Lets take a little deeper look into lenses.But not too deep I hope First of all is considering what distance you want to take a photo of it can range from macro photography to distance work So lets take macro for a start (insects) are a favorite Lens? something like a Tamron 90mm f2.8 with a 1:1 ratio is a good starting point at £300 new. So what does all that mean? 90 mm is the fixed focal distance being a "Prime" lens, others being variable which I will come onto later . F2.8 is how wide a lens opens to let light onto the camera sensor. The more light the faster the shutter can work hence freeze a subject quicker and 1;1 ratio is how close basically one can work.. Next it telephoto lens with this type of lens one can bring a subject nearer or further away as one wishes. Deciding on which to get can be a minefield general purpose one may be from 18mm to 70mm -wide angle 10mm to 24 mm and coming onto longer reach anything from 80mm upwards to even 800mm. it all depends on costs, some can cost thousands of £ , it can be a very expensive hobby. Even second hand lenses in good condition can fetch nearly new prices. So what would I advise? tough one to answer and I wish I had not asked it but here goes as a rough guide for distance a wide angle lens 10mm-24.. general photo lens 24-80mm distance 80-400mm Anything with more reach gets very heavy Macro I have already covered as a said an f1.4 lens and work a lot better in low light than say an f5.6 , so when considering buying a lens there is a lot to think about. What I would say is it is far better to buy one expensive lens than several cheap ones as quality can vary a lot. Are third part lenses worth it? I do prefer camera makers own lenses but this is not always possible as they may not make the exact one you want. You can get good copies of third part lenses and bad copies,whereas camera manufactures I have found are generally better. Having said that I did sell of one Sigma lens but kept another for my Nikon cameras but never sold on a nikon lens. A lot of lenses have image stablisation built in which is self explainatory and it really does make a difference when working at a distance . Canon call it OS whereas Nikon call it VR but both do the same thing. Another arguementative subject is filters for the front of a lens Do you have one or not The arguement against is it can affect the clarity of the lens itself buy having to pass through another bit of glass I am in the opposite camp which says it is cheaper to replace a filter if hit by a stone than repair a lens, so you have a choice. Why have a filter anyway there are many reasons ie to prevent Ultra Voilet UV and other to cut down reflection of say water or glass. Then their are more specialist filters for colour -creating a star effect etc and on top of that different strengths as well So we are getting a little deeper into the subject now Add ons? What are they? these fall into two basic different types The extn tube type which can bring subjects much closer (thinking of insects again) but there is a penality , light loss. A s the light had to go further down the tube which is normally black, the camera sensor needs to either be open wider or longer to allow more light in The other type is a tele converter (TC) Does basically the same job but for distance objects. These can be anything from a 1.4 to3.0 but again has its own drawback the bigger TC put in between the camera and lens, same as the extn tube, the less light, My preference is just a 1.4 which gives that little more distance to the lens used. Even then I prefer to buy a longer lens anyway.. Again just a very rough guide but will try and answer specific questions
