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In my original post I reviewed the various choices of lenses available to those who use a interchangeable lens camera such as Single Lens Reflex camera, and those using Micro 4/3rds systems. (Sorry P&S and Prosumer users, this one isn’t really for you). So now that you have your amazing collection of glass in your collection, we can start picking and choosing for various situations.

Landscapes
The choice for this one is obvious, you’re going to be looking for a wide or ultra wide angle lens, this will easily help you capture the vastness of the shot. If you’re going for a more interesting look, especially with a cityscape, you may even choose a fisheye lens to get that rounded look. Occationally you can use a longer lens for landscape work, the photo that makes up the banner for this blog was taken using a 50mm lens on a crop sensor (so a 75mm focal length), but I was fairly distance from my subject and pulled off a wonderfully sharp shot.

Nikon F80 ~ Tameron 11-18mm 1:4.5-5.6 DiII @ 18mm (true 18mm as it’s a 35mm camera)

Architecture
This is the area of photography that I cut my teeth on. In this case again you’re going to be working with ultra-wide and wide angles for the most part here as you’ll want to capture the whole room in your shot, and when working with crop sensor bodies, your 24mm lens won’t really cut it anymore. I found this out when I first switched to a Digital SLR with a crop sensor. I still take time to go and capture the abandoned buildings that I travel far and wide for, and my ultra-wide lens is usually with me. But in many cases, I leave my versatile 17-55mm lens on my camera for ease of use and keeps the switching of lenses inside these buildings to a minimum.

Nikon D70s ~ Sigma 18-50mm @ 18mm (27mm with the crop factor).

Portrait
The main mistake that many people make when it comes to portrait work is that they use a wide angle lens, then zoom with their feet. Because they need to get that full body shot, so they zoom out to the widest they can go, and stand fairly close to the subject. Trust me, this is not flattering.

A rather brutal example of this, is my friend Alex here. I used a 10-20mm lens, set to 10mm, as you can see I got up rather close to focus on the head and shoulders area, it’s rather distorted, in this case it is a neat effect for a fun off the cuff shot, but this would not cut it for a professional portrait shot.

Nikon D300 ~ Sigma 10-20mm @ 10mm

If this was a more professional shot, I would have picked a longer focal length, 50mm or greater, and stood up higher, to keep everything in the correct proportions. So when going for a portrait work, stick to prime lenses with a focal length (before or after a crop) of 50mm or greater. I regularly use my 35mm lens to do group shots when I don’t have a lot of room to work with. That is the one downside to all this, you do need more room the longer of a lens you are working with.

Nikon D300 ~ Nikon 85mm

As you can see, similar to Alex as before, but now Amy is wonderfully proportioned, in this case I had some room to play with being on the streets, my 70-200mm lens would work great for this as well.

Event/Photojournalism/Street
This niche of photography is really dependent on the whole situation. I’ve used both Prime and Zoom lenses to shoot events and out on the street, and I’ve found that I gravitate more towards the long zoom lens, mostly because it gives you more freedom to catch the event or action as it happens in a candid manner. So grab a telephoto for this so you can keep yourself both in the action and yet just outside so that they don’t see the lens focusing in on them almost causing them to stage the action.

Nikon D300 ~ Nikon 135mm

I used a prime lens for this particular event, a protest for and against the Israel invasion of the Gaza strip earlier this year. It worked really well for a manual focus lens.

Macro
This isn’t really my area of photography, but many manufactures produce specialized lenses for the purpose of photographing things close up and detailed.

I do keep a Macro lens in my collection, but I don’t think I’m going to be keeping it much longer as I don’t use it.

You’re probably wondering why Weddings isn’t mentioned in this list, because a wedding is a merger of two general types, event and portrait, so pick your lenses appropriately. If you really want to you can get away with only two lenses for weddings, a wide to normal (17-55mm) and a telephoto (70-200mm) and that would have you covered.

If you use a Point & Shoot or Prosumer camera, you can pretty much skip most of what is said here, this is more aimed at users of cameras that have an interchangeable lens system. Rangefinders and SLRs.

When it comes to lens, there are two types of lenses, zoom lenses which can change the focal length, and prime lenses, which have a fixed focus.

The Nikon 17-55mm is an example of a zoom lens.

The Nikon 50mm is an example of a prime lens.

Each types have their pros and cons. Zoom lenses offer you excellent versatility especially when shooting events where you often need to have a wider view angle, when photographing groups of people, to being able to focus in on the action. If you just have a prime lens on, you have to do your zooming with you feet, or fumble around with multiple lenses at any given time for the situation. However zoom lenses with today’s technology can only have a max aperture of f/2.8 without being really expensive or very large. Prime lenses, can be a little cheaper than a zoom lens, but be much faster, my 50mm f/1.8 lens is only $150.00. Prime lenses are great for portrait work, or low light situations. I once shot almost an entire concert using my 50mm f/1.8 lens.

There are four categories into which both types of lenses fall into, based on the focal length of the lens.

The first is Ultra-Wide, this is what lenses with a focal length less than, but not including 35mm, fish-eye lenses (which offer a 180° angle of view) fall into this category. Best to use these for landscape and architecture work.

The Tameron 11-18mm lens, is an example of an ultra-wide zoom lens.

An example photo using an ultra-wide lens, using the Tamron mentioned above @ 11mm

The second category is Normal, the reason it’s called “normal” is because is almost duplicates the angle of view that your eyes have (eyes are approximatly a 50mm lens so if you’re on a crop sensor camera, use the mag factor to determain what lens will give you the 50mm length, on Nikon & Canon you’ll want a 35mm lens, on 4/3 camera a 17mm lens). This covers the range of focal lengths between 35mm and 70mm.

Nikon’s 35mm lens.

Taken with a 35mm lens, with the crop factor it is at 52mm.

The third category is telephoto, this covers focal lengths between 70mm and 135mm, often used for portrait, street, and photojournalism, as you can often get a compact lens that still give you a good reach. You can even still get a fast lens for a decent price at this range, even in zoom and prime. Again have a crop sensor, gives these lenses even more reach.

An old Nikon Manual Focus 105mm telephoto lens, a classic lens favoured by photojournalists.

An example of a photo, even on a modern dSLR, the old Manual lenses perform wonderfully.

The fourth and final category is super telephoto, this occupy any focal length greater than 135mm, there are some lenses that are 500mm and higher available. If you’re doing a lot of sports, nature (wildlife), and aerial photography (or stalking) these are the lenses for you, often bulky, and for a good fast lens, you’ll be shelling out upwards of $2000.00. However if you do spend the money, it is well worth it, even for street photography, if the area is crowded enough, you can get the shot you want without being seen.

The Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is great telephoto lens, for moderate duty, plus if you add a telecoverter to it, you can get it to reach even further. However it is a bit noticeable, and rather bulky to carry around.

An example photo @ 200mm

Stay Tuned for Part 2, more on how to choose a lenses and why to use certain lenses for each application!