learn about lenses?

positivenote

hi guys,
just looking for some links to a few sites that provide good explanations on what lenses are used for what type of shooting, with hopefully some examples to back up whats being said.
any suggestions?

pixbyjohn

Lens Focal Length* Terminology Typical Photography
Less than 21 mm Extreme Wide Angle Architecture
21-35 mm Wide Angle Landscape
35-70 mm Normal Street & Documentary
70-135 mm Medium Telephoto Portraiture
135-300+ mm Telephoto Sports, Bird & Wildlife

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm

DK32

There are tons of sites out there, google is your friend. I use this one when considering a new lens for a Canon body.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/

sineadw

pixbyjohn wrote: »

Lens Focal Length* Terminology Typical Photography
Less than 21 mm Extreme Wide Angle Architecture
21-35 mm Wide Angle Landscape
35-70 mm Normal Street & Documentary
70-135 mm Medium Telephoto Portraiture
135-300+ mm Telephoto Sports, Bird & Wildlife

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm

@op - there really are no rules. For example, I love using my 50 for portraiture.... I'm doing a documentary project at the moment, and I'm hating the fact that I have nothing wider than a 24.. The only one of the above that I see as any more than a suggestion is the last. Experimenting is most of the fun

SemperFidelis

If you're a canon user then 'the-digital-picture.com' is excellent. Lots of indepth information, lens reviews and recommendations for different types of photography.

And if you go into a particular lens review there's a link to examples at the end.

CabanSail

I think that any list is only ever going to be a guide & let you know what is used by convention.

There are some no brainers though;

Sports & Wildlife generally need the very long & fast lenses. This is so they can be a long way from their subjects & work in poor light. (This may also account for some of the social habits of the people who shoot these shots )

The "Portrailt Lens" is normally a Prime Lens which is about 135mm (35mm equilv) I have an 85mm lens for this, used on a cropped body. The reason is that at the focal length the facial features are kept to normal proportions & the Prime lens is ussually sharper. Longer lenses will tend to flatten a face & shorter will make features closer to the camera look large.

For Architechture a Tilt & Shift Lens is considered a specialist lens. It will allow you to move the focal plane & this will allow vertical lines to appear so in the image. This can be done in PP too. I have only recently found that these are also an excellent lens for Landsapes as when adjusted correctly you can get huge depth of field at an aperture in the sweet spot (normally around f8)

Most lenses will lend themselves to certain types of situations, but it's often breaking those conventions which can lead to some amazing images.

positivenote

thanks a million guys, great links and advice. Just a quick question re: what i want to start shooting is close ups of toy figures and some portrait stuff... would i need to get two lenses for this or could i get away with rying with one of the cheap and cheerfull 50mm 1.8?
Thanks

Nforce

positivenote wrote: »

thanks a million guys, great links and advice. Just a quick question re: what i want to start shooting is close ups of toy figures and some portrait stuff... would i need to get two lenses for this or could i get away with rying with one of the cheap and cheerfull 50mm 1.8?
Thanks

50mm f1.8 is fine for the odd macro shot...you can pick up some cheap extension tubes from ebay or dealextreme etc.

Slidinginfinity

positivenote wrote: »

thanks a million guys, great links and advice. Just a quick question re: what i want to start shooting is close ups of toy figures and some portrait stuff... would i need to get two lenses for this or could i get away with rying with one of the cheap and cheerfull 50mm 1.8?
Thanks

I do both of these with my nifty fifty works great. I wouldn't consider the toy shots macro though. If you are not full frame the 50mm is even better for it.

Slidinginfinity

Slidinginfinity wrote: »

I do both of these with my nifty fifty works great. I wouldn't consider the toy shots macro though. If you are not full frame the 50mm is even better for it.

I did most of my WWE Action Figure shots with a Bridge Camera (Kodak Easyshare Z710) and got some great results.


These (and most of the other hundreds upon hundreds of pictures on the site) were posted by me (User; chokeslamcena);


http://loosejakks.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=ra5&thread=48&page=1#1370



(It's worth noting that back then my photography knowledge didn't go beyond the 'auto' setting... and today it just about barely does!).

Of course it depends on what kind of photos you want to take, but you're not going to need a massive zoom lens for a few figure photographs, however a macro lens may be of use for capturing the tinier details that appear on them (taking a photo of the full figure and cropping/zooming is also a good alternative to highlight the little details, too, though).


Of course, this is coming from someone with no knowledge of lenses whatsoever, so you'd be safe to ignore my post, actually... haha.