wont let you use a small enough aperture for long exposures.

Polarizing filters

Polarizing filters are great for reducing reflections on non-metallic surfaces such as water and glass. Most of the filters are circular and you can change the level of polarization by rotating the outer layer of the filter. These photos also have the ability to completely change the out come of the photograph.

Macro filters

Macro filters/close-up filters are not ordinary filters they are more like an extra lens that is great for close-up photographs even when using a telephoto lens. Even though this filter is good, a extension tube is better. Extension tube change the closest focus length without effecting the quality of the image.

Colour filters

Not many photographers use colour filters anymore because they can be easily reproduced digitally with the help of colour levels and channel on a photo editing software. Colour filters are mainly used for black and white photography to manipulate the contrast.

IR filters


IR stands for infrared, these wavelengths are on the opposite side of the light spectrum from UV. When using a IR filter it only allows through IR light. The sensors on digital camera these days constructed so that it doesn't let through IR light.