{"id":2558,"date":"2012-07-14T06:07:06","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T14:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2019-11-23T10:49:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T18:49:31","slug":"twelve-tips-buying-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/14\/twelve-tips-buying-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve Tips for Buying Your Next Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"

A student of mine asked me for help in selecting a telephoto lens – what to look for and what to avoid.\u00a0 I put down a few ideas for him and thought that maybe you might also find this topic interesting.<\/p>\n

Sooner or later we all buy a lens or two or five or six.\u00a0 I currently have four lenses in my camera bag \u2013 a wide angle zoom (17-40 mm, f\/4), a mid range zoom (24-70 f\/2.8), my workhorse lens (24-105 mm, f\/4) and a telephoto zoom (70-200mm, f 2.8).<\/p>\n

I have two ground rules for buying lenses that I have shared with many people.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 There must be a demonstrated need.\u00a0 In other words, if you can\u2019t realize your vision because you\u2019re missing a particular lens then it\u2019s time to consider adding one.\u00a0 Students, friends and colleagues ask me if I think they should buy a hot new lens.\u00a0 I always ask them, \u201cWhat would this lens permit you to do that you can\u2019t do with your current lenses?\u201d\u00a0 Often, the answer is that it does nothing new for them, they just think it\u2019s a cool lens.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Purchase the best glass you can afford.\u00a0 You will go through several camera bodies in your career but you\u2019ll never outgrow a high quality lens.<\/p>\n

So those are the ground rules but what else is there?<\/p>\n

\"death_valley_sunrise_2012\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 I prefer zoom lenses.\u00a0 Yes, the lens designers must make compromises to create zoom lenses; which is to say, prime lenses are the very best you can buy.\u00a0 But for me a zoom is essential to composing an image.\u00a0 And the quality of zoom lenses is astounding considering all you get.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 On the other hand, I avoid massive zoom lenses, the ones that go from 28mm to 200mm or even 300mm.\u00a0 I had one but I gave it away.\u00a0 When the zoom range is that great there\u2019s no way to avoid serious compromises in the quality.\u00a0 So I go for more moderate zoom ranges, which means I need to purchase several lenses to cover the same focal length range.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 The issue of fast lenses is not so cut and dried.\u00a0 The faster the lens the more costly it is.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a lot heavier.\u00a0 I find that I don\u2019t shoot wide open very often, mostly just for nighttime photography and that\u2019s with my wide angle lenses.\u00a0 But a good friend of mine has a daughter who dances and he photographs her in darkened auditoriums with a hand held telephoto.\u00a0 He uses a 70-200mm f\/2.8 and he needs all that speed.\u00a0 My advice would be if you need to pay attention to cost get a slower lens but keep the quality up.\u00a0 But if you have the cash, go for the fast one.\u00a0 That way, when you need it you have it.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Another consideration is the filter size the lens takes.\u00a0 All of my lenses take 77mm filters.\u00a0 That way I don\u2019t have to buy a new set of filters for a new lens.\u00a0 If you buy high quality filters you can easily spend an additional $300 on a good polarizer.\u00a0 So you can save some money by getting a lens that can use your current crop of filters.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Buy a lens for a full frame camera, even if your camera has a crop sensor.\u00a0 You can always use a lens designed for a full frame sensor on a crop sensor body but the reverse is not always true.\u00a0 And you don\u2019t want to be in the position of having to replace all your lenses if you ever decide to make the move to full frame.\u00a0 As it turns out you can use a lens designed for a crop sensor on a full frame Nikon or Sony body.\u00a0 But realize you give up significant pixel count when you do.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 If you shoot outdoors your lens\u2019 weatherproofing can become a factor.\u00a0 The high quality lenses will be more weather resistant than the cheaper items.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 Consider renting lenses if there\u2019s an expensive one that you would rarely use.\u00a0 Or rent a lens you\u2019re evaluating to get a feel for what it can really do for you.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 If cost is a constraint consider buying a used lens from a reputable dealer.\u00a0 Be aware, however, that good lenses hold their value so don\u2019t expect to get a steal.\u00a0 However, not only will you save a few bucks on the current crop of lenses but you may be able to get your hands on a previous version.\u00a0 Within the past few years Canon has introduced new versions of some of its legendary lenses and the prices jumped $1000 and more.\u00a0 You can save big bucks if you can find the original version.<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 I buy all my lenses online.\u00a0 I have online dealers I trust and can usually save a hundred bucks or so.<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0 Beware of zoom lenses much below $1000.\u00a0 In fact, some of the really good ones are in the two to three grand range.\u00a0 (Huge telephoto primes, I\u2019m talking 500mm and 600mm,\u00a0 can set you back more than your total investment in camera gear!)\u00a0 If I was faced with the prospect of buying a $600 lens or one twice that but didn\u2019t have the cash for the expensive one, I\u2019d save my pennies until I could afford the better one.<\/p>\n

Bonus Tip:\u00a0 How can you save $1000 or more on a lens?\u00a0 Go ahead and spend the $1000 or more on your first lens.\u00a0 That way you won\u2019t be buying cheaper lenses and working up to the quality one.<\/p>\n

I hope you find these tips useful and your next lens is the one you need and provides you joy and satisfaction for years to come.<\/p>\n

If you know someone who might enjoy this post, please feel free to share it with them or post it on your social page.\u00a0 The links are at the top.<\/p>\n

\"mt_williamson_2011\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We do photography workshops.\u00a0 Come on out and join us.\u00a0 Click here to check us out.<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also check out our photography.\u00a0 Click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Know what to look for when purchasing your next lens and get the one that will serve your well for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[532,294,526,529,498,13,288,535,531,530,533,527,528,534],"class_list":["post-2558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to-articles","tag-glass","tag-landscape-photography","tag-lenses","tag-normal-lens","tag-photo-workshops","tag-photography","tag-photography-workshop","tag-prime","tag-purchase","tag-purchasing","tag-quality","tag-telephoto-lens","tag-wide-angle-lens","tag-zoom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-Fg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4649,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions\/4649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}