Lots of people have been asking me what lens they should buy to get the best pictures out of their photography. The answer is that there is no best lens for everything.
An 85mm f1.4 may be great for portraits but may not be long enough for wildlife where you need to shoot the animals from a distance without disturbing them. You wouldn't use an 85mm 1.4 for macro use either because of the low magnification ratio.
Often as photographers, we start of with shooting everything around us. But we'll often find a specific genre that we particularly enjoy, and from then on, we'll invest in the gear specific to that photography type.
Let me give you some lens recommendations according to budget:
Portraiture
50mm f1.8 (cheap)
85mm f1.8 (moderate)
85mm f1.4/1.2 (expensive)
Events (i.e. birthday, social parties)
18-55mm f3.5-5.6 (cheap)
17-50mm f2.8 (moderate)
24-70 (expensive)
Wedding
18-55mm f3.5-5.6 + 55-200mm f4-5.6 (cheap)
24-70mm f2.8 + 70-200mm f2.8 (expensive)
Macro
Tamron 60mm f2 Macro (cheap)
105mm f2.8 (expensive)
Landscape
18-55mm f3.5-5.6 (cheap)
tokina 11-16mm f2.8 (moderate)
nikon 14-24mm f2.8 (expensive)
canon 16-35mm f2.8 (expensive)
wildlife (depends on how far your subject will be)
55-200mm f4-5.6 (cheap)
600mm f4 (insanely expensive $10,000+)
The optically best lenses usually also means that they are the heaviest, I strongly advise against getting huge lenses at the start because it will deter you from bringing your camera around and taking photos, especially when that is most important in helping you improve your skills.
Attached below is a video by Mark Wallace from Adorama, who is an excellent teacher. He talks about camera lens choices and is a very useful video that shows that perspective and compression differences between wide and tele lenses. Enjoy!
I personally don't use tripods but this video shows the differences between the really cheap tripods that people give out for free versus the high end ones that people spend so much money on. Pretty amusing way of testing the difference. Hahaha!
In a few hours is my birthday and also the official launch of by new blog:
royphotog.blogspot.com
I've decided that I'm gonna use this blog for 3 main purposes:
1) LEARNING
by writing and posting interesting articles and tips that I've found on the internet.
You can find them under the PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS label on the right of this page.
2) SHARING
by posting my best photos I took so far in my photography career.
You can find them under the PORTFOLIO label and their subcategories on the right of the page.
3) FASHION
by taking photos of stylist people
you can find it under the FASHION ON THE STREETS label on the right side of the page.
I sincerely hope you'll find my blog a joy to read and please feel free to leave your comments.
Today I'm gonna share a really inspiring video from Ted.com.
David Griffin is the photo director of National Geographic, a magazine that showcases the most amazing photographs on the planet. He speaks about photography with such passion and shares some of the stories that his photojournalists brought back. This video made me wanna jump straight out of my room and start capturing not only scenes and moments, but a story...
If you're interested, click here to access this wonderful video.
Although i'm not a Canon fan, I think this Canon based, 3 part video series gives a very good introduction to the basics of DSLR use.
This video has beautiful cinematography and locality. The 2 lovely hosts explain everything from exposure to composition and other special effects and lenses. Something about how they do it makes it so easy to understand.
WooHoo~! The new Nikon D5100 is out! For those who are just starting out photography, I would highly recommend this camera, has one of the best sensors of this price range. That equates to better image quality in low lighting conditions. For more information about its specifications, you can check it out here.
For Canon lovers, the new 600D is a pretty good camera too! However, from my subjective opinion, in terms of image quality, the D5100 should still have an edge over this. For more information and review by DPreview.com of the Canon 600D, you can click here.
