We all know that DSLR is a very complex machinery, But without lenses, DSLR is pretty much useless. A wise photographer once said to me "Always upgrade your lens first before your camera body.", he was right.
Today I will explain briefly about 5 lenses that you need to know. The lenses on this list is pretty much all the lens out there nowadays.
1. The Sniper Rifle
Telephoto lenses that you see in the store are usually around 70-200mm or 70-300mm, both are standard telephoto lens. There are more than 300mm with an enormous size. Sometime to hold this gigantic lenses, you need the help of a tripod to hold the lens rather than the body.
Telephoto lenses are good for shooting sport and wildlife without you getting to close to the action it self. I personally always carry my 70-200mm lens everywhere. Always prepare if anything interesting going to happened, especially if it's something that we can't really get too close to.
If you have the cash, I would recommend buying the one with Vibrate Reduction (or Image Stabilizer). As telephoto lenses is pretty heavy and your photo could get all blurry and shaky.
*Taken with Nikon D7100 + 70-300mm f4-5.6
2. Lenses that comes with the camera
Standard zoom lenses or Kit lenses, are the lenses that usually comes with your brand new DSLR. Offering the fantastic 18mm for landscape or for short telephoto from the 55mm side.
There's not much to explain about Kit lenses. Although you already have a cheap kit lens that comes out with your DSLR, I would suggest you to consider upgrading it to a slightly more expensive option. Of course with the upgrade you will get better color quality, picture quality, sharpness, contrast, and more.
3. Ultra Kit Lenses
Wide angle lenses are a wider choice rather than the standard zoom lenses. With and opening of 10-20mm or 12-24mm, are a very super lenses for landscape and architecture photography.
Distortion with such lenses is quite severe, some cheaper one could also have a problem with vignetting (dark edges) and chromatic aberration (purple fringing with high contrast edges).
*Taken with Nikon D7100 + 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6
4. It's a bird.. No, It's a plane.. No, It's Superzooms!
Even though superzooms sounds like the answer for everything, there's also a major drawback or what I usually revered as kryptonite. To achieve this fantastic lenses, some optical compromises are made in the design, reducing the image quality and sometime slower auto focus.
5. Optimus Prime
However, prime lenses are much harder to use as you need to move around so much to get right angle, but I can assure you that prime lenses will make you a better photographer once you master the art of using prime lenses as your main lenses.
I always bring my prime lenses whenever I need to do model photo shoot or some documentary shoot. Prime lenses are the best way to master the are of photography.
*Taken with Nikon D7100 + 50mm f/1.8
About the Author:Handoko Rama is a freelance photographer and cinematographer. Living in the island of paradise, Bali. Where everyday feels like holiday for him. Currently pursuing his dream job with Nat Geo and also reaching maximum level for his World of Warcraft Character.
portfolio: www.mibpictures.com
