How to Pick the Right Lens for Your DSLR

If you currently only have the kit lens your camera came with, and you’re serious about photography, you should think about investing in an additional lens. But first you need to understand how different lenses could improve your photos. As well as to take ones that you currently can't. We’re taking a look at the different types of lenses and how to choose a lens that best suits your needs.

Ultra-Wide

Ultra-Wide angle lenses from Beachcamera.com can take in a wider scene. Because of the wide field of view, shots with these lenses typically feature a large depth of field. Images tend to pull in subjects that are close, and push away more distant ones making them appear further apart. These can be used in a number of ways. Typical uses include landscape, architecture and interior photography.

Wide Angle

Offering a wide field of view, they often also feature close minimum focusing distances. Wide angle photographs can magnify the perceived distance between subjects in the foreground and background. Many people only reach for a wide angle lens when trying to get the whole of a subject in frame. Whether that's a building, a large group of people or a landscape.

Telephoto

Telephoto lenses are good for focusing in on specific details or distant subjects. They bring far away subjects closer. Also they can have the effect of compressing the sense of distance in a scene making objects appear closer together. A narrow depth of field means that a subject can be in focus with a blurred background and foreground. In addition to being used to photograph subjects you can't, or don't want to get close to like sports or wildlife, telephoto lenses from Beachcamera.com can be used for shooting portraits and even landscapes where their normalization of relative size can be used to give a sense of scale.

Superzoom

When you want to photograph something that's really far off, like maybe the moon, this is the type of lens you need. If you're not aiming as far away as the stars, you can achieve some cool effects when the subject is closer. The background is, essentially, obliterated and reduced to an incredibly smooth blur. These do-it-all lenses cover focal lengths from wide to telephoto, and normally change in length as you zoom. The perfect lens for situations where you can't or don't want to be changing lenses.

Macro

One of the more specialist lenses, these are frequently referred to as any lens which can be used for extreme close-up photography. Macro lenses typically have focal lengths somewhere between 40-200 mm. Though they excel at close-up photography, macro lenses can also be great for portraits thanks to their typical sharpness and focal lengths.

Fisheye

Fisheye lenses are the widest lenses you can buy. Sometimes they're so wide that your image looks like a circle. These are used when you need to photograph absolutely everything possible in the frame. Or if  you want the look of extremely exaggerated depth. The most popular fisheye photos you'll often find are of pets and people staring directly into the camera. It makes their faces look funny. Of course, more practical uses include photographing small spaces or distorting reality to create a specific meaning. If you want to see an example of a fisheye effect in real life, just look through a peephole in a door.

Enjoy whatever new lens, or lenses, you choose and have fun testing their possibilities.