Lesson. Lenses, focal lengths and apertures used in portrait photography

The choice of lens for a photographer is even more important than the choice of camera. In this review you will find a description of focal lengths from 14mm to 300mm. Each focal length has its own specifics, this must be taken into account when choosing a lens. I think you need to start with a kit lens. You can even use a zoom like 18-135, and only then approach the choice of more specialized optics. This is an individual and creative process.

The optimal focal length depends on:

• filming genre
• filming locations
• specifics of work
• the creative vision of each photographer

You can decide on all this only if you already have some experience in photography. Below I will share my observations. All information concerns working with. If you have a camera with a crop matrix, multiply the numbers focal length by one and a half.

Fish eye

The shot from above was taken with a lens. This lens gives full frame coverage on a cropped camera and a circle with black edges on. The viewing angle is 180 degrees diagonally. Shots taken correctly with fisheye look mesmerizing. The peculiarity of this focal length ( come from 4mm to 15mm) is that it has a very narrow scope of application. Fisheye is a lens with the widest possible viewing angle, but without distortion correction. The end result is rounded lines that should be straight, and a very specific perspective. Take this lens with you for a few bright shots. It is difficult to use it for a long time.

14mm

The focal length lens is also very specific. This concerns the geometry of the resulting image. The slightest misalignment of the camera causes severe distortion. This is especially felt when. In nature, the horizon easily collapses. The angle of vision is very wide - you need to understand whether you need it. It has advantages: you can, for example, remove the entire interior of the car from the inside; in any cramped room you will not have problems with the viewing angle; in nature you can make interesting panoramas with a voluminous foreground. You can only shoot portraits with such a focal length very carefully and in full height. In general, photographing people with a lens with such a focal length requires extreme thoughtfulness. This, however, applies to any filming - here you need to think before taking a shot. The 14mm lens is not an everyday tool.

24mm

24mm- quite a wide angle. When working with a wide-angle lens, you always need to think about what should be included in the frame and what should not be. This focal length is easier to work with. It does not bend space as much and is more consistent with ordinary perception. 24mm is very comfortable to shoot indoors. Capturing the entire room will not be a problem. At the same time, geometric distortions are much less pronounced. This is a convenient focal length, you can travel with it (which I would not recommend doing with only 14mm), shoot reportage inside small rooms, and take landscape photographs. For portraits, a 24mm lens is, again, of little use.

Good afternoon friends! We are gradually getting closer to the key concepts in photography (we are talking about), without understanding which further progress in learning photography and conscious shooting in general is unthinkable, and this is what gives good, stable results. Let me give you a quote about following the rules in photography:

Failure to follow this rule results in garbage.
The ability to follow this rule gives a reliable craft level.
The ability to break this rule produces masterpieces.

So, I believe that beginners should strive to master basic techniques and develop basic shooting skills (shoot confidently in manual mode, understand how to compositionally build a frame, what to emphasize in the frame, how to process pictures...). And a confident base and experience will definitely bear fruit in the form of more interesting results, don’t even doubt it!)

Concept of lens focal length

Focal length is one of the most important characteristics lens. In short and simply, this parameter determines how close the image we can get. When choosing a lens, you should start there because your shooting style requires certain focal lengths.

I assume that you already have, which we discussed earlier. Pay attention to the following diagram of a SLR camera:

Here the red dotted line indicates the optical axis of the lens, in fact its center. Here we look at the camera with a cutaway lens, top view. If you turn the lens with the front lens towards you, mark (mentally, of course!) the center of the circle, then draw a perpendicular down from it and get the optical axis. The object being photographed is marked in green on the left. The red lines represent the passage of light through the lens.

Every lens has a lens that flips the image. The point where the rays intersect is called the optical center of the lens. In the figure it is marked by the point of intersection of the lines.

Hold your attention on this diagram for a short time and take a closer look. There is nothing complicated about it, you just need to get into it once.

Focal length is distance from the optical center of the lens to the focal plane (matrix). See schematic drawing above.

Lens developers know the exact location of the optical center. And the point that corresponds to the focal plane, i.e. matrix, can be identified by the designation of a circle with a straight line intersecting it on the camera body to the right of the wheel that switches shooting modes (on Nikon).

Naming. In the speech of photographers you can hear the following names:

• focal length;
• focal;
• FR (abbreviation);
• focal length (English equivalent);
• FL (abbreviation for English equivalent).

How is focal length measured?

Dimensions in millimeters, mm. It's better to look at an example. Let's say we have a popular Nikon 35 mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Nikkor lens. The marking indicates 35 mm, i.e. its focal length is constant and is 35 millimeters. Don’t pay attention to the other characteristics for now, we’ll look at them when we talk about lenses.

Another example is the standard Nikon 18-55 mm f 3.5-5.6 GII VR II AF-S DX Nikkor kit lens. 18-55 mm is indicated here, the focal length is variable. That is, by turning the zoom ring on the lens, you can change it from 18 to 55 mm. Looking ahead, such lenses are called varifocal lenses or zoom lenses.

Popular misconception. Sometimes you hear that the focal length depends on something. This is wrong. As described above, focal length is physical characteristic lens, which is intended by the designers. It does not change under any circumstances.

What does focal length affect?

Attention! We are approaching a critically important part of our conversation. If you understand what is discussed below, you will give yourself an excellent foundation for understanding composition, which is extremely important. If not... You can't help but understand! If anything happens, I am always at your service in the comments.

Parameters affected by focal length:

1. Viewing angle;
2. Image scale;
3. Degree of blur and depth of field;
4. Perspective (indirectly).

Let's look at everything in detail. Small conventions - in the article about matrices we looked at. There we talked about the fact that the larger the matrix, the wider the viewing angle. Here we will accept a certain matrix size and will consider all changes in parameters based on the fact that the matrix does not change. In order to avoid confusion in different focal lengths depending on the size of the matrix, an EFR (effective focal length) was adopted, which recalculates the focal length in the equivalent of a full-frame camera. We will talk about this in the next article about the crop factor. All the following examples are from a crop camera, i.e. if the same shots were taken with a full-frame camera, the viewing angle would be wider.

Effect of focal length on viewing angle

As the focal length increases, the viewing angle decreases, and vice versa, the shorter the focal length, the wider the viewing angle. Look at the examples - taken from the same point at different focal lengths.

We can conclude that:

• The more surrounding space we want to capture in the frame, the wider-angle (with a shorter focal length) the lens should be.
• Conversely, if you need to shoot a relatively distant object, then it is better to prefer a telephoto lens (with a long focal length).

Effect of focal length on image scale

In fact, this is related to the first point. The fact is that with a larger focal length, the object being photographed will appear larger in the final image. They say that such a lens will give greater magnification or a larger image scale.

Example - we stand at one point, without moving, and photograph a person at a distance of 10 m with a wide-angle lens with an 18 mm AF. We get a full-length photograph of a person and a lot of space around the edges. By changing the lens to another one, for example, with an 85 mm FR, we will also get a full-length image of a person, but now there will be less empty space around the edges, and the person himself will be larger. As a result, we will get an image on a larger scale.

The effect of focal length on the degree of blur

It is quite possible that you have already heard about this and know that the longer the focal length, the more blurry the background will be. This is why portrait photographers love telephoto lenses (long focal lengths). Look at the example of a toy to see how the blur changes:

It is worth mentioning that as the focal length increases, the depth of field (DOF) will become smaller, thereby forming blur. Just keep this in mind; we’ll talk about depth of field a little later.

Some beginners associate a DSLR (or mirrorless) with the possibility of strong background blur, which is what they do when they get their hands on such a device. In fact, blurring the background “into the trash” is not always useful. Yes, all our attention is concentrated on the object being photographed, but there is nothing else in the picture! In many cases, it is better to still have background details visible. And plays an important role in this right choice focal.

Effect of focal length on perspective

To begin with, what is perspective? This is the nature of the transfer of the ratios of the sizes of the object being photographed and other elements in the frame, its shape. Consider the following frame, shot at 17 mm (wide angle):

There are road barriers and houses in the distance. If you shoot with a wide-angle lens, you get interesting geometric relationships - the scale of the fence will be noticeably larger than the house on the horizon. This is unusual for the human eye, and allows you to build interesting compositional solutions.

In the second case, shot at 125 mm (telephoto focal length range), the difference in scale between the fence and the house will be smaller.

In general, when photographing objects from one place with different focal lengths the perspective will not change.

Focal length affects perspective only if objects that are close or far away fall into the frame. In the example above (1st photo) you can see that there is a fence in the frame located close to us. Being close to us, the fence is depicted large in the frame, and the houses seem small in contrast. Therefore, it seems to us that the perspective is stretched. Another example is if you shoot a distant object with a long lens, and there is another object much further away, it will seem as if there is a minimum distance between them and they are nearby. As they say, compressed perspective. This occurs due to the photographer’s very strong distance from the subject being photographed, and the difference in the scale of the photographed object and the very distant background is not so great. This can also be seen in the example above (2nd photo). The fence is far away, the house is very far away, but it seems as if the distance between them is not too great.

Wide-angle lenses with short focal lengths are great for landscape photography. However, they are not recommended for use when shooting portraits, because the shape of the face will be more elongated and look unnatural. They say that wide-angle lenses (small focal lengths) stretch out perspective, while telephoto lenses (long focal lengths) compress it. But this happens primarily not because of a change in the focal length itself, but because of the need to change distance between the subject and the photographer.

Shooting handheld at long focal lengths

Problem.

Can be considered an additional activity for those who want to know more) I suggest moving on to a small photo discussion and considering simple situation. In fact, it’s worth “scrolling” such thoughts in your head constantly; very quickly you will get used to doing it automatically.

Let's say you're shooting a portrait. close-up in the evening on a camera with an APS-C matrix. It’s not sunset yet, but it seems that there may already be problems with the lighting, it’s not enough. The goal is to take a beautiful portrait with a strong background blur.

In fact, if you study photography from scratch and consistently read my articles (see), then you understand that your knowledge is not enough. But there’s nothing wrong with that - let’s reason with what we have and gradually expand the horizon of the unknown) Don’t worry, very soon the puzzle of knowledge will come together in your head. Just don't be lazy to think.

Recently we talked about the matrix, (ISO). So, at the same ISO on a camera with a smaller matrix (we compare cameras of approximately the same generation and manufacturer), the picture will be noisier. Usually the noise level of full-frame cameras is taken as the standard. It follows that it is very likely that our camera will be able to record less light with the same quality. Let me explain - when shooting with a full-frame camera at ISO 1600, we get an image of a certain noise level. When shooting on a camera with an APS-C matrix, in order to get the same noise level, we already need to shoot, for example, at ISO 400. This means that less light will get in, which is clearly not a good factor in our conditions.

We need to achieve a strong blur. This can only be done using a telephoto lens with a long focal length. The degree of blur depends on other factors (for example, the distance to the subject, aperture), but more on that later. Let's say we chose 105 mm. This is a fairly large focal length, and...

The longer the focal length, the faster the shutter speed you need to choose. This will compensate for shaking in your hands and get a clear, not blurry photo.

Excerpt? What? Again, we will look at it in detail soon. In short, this is the exposure time of the matrix, i.e. the time during which light hits the matrix after pressing the shutter button. Get used to the word “exposure”) Now we come directly to the problem of handheld shooting with a lens with a long focal length.

You can make a comparison - imagine that you are in school and you need to point out a small detail on the board. Which would be easier to do – with a short handle or a long pointer? Of course, with a pen. The reason is that when using a pointer, minimal deflection of your wrist will result in significant deflection of the opposite side of the pointer. Using a pen, even with a significant deviation of the brush, its opposite edge will not deviate so much. That is, when using a long object as a pointer, we need to clearly fix the position of the hand.

It’s the same in photography, only more complicated. Where we point on the board is our subject. The lens acts as a pen or pointer. Well, the hand remains the drive of this entire mechanism) It is important to understand that the lock here is our strong grip on the camera, a comfortable stand and a short shutter speed (we reduce the exposure time of the matrix). Even if our brush moves at a significant angle, the shutter will operate faster, and the matrix will no longer “see” this.

Let's say we shoot at a shutter speed that is long for these conditions. What's happening? Light from a point on a person passes through the lens and hits the matrix, forming the same point. Our hand trembled slightly, the camera moved upward, and light from another point on the person fell on the same point of the matrix. And at this time the matrix continues to be exposed. As a result, we get a blurry image, or, in common parlance, a “stir”. If the shutter speed were shorter, the result of the shift would not be recorded on the sensor, and we would get a clear photograph.

So what's the answer? And it is very simple - you need to find a balance, the optimal ratio of all parameters. Minimize problems and achieve the best possible results. This reminds me of university times) This is what we will learn.

What do you need to remember about focal length?

I think you already understand what it is and what it affects. Now briefly to repeat the basic information:

1. Focal length is the distance between the optical center of the lens and the camera matrix.
2. Often abbreviated as FR.
3. Measured in mm.
4. The focal length is determined by the lens designers and does not depend on the camera on which the lens is installed.
5. Affects the viewing angle and image scale, allowing you to “zoom out” or “bring closer” objects.
6. Affects the degree of blur and depth of field.
7. Affects the perspective of the image.
8. At longer focal lengths it is more difficult to shoot handheld.

Focal length greatly influences the final result, so it is important to learn to “feel” it and choose the right one for specific purposes.

I suggest you go outside and try to shoot, for example, landscapes with different focal lengths, while being at one point. And observe how objects approach, how geometric relationships change. Take pictures of nearby objects, for example, a tree branch. You don’t even have to shoot, but simply change the focal length (if you have a zoom lens) and observe the changes in the viewfinder.

Over time, you will become so accustomed to your camera and lens that you will be able to determine the approximate result without looking through the viewfinder.

Good luck and see you soon!

4 comments on What is focal length? What does it affect?

Hello, Vlad! I read your lessons on photography, I really liked the articles about the device of the camera, everything is consistent, clear and intelligible. Thank you for this presentation of the material, I will look forward to the continuation with interest :)
Maybe you can make a short announcement about what other topics we can expect articles on? And what materials do you think are useful for a beginner to learn? Otherwise there is so much, you won’t immediately understand what needs to be dealt with first)

• Good evening, Ekaterina!
  Thank you very much for appreciating my work, it’s always very nice to receive such feedback :) Motivates, because... I feel like this was useful to someone!

  1. Regarding announcements, there are materials on the horizon about crop factor, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure, dynamic range and... Perhaps I won’t reveal any more cards for now)

  2. Regarding materials that would be useful for a beginner to study. First you need to understand at what point a person is, i.e. what he knows at the moment and where he wants to go (what results to achieve) and based on this, plan the optimal steps to overcome this path. Tell in general outline, what you know at the moment and what you are striving for (what genre of photography attracts you most and what works inspire you).

  Generally speaking, in my opinion, a beginner needs to conduct an educational program for himself on critical aspects. These include the triangle of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, have an understanding of exposure, focal length, depth of field, shooting modes (shutter speed/aperture priority or manual, it’s better not to shoot in “Auto”) + basic aspects of composition. In general, having a superficial understanding of all this, I would further advise filming, filming, filming as much as possible.

  At the same time, pay attention to the surrounding space from the viewfinder position. Go, for example, to work and, watching how the light falls on the flowers, think about what angle they would look best from, how you would frame them... In parallel with practice, close the gaps in the basic theory of photography, look at many photographs of other people and reflect on how and under what conditions they were filmed. I think the latter is very important. Try shooting in RAW format, you can even start right away, especially if you have editing skills. RAW provides tremendous editing capabilities, “forgiving” many mistakes.

  You definitely need to learn how to process photographs - I’m not a fan of applying a ton of processing to the original frame, but I think that doing basic things (exposure compensation, noise reduction, sharpening, working with shadows/highlights, color correction, eliminating noise, etc.) should be done, i.e. To. give a noticeably better perception of the final photograph. For my part, I can recommend Lightroom.

  And gradually move on to more advanced things, but by that time the “newbie” himself will be able to tell and show a lot of interesting things and he will definitely have an understanding of what to do and where to move next. For basic things, for example, I recommend reading articles on Alexander Shapoval’s website, he explains them well. And don’t forget that practice is everything.

  As for my plans, this moment I have a desire to put together something like a textbook - a sequentially written guide, after reading which a beginner in photography could get comfortable, learn to get good results and critically approach the analysis of his / other people's photographs, the main thing is to learn to think. Plus he knew how to process his photographs, he could easily understand them when there were a lot of them and he simply loved photography)

  It is difficult to describe this at once and takes a lot of time. But gradually materials in chronological order for study will be added to the Lessons section (for now only technical ones, about processing later) + periodically I make Friday Mood collections, where I thematically present the works of other photographers who inspire me and seem interesting.

  P.S. To keep abreast of emerging materials, if you wish, I recommend subscribing to email newsletter or the VK group in the upper right corner of the site. And, of course, you can feel free to ask any questions in the comments or here. I will try to answer if possible.

Understanding the concept of focal length is very important when it comes to choosing a lens. From this article you can learn what focal length is, what lenses can be depending on the focal length, how to learn how to use focal length creatively, and which lenses are right for you.

Step 1: What is focal length

Speaking without any abstruse and tedious definitions, the focal length of the lens determines what the image scale will be in your photographs: what larger number focal length, the larger and closer the images of objects in the frame will be.

There is a misconception that focal length is measured from the back or front point of the lens, but in fact, it is the distance between the optical center of the lens (convergence point) and the camera sensor or film (focus point). To get a clearer picture of what focal length is, take a look at the figure below, which explains it all schematically.

Step 2: Different focal length ranges and what they are used for

Depending on the length of the focal length, photographic lenses are divided into:

—Ultra wide angle 12-24 mm

Such lenses are often considered highly specialized and, as a rule, are not included in the set of required lenses for an ordinary photographer. They have such a wide viewing angle that they can produce very large image distortions, since ranges of this kind are unusual for our eyes. They are most often used to photograph large objects from a short distance or in confined spaces, such as architectural or interior photography. Wide and ultra-wide lenses are not suitable for photography because they magnify the perspective so much that facial features are greatly distorted and look unnatural.

—Wide angle 24-35 mm

This is the focal length that most full frame cameras start at. The 24mm distance is about the point where distortion is still present, but not as pronounced. The images turn out slightly stretched, but there is no longer the same unnaturalness. Wide-angle lenses are very popular among journalists and are mainly used for documentary and reportage shooting. Having large viewing angles, they can capture fairly large scenes in the frame, and there is almost no distortion.

—Standard 35-70 mm

At a focal length of about 45-50 mm, the camera lens has the same angle of view as the human eye (excluding peripheral vision). It is in this focal range that the most realistic photographs are obtained. Personally, I like to use a standard lens for both street photography and indoor photography, such as when meeting friends at a dinner table or in a pub.

The “fifty kopeck” lens, a standard lens with a fixed focal length of 50 mm and f1.8 aperture, is an excellent, inexpensive and compact upgrade for a camera. As a rule, prime lenses produce higher-quality images compared to kit zoom lenses. Without being scattered across several ranges, they cope with their only task simply “excellent”.

—Close telephoto lenses 70-105 mm

This is the most extreme focal length range for kit zoom lenses, and after it long telephoto lenses and primes for portrait photography begin (about 85 mm). If you're interested in shooting close-up portraits, this lens is a good choice: it perfectly separates the foreground and background without flattening or distorting the image.

—Super telephoto lenses 105-300+ mm

Lenses in this range are used for shooting distant objects such as buildings or mountains. At the same time, they are completely unsuitable for, as they greatly compress the perspective. Optics with maximum focal lengths (more than 300 mm) are used mainly for photographing wild animals and sporting events.

Step 3: Focal Length and Image Perspective

I already talked about this topic in the previous section, but to give you a better understanding of exactly how focal length affects perspective, I photographed the same subjects at 4 different focal lengths. The subjects (3 cans of soup) are placed at a distance of 10 cm relative to each other and are in the same positions in each photo. It’s also worth noting that all the pictures were taken with a crop-top camera, so the focal length is slightly longer than stated.

It seems that the perspective of the image is completely determined by the focal length, however, this is quite a misleading impression. In fact, perspective changes depending on how the photographer's position changes in relation to the subject. When I photographed the same objects different lenses, the perspective of the image really changed, as I had to move closer to the subjects and then further away from them. And, as you can see, the wide-angle lens stretched the perspective, and the telephoto lens compressed it.

Step 4: Crop Factor

When photographing with a camera with a crop sensor, you should know what the “crop factor” is. If you take any full-frame lens (EF, FX, etc.) and put it on a body with a crop sensor, the image at the edges of the image will be cropped. The coefficient of such pruning is approximately 1.6. In practice, this means that if you shoot with a 35mm lens, you will get the same image as if you shot with a 50mm lens.

The pictures below show how it all works. By narrowing the angles of view of the lens, you are essentially zooming the image.

Even lenses specifically designed for cropped cameras, such as the EF-S and DX, will still have this effect, since all lenses typically have a full-frame focal length.

This is all! And finally, two more examples of photographs that were taken with a camera with a crop sensor at different focal lengths. The first shot is 24 mm, the second is 300 mm.

- this is one of the most important parameters of the lens. The focal length of a lens indicates how far or close (wide) the lens can ‘see’.

Focal length of lenses - article from Radozhiva

Focal length is measured in millimeters, centimeters and meters. For example, the designation of the lens indicates that its focal length is fixed and is 85 millimeters. And the designation indicates that the focal length of the lens can vary from 28 millimeters to 200 millimeters. Lenses whose focal length can change are called zoom lens(zoom lens, zoom lens). Zoom ratio is calculated I divide a larger number by a smaller number in in this example 200mm\28mm=7 times.

Typically, the longer the focal length of the lens, the larger the dimensions of the lens itself, especially its length.

Focal length- this is the first thing you need to pay attention to when choosing a lens. It is this that shows what viewing angle the camera will capture when working with a particular lens.

Attention: the focal length of the lens is physical quantity the lens itself, it does not change and does not depend on the camera type on which the lens is used. But for cropped cameras and for cameras with different physical dimensions matrices came up with the EGF (Equivalent Focal Length) parameter, it shows the real viewing angle for 35mm film, which is obtained when using a particular lens on cameras with different sizes matrices More details in the section.

Here's an example of how the amount of space a camera can cover changes when using lenses of different focal lengths.

For the examples, I used a camera mounted on a tripod. All photos were taken at F/5.6, the following lenses were used:

• 17mm, 24mm —
• 35mm —
• 50mm —
• 70mm, 100mm, 200mm, 300mm -
• 85mm —
• 135mm —

It is often said that a photographer must have a set of lenses that covers the desired range of focal lengths and thus covers all possible situations in the photographer's work. One of the most classic sets for full-frame cameras can be considered: 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 200-400mm. For cropped cameras, usually a good set consists of lenses 11-16mm, 16-50mm, 50-135mm. There is no need to worry about covering the entire range of focal lengths; you can easily get by with just one lens. Division into different types lenses you can find.

Personal experience:

Conclusions:

Selecting a lens first of all entails determining the desired focal length range. Focal length shows how wide or narrow the lens ‘sees’. Focal length also greatly affects the perspective of the image.

Knowing what focal length is and what the features are is especially important when purchasing lenses. This tutorial will give you information about how different focal length lenses work, how to use them creatively, and choose the ones that are right for you.

Step 1 - What does this actually mean?

The focal length of your lens basically determines how zoomed in your photos will be: the higher the number, the greater the zoom-in effect.

Focal length is often misunderstood as being measured from the front or rear lens. In reality, it is the distance from the point of convergence to the sensor or film in the camera. Look at the diagram below where this is explained

Step 2 - Different focal lengths and how they are used

Ultra wide angle 12-24mm

These lenses are considered highly specialized and are not often included in the average photographer's lens kit. They create such a wide viewing angle that the image may appear distorted because our eyes are not used to this kind of range. They are often used in event and architectural photography for shooting in confined spaces. Wide-angle lenses seem to place the photographer in the center of events, making him no longer an observer, but a participant, creating the effect of presence. They are not very suitable for portrait photography, as they increase the perspective so much that facial features can be distorted and look unnatural.

Wide angle 24-35mm

Here you will find many kit lenses for full frame cameras, they start at a focal length of 24mm, where the angle is wide but the distortion is not yet as pronounced. These lenses are widely used for reportage photography, by photojournalists for documentary shooting, as they have a wide enough angle to include a large number of objects, and the distortions are not so significant.

Standard 35-70 mm

It is in this focal length range of 45-50 mm that the angle of view of the lens will approximately correspond to how our eyes see (excluding peripheral vision). I personally would like to use this range when shooting outdoors or when meeting friends at the pub or dinner table. A standard lens like the 50mm f/1.8 is a great inexpensive lens that produces great results. A fixed focal length lens will always give best quality images than zoom. This is because it is built for a single purpose. He does one job well and several jobs poorly.

Initial telephoto 70-105 mm

This range is usually at the extreme end for kit lenses. This is where telephoto lenses and prime lenses for portrait photography begin (about 85 mm). This a good choice for portrait photography, as it can take close-up portraits without distortion, and also achieve separation of the subject from the background.

Tele 105-300 mm

Lenses in this range are often used for distant scenes such as buildings, mountains. They are not suitable for landscapes as they compress the perspective. Longer focal length lenses are primarily used for sports or wildlife photography.

Step 3 - How does focal length affect perspective?

I already talked about this in the previous section, but to give you a better idea of ​​the effect of focal length on perspective, I took 4 photos of the same objects at different focal lengths and compared them. Three objects (cans of soup) were in the same position at a distance of 10 cm from each other in each photograph. It is worth noting that the pictures were taken with a crop camera, so the focal length will be slightly longer.

Now let's talk about what the crop factor is. Essentially this means that if you put any full frame lens (EF, FX, etc.) on a body with a crop factor, part of the image will be cut off. The trim factor will be approximately 1.6. In real terms, this means that if you shoot with a 35mm lens, you will get the same result as if you shot with a 50mm lens.

How this works is shown in the pictures below. This is actually a zoomed image, narrowing the angle of view of the lens.

Even on lenses designed for cropped cameras (EF-S, DX), a similar effect will be observed, since focal lengths are always indicated for the full frame. It’s just that these lenses at full frame will give a strong vignetting effect, since the image is not projected over the entire area of ​​the frame.

That's all! And two more completely different photographs taken at different focal lengths. The first is at 24 mm, the second is at 300 mm (both on a camera with a crop sensor).