Lenses

Photography

TechnicalToggle Dropdown

EnvironmentCamerasProcessingMedia

Cameras

LensesToggle Dropdown

PrimesZoomsMacros

Buying Guide

---

Let there be light

Lenses are needed to bring the light to the camera. While a lot of people consider the cost of cameras, they do not realize that in the long run, it will be the money you pay for the lenses that will dominate the cost.

Quality of lenses

• Focal length expressed in mm. The larger this number the narrower the view, which makes it look like you have magnified things (not entirely correct). For this reason it is also sometimes expressed as field of view in degrees.
• Aperture expressed as an f number such as f/5.6, it determines basically how much light gets to the camera. The smaller the number, the more light gets in (the more open is the lens) and it is said that the lens is faster.
• Minimum focus distance, how close you can come to the object and still be able to focus. Usually this correlated well with the focal length (longer lenses also have a larger minimum focus distance), but lenses can be designed to allow you to come closer see macros.
• Weight should be one of the main issues when considering a lens.
• Then there are further issues like Sharpness, Bokeh, Distortion, Chromatic Aberration that you can hear about.

See Also

• You will end up paying more for your lenses than your cameras
• Most equipment is more than good enough
• Buying advice for amateur photographers

Lenses on this wiki

Primes

• Nikon Z 40
• Nikon 100
• Nikon 180
• Nikon 135
• Nikon 85
• Nikon 50
• Nikon 20
• Nikon 24
• Nikon 35

Zooms

• Sigma 100-400
• Nikon 28-80
• Soligor 35-200
• Canon 24-105
• Nikon 16-35
• Nikon Z 16-50
• Sigma 17-35
• Nikon 28-300
• Nikon 24-120
• Nikon 28-200
• Nikon 18-200
• Nikon 80-200
• Nikon 35-105
• Nikon 70-210
• Nikon 70-300
• Nikon 24-70
• Nikon 10-24
• Nikon 18-105
• Nikon 200-500

Macros

• Nikon 55
• Tamron 60-300
• Sigma 150
• Nikon 200
• Nikon 105

---

These pages are for Amateur Photographers and not really for seasoned photographers and professionals. I have no affiliation or commercial interest with any brand/make. I write from my own experience. I ended up using mainly Nikon, so I am more familiar with this brand than others. See price for notes on pricing as well as photography related links.