What Makes for a Good SLR Lens?
I had the pleasure of visiting an old acquaintance yesterday who was the main reason I decided to begin my photography journey. It appears that he’s been taking stunning photos for ever and then proceeded to give me his most recent present – a brand new Canon lens: Ultra-Wide 16 35mm f/2.8
I tried it and realized how excellent it was. But why was it so excellent? What is it that is it that makes a lens great? Many people spend thousands of dollars to purchase the right lens. Here are some reasons why this is so crucial.
1.) Distortion
All lenses exhibit some sort of distortion. It is evident the most often on ultra wide-angle lenses and especially when they are at extremely wide angles. One good example is a photograph I snapped in Venice (the URL is below as an address on Flickr). I walked all the way back to where it was was possible to get the full frame in the photo and needed to make use of the widest lens angle I could (14mm). It is evident that the tower on the left side is leaning. It’s not as straight as this (and you’ll need to be convinced this is indeed straight) However, it does show the lens distortion that is present.
Higher quality lenses are less susceptible to distortion because they use a more lenses elements. Nikon has recently launched an outstanding 14-24mm ultra wide angle lens with only a low distortion. The lens comes with 11 elements of the lens and weighs in at 1kg. This is certainly not a lens you want to be taken lightly.
Although there are photo editing software available in the present to fix distortion in the lens, it is always best to keep the image exactly as it is.
2.) Speed
The lens of the camera is responsible for capturing light and focusing it on the camera’s sensor. Lenses with higher quality tend to have larger apertures which allows more light to be able to pass through to the camera. The size of the aperture is measured by an F-stop. In a confusing way, the bigger the aperture maximum for the lens is, the lower the F-stop.
The faster lenses are crucial in capturing sporting events and wildlife. They’re also useful to use for low-light photos and enable the photographer to not rely on the ISO capabilities that the camera has.
3) Vignetting
Vignetting tends to be seen at the edges of a photo as dark areas. This is due to more light is absorbed by the center of the lens as opposed to at the edges because of the poor quality of lens glass or poor construction.
4.) Aberration
There is chromatic aberration as well as spherical aberration. Chromatic aberration can be described as a form of distortion that occurs when the lens is unable to concentrate all colours towards the same point of convergence. It is evident as a discolored edge the objects in the picture.
Spherical Aberration is a distortion that is due to the spherical lens shape . It occurs when light strikes near the edges of the lens rather than the centre , which causes clarity and resolution problems. This is more prevalent when the lens’s aperture is open completely.
In actuality, the majority of premium lenses feature numerous technologies that are built into them to minimize aberration by many different methods like lens coatings, sophisticated techniques of construction as well as floating components.
5.) Vibration Reduction
A lot of lenses come with vibration reduction built-in to the lens. The reduction in vibration helps stabilize the lens during an image taken with a hand, and allows photographers to capture a clear image with slower shutter speeds than they otherwise would be capable of. In reality, vibration reduction on lenses has to be turned off in a tripod that has a long exposure photo.
Lenses serve to cameras the same way tires are to automobiles. It’s nice to own a Ferrari however, put poor tires on it and the basic Chevy will be a tumbling wreck around it. In actuality, the majority of lenses available in the present (even the most basic ones) are always good, but often times, investing in lenses will produce even more impressive outcomes.
