The lawn in front of the Ryan Center for Music Education with 18mm lens at f8.
Each of these lens types comes with its own set of challenges so it you have one (or both if you’ve hosted several bake sales) spend more time than you otherwise would getting to know it. For me, the wide ones require the most time to use well although you might not think so. While yes, anything below 20mm gets the entire scene into the frame, all subjects are reduced in scale, and the subject is often difficult to determine. There is excellent depth-of-field sharpness even when shot wide open as anything below f2.0 will show. Students are often bitten by the “macro bug” and find joy in capturing large images of small subjects with a macro/micro or wide lens. I find more excitement in using a wide, fast (f1.4) fixed lens in low light conditions.
Homeward bound at 7pm in Tokyo with 28mm lens at f1.8
A long lens will, conversely, clearly define a selected subject so must be focused with care. Despite vibration reduction/image stabilization, a long lens often benefits from some type of camera support even when shot wide open, so decide what camera body/lens combination you can hand-hold to photograph without blur.Por
Portion of Chicago skyline with 400mm lens at f8, polarizing filter and tripod
