by Johanna Draper

Created on: January 19, 2010

One of the most important things when buying a digital SLR camera is choosing a lens, particularly the right lens.
When choosing a lens for your camera, you need to consider what kind of photography you plan to do.

There are many different styles of photography that require different kinds of lenses.
One thing you are probably considering when buying a lens is the zoom range.

How much zoom do you need, and what are your options?

Here are some popular styles of photography that you may be interested in, and the type of lens needed for this.

Portrait: Whether in studio, or outside scenic portraits, the subject is almost always the main focus. The 50mm range is a popular choice for studio portraits and works well for outside scenic portraits, but a telephoto lens is also popular when working outside, to obtain a stronger depth of field if desired.

Macro. Close ups of things such as insects, products, and other small objects. Actually many zoom ranges can be used for macro photography.  Many will use a 50-60mm range for small objects. This range works well with products such as jewelry, blocks, and other objects of similar size.
90-105mm is a common size for some nature macro, such as flower and insects, however I often take amazing macro shots with my 300mm lens zoomed in all the way, which allows me to capture sharp detail in a small insect such as a bee, while completely blurring out the background, and allowing me to work from a distance.

Nature: If you plan to work with nature, you are going to need some zoom. Getting close to birds and deer is very difficult if not impossible, and the 70-300mm lens I mentioned above works excellently for this. 200mm lenses are also a popular choice, and are a bit more affordable if you need VR (Nikon's lenses have VR, which stands for "Vibration Reduction". Canon users look for IS, "Image Stabilizer".)

Scenic: Wide angle lenses are used most often for landscape photos. Sunsets are more majestic, fields are better captured, and moon rises are more detailed when a wide angle lens is used. Most often lenses from 17mm to 50mm are used for this. With a lens of this range you will be able to capture a much broader picture.

All Purpose: Of course you may just want to be able to shoot everything from your kids as they grown, to your latest get together with friends. For this I think a good choice would be something in the "in between" range, my 28-80mm lens is a good example of an "in between" lens. I can use it for studio portraits, and take it to most any event, even weddings, and get excellent results. It is not however, to great for macro, though I can do product photography with it just fine.
Photographing bees from a distance is out of the question however.

All purpose lenses work great for events, and can be used for some portraiture and scenic too, though you will be somewhat limited. However an all purpose lens is great if you are on a tight budget!

Hopefully this information will help you in determining what lens you need to get for your camera.

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