Can someone explain the different kind of camera lenses available for D-SLR cameras?
Sep 29, 2009
| angelzoey2 asked: |
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I am looking to purchase a Nikon D40 and there are several kits available that comes with extra lenses. I am only just beginning to get into photography and do not understand what each lens does. The camera comes standard with a 18-55 mm lens. But there are kits with 55-200 mm lenses or telephoto lenses or wide angle lenses… Could someone explain to me what each Lens is used for so I can get a better sense of which lens is the best for me? |
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Stephen Brumfield
October 1st, 2009 at 3:32 am #
I have a d40, Actually for sale.. but I would recommend starting with the 18-55… That gives you the most widely used zone of zoom that you will need. Once you get used to using it.. You will find that there are a few pictures that you take that just dont seem to get you close enough…then add on a larger lens like 55-200 or even higher. Then your settings will change a little for the bigger lenses.. but i wouldnt confuse your learning curve just yet with multiple lenses.
scotinthemist50
October 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am #
Basically a 55-200 mm long zoom lens or a telephoto lens will make subjects appear closer in the camera than they actually are by narrowing the angle of view.
The 18-55 mm lens is a standard style of lens covering a mid range and makes subjects look pretty much the same as they actually are.
Wide angle lenses make subjects appear farther away than they really are by widening the angle of view, they also help to capture more of a subject in confined situations.
You’ll find a Camera Lens Buying Guide which will explain things in more detail here -
legalbgl
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:34 pm #
the numbers represent your different zooms. 18-55 is the zoom of your lens. 18 is pretty wide and 55 is pretty much standard. However, your 18-55 on a D40 is really 27-82.5 with the 1.5x crop factor. this will be good for most standard shots you want to take of your family and friends. the 55-200 is a telephot zoom lens. Its for getting shots from further away. Imagine your at a baseball game, the 200 lens will alow you to make the players look bigger, like looking though binoculars.
Other lenses get mose specialized. wide angle lenses are great for some landscape shots. Faster primes or zooms are used for various sports events or portraits. Depends on your needs. Faster refers to the apature of the lens (your 18-55 is probaly an f 3.5-5.6 or something like that, I didn’t look it up. The lower the f number the faster the lens, the better it is for lower light situations and the more expensive the lens is.)
I would take the 18-55 and then upgrade to a sigma 28-300 Image stabalized (IS) lens. That will most likely become your favorite all around lens, If the IS lens is to heavy, the non IS version is nice, cheaper and lighter. IT covers the most popular focal lengths and is a pretty sharp all around lens. I
Bill P
October 5th, 2009 at 1:24 am #
for normal people using a camera, 80%, or more, of your pictures will be made with the 18-55 lens on a nikon if that is what they have. The other 10% would use the longer lens. People are buying the extra wide angle lenses but they are of nominal use unless you want to play around and spend a lot of money. A lot of people want fisheyes – a lot of money, little use. On my 35mm camera, I have a 17mm lens that I purchased for one picture. One picture, $300 bucks.
You might want to look beyond the Nikon and Canon cameras and look for better deals with cameras like the Sony or Olympus. Olympus has had 2 lens kits for less than you can get a Nikon with two lenses. You can read all the data about Nikon’s capactity to put any lens tht they have made in 40 years on the camera, but that is about useless because you will never use those lenses and, if you do, you will lost several functions on your D40 when you put them on.
Find out about where the focus motor is. Nikon, if I am not wrong, has the focus motor in the lens, others have it in the camera body. That makes their lenses more expensive.