Building The Ultimate Lens Kit

There are so many top-notch, high-tech, affordable lenses available for nature photography, it’s easy to assemble a collection that will give you the right tool for what you love to do

By Mike Stensvold

Labels: Lenses

Prime Or Zoom?
Back in the day, pros used prime (single-focal-length) lenses because zooms back then weren’t very sharp. That has changed today, though, and most of the landscape pros we surveyed use pro zoom lenses. Improvements in optical materials, construction techniques and computer-aided design breakthroughs have made today’s top zoom lenses excellent. That said, few pros would use the “kit” lenses that are sold with entry-level D-SLRs. These 18-55mm (or thereabouts) $100 wonders are great for D-SLR newbies, but they don’t have the sharpness, distortion and aberration correction, and in the case of longer zooms, AF performance, of the pro zooms.
Pro wildlife photographers still prefer the fast supertelephoto lenses over zooms, in part for their longer focal lengths and in part for their greater speed. The longest focal length available in a current Canon or Nikon zoom lens is 400mm, while the superteles go up to 800mm (Canon) and 600mm (Nikon). And both Canon and Nikon offer 400mm ƒ/2.8 supertelephotos, a stop faster than Nikon’s 200-400mm ƒ/4 supertele zoom and two stops faster than Canon’s 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 supertele zoom. Zooms do offer a special advantage to the D-SLR user: fewer lens changes. Each time you change lenses on a D-SLR, dust can enter and settle on the low-pass filter that covers the image sensor. Once there, the dust will appear in every future shot. With zoom lenses, you won’t have to change lenses every time you want to use a new focal length.	*Pentax DA 300mm*	*Tamron 18-270mm*

Resources
Canon (800) OK-CANON www.usa.canon.com Nikon (800) NIKON-US www.nikonusa.com Olympus (888) 968-4448 www.olympusamerica.com Panasonic (800) 211-PANA www.panasonic.com	Pentax (800) 877-0155 www.pentaximaging.com Pro-Optic (Adorama) (888) 991-6599 www.adorama.com Samsung (800) SAMSUNG www.samsung.com Sigma (800) 896-6858 www.sigma-photo.com	Sony (877) 865-SONY www.sonystyle.com Tamron USA (631) 858-8400 www.tamron.com Tokina (THK Photo Products) (800) 421-1141 www.thkphoto.com

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Photography MASTERS makes this comment

Tuesday, 25 August 2009

This is one of the best articles! I plan to add some of those lenses to my collection! Thanks
Corker2 makes this comment

Wednesday, 08 July 2009

A very good article to read! However, some of these Lens are quite expensive, and really are not for the average Amateur Photographer. I know for sure that I can't afford buying a $1 - 4,000 Lens! Just to much money. I like taking pictures of what-ever will interest me, mostly Landscapes, Flowers, and places of History will always attract my attention. I shoot a Pentax K100D DSLR with a variety of different Lens that are not real expensive, but take a pretty good Image. I use the Pentax 18-55mm Lens, a Tamron 28-80mm Lens, a 70-300mm Lens, a Phoenix 28-210mm Wide Angle Lens. I can also add my Pentax 2X Doubler, which doubles everything. I also have a "Add On" Wide Angle Lens to add to my Tamron 28-80mm Lens to give me Wide Angles. I would think that I have more than enough to take some good Images.
Karl Hokanson makes this comment

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

I shoot Nikon D200 (D80) back up. Prime subject is sports (all three bike racing, sports cars and motorcycles. What three Nikon lenses would you recommend for my basics. I've tried other lenses and found only the Nikon's focus fast enoguh. I've also found I need faster lenses to achieve the shallow depth of field. Yes, I know these cost more. I'm also thinking whether I should be purchasing for full frame now. Thanks
ForestWander Nature Photography makes this comment

Monday, 15 June 2009

I am working on this a little at a time. So far the most versatile lens I have purchase is the 150-500mm Sigma. I use this combined with a 24-105mm Canon so in two lenses I cover a wide range 24-500mm IS f4-f6.3 I also use a quantaray 70-300mm for macro shots And a Sigma 28mm Fixed lens. I would like to add two lenses to my arsenal... a Good Macro lens such as 70-200mm IS and a nice prime 300 or 400mm telephoto. At that point I think I will be done lens shopping but then again is one ever done...
John Schickler makes this comment

Sunday, 14 June 2009

To Bob Johnson. If you simply click and drag over the desired data, right click and copy, then paste into Word and do this for each "page", you can edit out the icons, etc. and keep a copy saved. I save my print copy but use this method for reference. These articles are great.
Wayne makes this comment

Sunday, 24 May 2009

When I saw your article, I went to the table to see the lenses you recommend for a Canon full-frame camera. I was surprised to see your choice of the MP-E 65mm macro lens. I say this because the 'experts' that I read e.g., John Gerlach recommends a 200 or 100 mm macro as they give more flexibility. I then looked up the MP-E and saw that it is a specialty lens, so I was wondering on the rationale for the MP-E 65 rather than, say, the 100.
Bob Johnston makes this comment

Saturday, 16 May 2009

This was a great article! Too bad it is not in copy mode so those, like me, can have for future purchasing aides. i just got a subscription to your magazine and I love it.

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Building The Ultimate Lens Kit

There are so many top-notch, high-tech, affordable lenses available for nature photography, it’s easy to assemble a collection that will give you the right tool for what you love to do

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