Lens News

While there is no single “perfect lens” for all forms of photography, a few lenses offer more versatility, image quality, portability, and bang for the buck than others. One such lens is the 50mm “Nifty Fifty” we featured in a recent Shutterbug video, and as you’ll see in the video below, another is the 135mm f/2 short telephoto.

Shutterbug photographer Jordan Matter is back with another photography how-to video, offering tips on getting the most out of your 50mm lens. 

It’s common knowledge that telephoto lenses enable you to get in tight on distant subjects, while wide-angle lenses do the opposite by providing a more expansive view of the scene you are photographing. But what about the interaction between focal length and perspective? This is a very important concept to understand.

You’ve probably heard the term “lens diffraction” to describe how image sharpness suffers as you use smaller and smaller aperture settings. While depth of field increases as you stop down a lens, the amount of fine detail a lens can resolve decreases at smaller f/stops.

The term “bokeh” is a common buzzword among photographers these days, used to describe the subjective quality of defocused areas in an scene—either behind or in front of the main subject. A popular misconception is that it’s all as simple as “a faster aperture or a longer lens gives you better bokeh.” But as you’ll see in the video below, there’s a bit more to pleasing bokeh than that.

Let’s say you want to try your hand at close-up photography, but you can’t afford an expensive macro lens. Or maybe you’re not short of cash, but you don’t plan on doing enough macro work to justify the investment. 

There are an abundance of inexpensive adapters available that enable photographers to use vintage lenses on modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, and it’s often possible to pick up a premium legacy lens for far less than the cost of a current entry-level or mid-priced lens.