THE PHOTOGRAPHERS TOOL BOX Part Two: Lenses Copyright 2001 Charles Campbell The quality of your images

s is directly linked the quality of the optics you use. For this reason, you should choose your lenses carefully and buy the best you can afford. This is not a category to in which you want to shop for a bargain price. You generally get what you pay for when purchasing lens optics. Lenses are identified by their focal length. For example, a 180mm telephoto lens has a distance from the center of the lens to the film plane amounting to 180mm. The different views that lenses portray allow the photographer to precisely crop the image. This is called angle-of- view. A 6mm fisheye lens has an enormous 220 view which actually produces a distorted circular image on film. That's why it's called a fisheye lens. The narrowest coverage is that of a 2000mm extreme telephoto. It's 1 degree angle of view offers 40 times more magnification than a common 50mm lens. A 50mm lens is called a normal focal length. The 46 angle of view of a normal focal length renders a picture which approximates normal perspective. This means that the size and distance between objects in the foreground and background closely approximate a human beings normal expectation of how things look. By contrast wide-angle lenses emphasize objects in the foreground and diminish the size and importance of objects in the background. This stretched perspective is in contrast to the flat depth perception of a telephoto lens. The vast majority of outdoor photography can be tackled with focal lengths between 24mm and 300mm . A lens with a fixed focal length is called a prime lens. Generally speaking a prime lens will offer a measure of higher performance than a zoom lens. But the quality of zoom lenses is now so close to that of the prime lenses, that they are an attractive alternative. Most of your photography could be done with 2 simple zooms. A 24mm to 70mm wide angle zoom (or equivalent)

and a 75mm to 300mm zoom (or equivalent). Other combinations will work also. Two zoom lenses can approximate the performance of 4 or 5 prime lenses. In addition, they can crop your pictures to different proportions without moving the camera position. For example if you're photographing a mountain view from the edge of a lake with a 50mm prime lens and you want to take-in a wider perspective, you would be forced to back up with your 50mm lens in order to include more of the view. This might force you into the woods and obstruct your view. But a zoom lens performs a vital service to outdoor photographers by allowing them to zoom to a different focal lengths and achieve the look they want - all the while maintaining the same camera position. For this reason I always carry a wide-angle zoom lens with me even when I have several very high quality prime lenses with me which overlap the focal lengths of the zoom. Here's a pointer if you're as concerned as I am with maintaining the highest quality standards in a zoom lens. Look for zooms that have special low dispersion glass coatings or use something called aspherical glass elements, or both. Lenses have adjustable lens openings called apertures . These apertures are identified by numbers called f/stops. An f/stop number of f/2.8 is a relatively large lens opening allowing a great deal of light to pass through the lens. An f/stop number of f/22 is a very small opening and reduces the amount of light that can pass through a lens. You could theoretically take perfectly good photos with a lens that had only one aperture. In that case the shutter speed of the camera would permit the necessary exposure adjustments. But since you have both apertures and shutter speeds to work with, you have a great deal more creativity possible in addition to controlling the exposure. We'll discuss this in greater detail on the section dealing with exposure. My 180mm prime telephoto has a maximum aperture of f/2.8. This f/stop is known as the maximum speed of the lens. This is always marked on the front of the lens. An f/2.8 lens is going to offer a brighter image in the camera viewfinder than a lens with a maximum aperture of, let's say, only f/5.6. In addition to a brighter image, the fast light gathering qualities of this telephoto lens permit me to shoot with faster shutter speeds and in dimmer light without resorting to faster films . The disadvantages of fast lenses is that they are larger, heavier and much, much, more expensive. Your photography may not require a fast lens. For example, for hiking and backpacking I like to use zoom lenses with something called, variable maximum aperture. My 28 to 70mm zoom has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at 28mm and f/5.6 at

70mm. The variable aperture design allows the manufacturer to create a lens which is compact in design, lightweight and much less expensive. The quality of these zooms is very good. A fast lens is going to let you handhold more shots and work in dimmer light. But in my experience, I infrequently shoot at the maximum aperture of a lens. I usually like to stop down to the smaller apertures for greater DOF. With most outdoor photographs it is desirable to take an image which is in sharp focus from foreground to background. And for this reason it is necessary to use the smaller f/stops of the lens. In fact, for this reason, I am often more interested in the minimum aperture of a lens. For example, a very fast 50mm f/1.2 lens may have a minimum aperture of only f/16 whereas an f/1.8 lens may be available with a minimum aperture of f/22. The benefits of the f/22 aperture far outweigh the fast f/1.2 feature. The exception to this is with telephoto lenses. Telephoto lenses have less DOF to begin with. So smaller apertures are less valuable anyway. And I am more inclined to need a fast telephoto lens than a slow one. A bright viewfinder image with a 300mm lens is a must in order to achieve critical focus. And most wildlife photography is done in the dim light of dusk and dawn when the animals are feeding and foraging. I wouldn't buy a prime 300mm, 400mm, or 500mm lens slower than f/4. A reasonable compromise would be to use one of the popular and versatile 200mm to 400mm zoom lenses featuring a 5.6 fixed aperture. The advantage of this lens is that it is small and lightweight, but you do sacrifice image brightness and the ability to use fast shutter speeds to freeze the movements of wildlife in dim light. The physics of capturing light with a telephoto lens makes them vulnerable to a problem known as chromatic aberration. This is revealed by a general lack of sharpness or a slight color fringing. Lens manufacturers overcome chromatic aberration by using speciallycoated low dispersion glass. This very special coating brings all the light waves into perfect alignment and eliminates color fringing. Such lenses are marked with the letters LD, ED, APO, or SD. These lenses are optimized for performance at maximum aperture. They can be very expensive. Teleconverters are lenses which mount between the camera and a telephoto lens. They multiply the focal length of the lens and increase the magnification. They are light weight and offer a relatively inexpensive way to increase the power of a telephoto lens. Placing a teleconverter between your lens and camera uses up some light and

darkens the viewfinder making focusing more difficult. They can also interfere with the electronics between the camera and the lens or slightly soften the image. For this reason, be sure to get a teleconverter which is specifically matched to the lens by the same manufacturer. I frequently use a 1.4x teleconverter with my 300mm f/4 prime lens. The resulting focal length is 420mm at f/5.6. Macro lenses are great for close-up photography. They typically come in three focal lengths: 55 or 60mm, 105mm and 200mm. Why do you need a macro lens? Most lenses are optimized for maximum sharpness when focused to infinity. They aren't as sharp when focused on closeup subjects. For this reason, the so-called macro range of a zoom lens isn't ideal for closeup photography. But macro lenses provide edge to edge sharpness even at maximum apertures. Macro lenses will focus all the way from infinity to life size magnification. At Life size magnification an object as small as a postage stamp will completely fill the image in the viewfinder. Lens hoods are one of the most important and yet least expensive accessories you can own. They help prevent problems with lens flare. This can occur when stray sunlight strikes the front of the lens and ricochets around inside the lens. Lens flare will cause a washed out look or create a prism-shaped ghost-like image to appear. The devil of it is that you may not see lens flare when you look through the camera but you'll definitely see it on the final photo. Try to avoid shooting straight into the sun and use a lens hood to keep overhead light from striking your lens.