This is part VIII of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

Any lens can double as a macro with close-up lenses and extension tubes, BUT most normal lenses don’t  perform best at close focus and adding close-ups/extensions will push macro lenses even further. Short macro lenses often don’t go to 1:1 magnification, they are close focus lenses for exaggerating perspective. Useful focal lengths are 60-200mm. 1:1 magnification is always reached at four times the focal length, so do the math what working distance you get and how to do lighting (At 1:1 you loose 2 stops that have to be taken into account as well for the diffraction limit). All macro lenses are good, a smooth manual focus ring is a big help. So you should get a 200mm macro? Yes, if you are really serious about it and can wait that some renewed version comes out. Nikkor 105/2.8VR and Tamron 60/2 are exceptional lenses at the moment. The VR is useless in macro range, btw. -the back and forth movements can’t be corrected by VR and AF will give up as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is part VI of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

Tele zooms cover the range 70/5omm+. Candid shots, sports, wildlife are typical applications (adding a close-up lens makes most of them as well capable macros).

Almost all tele zooms are actually too short for wildlife. You need at minimum 300mm here + some feature like AF lock are handy.

It is fair to categorize in three groups

• Consumer tele
• Pro tele
• Long tele

Read the rest of this entry »

This is part V of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

Zoom lenses are are rather modern concept that came with the SLRs going consumer. The first zooms had a moderate zoom range and rather small apertures - in film zoom lenses were much more popular and of much higher quality. The marketing was more “Get two (three) lenses in one” appealing to the casual photographer how didn’t carry a bag with all the gear or had different bodies hanging around his neck. Who ever tried to mount a M42 lens while walking quickly sees the benefit.

This class of consumer zooms still exists, but it had been complemented by pro-class zooms that obliterated prime lenses in many applications or even outperforms them.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is part IV of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

Medium primes are lenses in the range of 85-200mm (in FX terms) or 58-135mm in DX.

This segment is very interesting as you find here lenses with with the lowset f-number/focal-length (if we neglect long tele lenses). In other words: These lenses allow for extreme subject separation.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is part III of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

A long prime for this article is anything from 200mm up. This group can be subdivided further by a section for super-tele longer than 400mm

If we neglect old glass, most of these lenses are quite expensive, they usually start around $4000 and end in the 5-digit range. This indicates that they aim at professionals that cover sports, wildlife (and celebrities sun-bathing). If you are not a professional, but have one of these passions there are two alternatives:

1. Bite the bullet
2. Find some cheaper alternative

Read the rest of this entry »

This is part I of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications

Standard prime lenses had been the base of each SLR equipment since the earliest days. Virtually all SLR were sold in a kit with a 50mm f/1.8 and many of us never used anything else. In range-finder world the slightly wider 35mm was the standard.

It is said that a 50mm would give you a field of view similar to our vision (I stick with the FX convention for FOV<->focal-length, for DX divide by 1.5). This is somewhat true. Our field of vision is much wider, but the zone where we  see sharp much narrower. I think the main reason for the “nifty-fitfties” is that they are the widest lenses with a still rather simple design: The focal length is larger than the flange distance.

So do you need it and what do you expect from it.

Read the rest of this entry »