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Lens Types

Most lenses that you can buy, and nearly all those that are sold as a kit with a camera, are zoom lenses. ‘Zoom’ means that the lens has a variable focal length. A typical kit lens might be 18–50mm, 18–70mm or even 18–105mm: 18–50 is about a 3x zoom range, 18–105 is about 6x. This is a pretty decent range, which covers many needs, but the interchangeability of SLR lenses gives you a much wider range of options.

While zooms dominate the market, there are still many lenses with fixed focal length, also known as prime lenses, from 14mm wide-angles to 600mm and 800mm telephoto monsters. Prime lenses are simpler to design and build, and can be light and compact, and some critical users still reckon they give better optical quality. However, it can’t be denied they are less versatile than zooms.

Daffodils beside Ullswater, Lake District (Jon) A real wide-angle lens (12mm here) can take in both foreground detail and the sweep of a landscape

Near Garstang, Lancashire (Jon) Showing the coverage given by the same lens (48mm) on full-frame and APS-C cameras. The APS-C frame is indicated by the red line