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Different lens types do different things, meaning certain types of lenses are better suited to different types of photography. Choosing the right camera is important, but choosing the right lens is just as crucial when taking pictures.
Here at ExpertPhotography, we know how essential lenses are to photography. So, to help you get started, we will look at the different types of lenses and what each lens type is best suited to. We’ll show you which types of lenses are available and how to use them for the best results.
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Photography is all about light. A camera needs a scene’s light to make an image. A camera’s lens channels the light in the right direction, bringing it to the film strip or digital sensor.
The camera lens directs the light and determines how much light passes through. This is partly done through the aperture setting. But different lens types also have a wider or narrower field of view. This means you see more or less of the scene before you.
The glass elements direct the light to a single point in front of the camera sensor or film. This is called the focal point. From the focal point, we can determine the lens’s focal length.
The focal length is the distance between the focal point and the camera’s sensor. For a 50mm prime lens, the focal point is 50mm in front of the sensor.
The focal length helps us categorize lens types. A shorter focal length, like 28mm, gives us a wider angle of view. A wide-angle lens allows you to see more of the scene in front of you.
A higher number, such as 200mm, gives us a narrower angle of view but greater magnification. A lens with a focal length like this is called a telephoto lens.
Prime and Zoom Lenses
Prime and zoom are umbrella categories for lenses. The prime or zoom label denotes how the lens functions rather than what lens it is.
A prime lens has no zoom function, while a zoom lens allows you to zoom in or out between to fixed focal lengths.
Prime Lenses
A prime lens has a fixed focal length, which means it has no zoom function. Despite this, prime lenses do have some positive aspects that make them popular with photographers of all kinds.
Firstly, prime lenses tend to have better optical quality than zoom lenses. They often use fewer glass elements, and none of the elements move, which leads to better optical performance.
When we say better optical performance, we mean there is no distortion or chromatic aberration. The photographs are sharper and more accurate.
As primes have fewer elements and no moving parts, they also tend to be more compact, lightweight, and affordable.
Prime lenses often have a wider maximum aperture, giving you more exposure control and better low-light performance.
The downside to prime lenses is that they are less versatile. You don’t have the flexibility of a zoom lens, and you might have to change lenses more often.
Zoom Lenses
A zoom lens has a variable focal length within a particular range. For instance, with a 16-35mm zoom lens, you can adjust the field of view anywhere between those two points. The wide the distance between the two values, the wider the zoom range.
Zoom lenses are more versatile than primes. They let you control the shot more without changing your vantage point or lens.
The main downside to zoom lens is that they are more prone to distortion, discoloration, and aberrations. These problems are more common with cheaper lenses, but even high-quality zoom lenses can experience optical imperfections.
Zoom lenses also tend to be more expensive than prime lenses. They contain more glass and have complicated moving parts, increasing the price of most zooms.
We now examine the different types of camera lenses used in photography by looking that the focal length.
By looking at a lens’s focal length, we get a good understanding of what the lens can be used for. As you’ll see, photographers working in different genres of photography use certain types of lenses.
Standard Lenses
A standard lens, like the Sigma 50mm F/4, has a focal length between 35mm and 70mm. They’re called standard or “normal” lenses because their field of view is similar to the human eye’s.
When we look through the viewfinder of a camera with a standard lens attached, it’s similar to our normal vision.
Prime and zoom standard lenses are both common. Kit lenses that come with entry-level cameras are usually standard-angle lenses.
The natural field of vision makes the standard lens a popular choice for many photographers. Standard lenses are common among street photographers, travel photographers, and photojournalists.
These characteristics also make standard lenses suitable for portrait photography. You can use a standard lens for close-up and intimate portraits or full-body fashion photography.
A 50mm prime lens is often called a nifty fifty. This nickname derives from the lens’s versatility and reliability. As such, nifty fifties are popular in many areas of photography and among the most common lenses.
Our Top 3 Choices for the Best Standard Zoom Lenses
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The focal length of a wide-angle lens is between 14mm and 35mm. These lenses give a wide field of vision, with a broad scope from side to side. They are more panoramic than a standard lens and similar to widescreen in cinematography.
Wide-angle lenses are essential for serious landscape photographers. This is because the wide angle captures large, spacious scenes. The wide angle stretches the horizon, allowing your camera to view more of the landscape in front of you.
Photo by Pietro De Grandi
A wide-angle lens is also vital equipment for architecture and real estate photographers. For exterior property photography, they let you capture the whole building without moving further and further away.
This is equally valuable with interior real estate photography. You can photograph entire rooms from the inside.
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A lens with a focal length of less than 14mm is called an ultra-wide-angle lens. Because the field of vision is so wide, the picture is bent and curved around the edges.
This effect makes it a fisheye lens because it’s like looking through a fish’s eye.
Photo by Phil Hearing
Ultra-wide-angle lenses offer an enormous field of view. But the warping effect means fisheye lenses have limited appeal to photographers.
Fisheye lenses are mainly used for visual effects in fine art photography. But they’re also often used in extreme sports like skateboarding and surfing. We review and recommend the best fisheye lenses.
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A telephoto lens has a focal length at 70mm or higher and an incredible level of magnification. They contain many glass elements, which work much like a telescope. A telephoto lens allows the photographer to get close-up shots of faraway subjects.
Telephoto lenses have two subcategories. There are short telephotos with focal lengths between 70 and 135mm. And there are standard telephotos with focal lengths between 135 and 300mm.
A telephoto lens gives you excellent magnification to shoot faraway objects. But the angle of view is very narrow. Telephoto zoom lenses often have small maximum apertures.
Photo by Ray Hennessy
Short telephoto lenses are perfect for portrait photography, allowing you to get tightly-framed portraits without getting too close to your subject. They also give you nice subject and background separation.
The magnification quality of a long telephoto lens makes them popular with sports and wildlife photographers.
A sports photographer can capture action shots without venturing onto the pitch. Wildlife photographers can get intimate images of wild animals without scaring them or getting harmed.
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A super-telephoto lens has an even greater level of magnification than a standard telephoto. Its focal length is anything above 300mm.
They’re big, heavy, and expensive, so you won’t buy one on a whim. But they’re excellent pieces of kit with incredible ingenuity. They have upwards of 10 precisely crafted glass elements.
Photo by Krzysztof Niewolny
Like short and standard telephoto lenses, they are found in the kit bags of sports and wildlife photographers.
Their telescopic abilities also make them ideal for astrophotography. You can capture incredible details night sky objects like the moon or star clusters.
Our Top 3 Choices for the Best Super-Telephoto Lenses
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A telephoto lens works like a telescope, but a macro lens works like a microscope. They let you take pictures of things at very close range. You can capture tiny objects with a small minimum focus range.
Unlike the other camera lenses, you can’t categorize a macro lens by the focal length alone. They can have anything between 35mm and 200mm. The macro lens is defined by the ability to focus at a very close range.
Photo by Dan Carlson
Macro lenses, like the Canon EF 100mm F/2.8, are used for extreme close-ups and shots with tiny subjects. They don’t have a wide application, making them specialized gear.
They can be used for portraits, giving an excellent bokeh effect. But this camera lens is mainly used for shooting very small subjects.
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Tilt-shift lenses allow you to distort and change the perspective of a shot. You can manipulate the focal plane by tilting and shifting the lens’s optics relative to the camera sensor.
There’s no set focal length for tilt-shift lenses, but they tend to be wide-angle lenses.
Tilting the lens gives greater control over the depth of field. It allows you near-infinite depth at the greater end or pin-point focus point at the narrow end.
Shifting the lens controls perspective. This makes tilt-shift lenses ideal for architectural photography when shooting tall buildings. The lenses can ensure a building doesn’t appear to be leaning or that the vertical lines stay vertical.
Photo by Jaromir Kavan
Perspective control also gives you excellent creative options. For example, you can use a tilt-shift lens when shooting with mirrors. You can take a shot from the side of the mirror but change the perspective. You can make it look like it was taken without the camera!
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As we’ve seen, focal length is the main feature that determines what kind of lens you have. But you also need to be aware that the size of your camera’s sensor also affects the lens’s focal length. It therefore affects the lens’s type, too.
Crop Factor
Crop factor increases the effective focal length and magnification of any lens used on a camera with a sensor smaller than full frame.
APS-C sensors are smaller than full frame sensors, which means they suffer from crop factor. This is also why cameras with APS-C sensors are often called “crop-sensor” cameras.
While cameras produce rectangular images due to the shape of the sensor, all camera lenses produce a circular image projection. The corners of a full frame sensor reach the edge of the circle, which is why they are called full frame”.
APS-C sensors, however, are smaller and the corners do not reach the edge of the circular image projection. The outer edges of the full frame image are cropped. The result is a narrower, more magnified field of view.
Crop Factor and Focal Lengths
If a lens gives you a narrower field of view when used on an APS-C camera, the effective focal length has changed. This new focal length is called the equivalent focal length. We can work it out using the original focal length and the crop factor value of the camera.
Full frame cameras don’t experience crop factor, so a 50mm lens is always a 50mm lens when used with one of these machines.
Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm APS-C sensors have a crop factor of 1.5x. Canon APS-C sensors are slightly smaller, so they have a crop factor value of 1.6x.
Micro Four Thirds sensors are even smaller than APS-C, so they experience even more crop factor. MFT cameras have a crop factor of 2.0x.
We can then work out the equivalent focal length of any lens using this simple equation: focal length x crop factor = equivalent focal length.
If we take a 50mm lens and attach it to a Nikon APS-C camera, the equivalent focal length is 75mm. That’s because 50 (focal length) x 1.5 (crop factor) = 75 (equivalent focal length).
If we attach a 50mm lens to a Micro Four Thirds camera, the equivalent focal length is 100mm (50 x 2).
How Crop Factor Affects the Lens Type
By changing the lens’s focal length, crop factor essentially changes what type of lens it is. This has big implications for your photography.
A 50mm lens on a full frame camera is has a 50mm focal length. But a lens with a labeled focal length of 50mm used on an AP-C camera has a 75mm equivalent focal length.
That’s transformed a standard-angle lens into a telephoto lens. Street photographers love using 50mm lenses, but a 75mm lens is less useful in confined urban spaces.
The 75mm equivalent focal length is better for portraits. However, a telephoto lens isn’t much good if you’re expecting a standard-angle lens.
That’s why it’s important to understand crop factor and how it affects the lens type you have.
Conclusion: Different Types of Lenses
Camera lenses can seem like a confusing topic. It’s easy to get lost in the jargon and specifications. But it all comes into focus once you break down the different lens types!
There are prime lenses and zoom lenses. Within those categories, there are standard, wide-angle, and telephoto lenses.
There are super-telephoto, tilt-shift, and macro lenses for more niche photography areas. And if the names don’t stick, you can often find what you need with the focal length.
I hope you’re ready to dive further into the world of camera lenses. It’s a vital area of photography. And once you get to grips with your camera lens, your photography will only improve.
