Photography Kit Guide, The Lens.

I wanted to talk to you to today about camera lenses, I will always get questions on Twitter about what is the best lens to use or buy and I myself will always ask bloggers what lens they are using if I particularly like the way they have shot a Photograph. Being a Photographer doesn't make me a know it all and I still have a long way to go in understanding everything that comes with it as a role, what I would say is that after shooting professionally for nearly two years now. I have got to grips with my kit and what I can do with my lenses, so I thought I would share what I have and you could see if they are right for you.

What I have noticed in a lot of people is that they assume their standard kit lens...the one that arrives with your camera, is no good. Usually consisting of an 18-55mm lens, a standard lens is a great way to start in Photography and I would suggest that you learn to use all of it's features and get to grip with it before jumping in to buying another one. The only time I would say to instantly upgrade is if you have bought your camera for a sole purpose or style and this lens is totally not right for your genre. I have taken some great pictures with my 18-55mm, in fact some of my favourite work is shot with this lens and you can get great and cheap add-ons, such as macro rings, fish eye and lomography adaptors if you want to specialise.

Below are some of my pictures shot using a standard kit lens:

My kit contains, a 17-55mm, a 70-300mm macro and a 10-22mm wide angle.
I got the 70-300mm because it allows me to take both intense macro shots and beautiful long shots, although I wouldn't recommend it if you want to take quick pictures. This lens takes time to focus, especially if you are like me and work in constant manual...it has three parts to turn to get a perfect, crisp focus but if you have the time, the results are amazing:

It's also great for weddings if you want to shoot intimate moments without people noticing you and for working with children as you can get great shots without making the child feel intimidated. You could arrange with the parents for their shoot to be in a park or a garden and you can sit back out of the way and capture all the natural smiles and the child hardly notices you are there. Although over everything, I adore this lens for the bokeh and background blur it creates...it really is beautiful, especially when shooting nature.

The 10-22mm is more constrained to landscape work as it has a very shallow zoom, although my main reason of purchase was for this purpose it was also a biggy for my wedding work. Imagine having a huge family to shoot and you can't fit them all in? You wouldn't have a problem with this, from a blogger point of view, you can't take outfit pictures with this lens. It makes you look concave and distorted, although I would say you could get away with using it for product photography...without a macro element. If you are going on holiday or travelling the world and want to capture all of that beautiful scenery or very tall buildings then this is a great lens. At £400 odd it wasn't cheap, but it is a great addition to my kit.

For recommendations for you fashion bloggers I would go with a 50mm f/1.8 on a budget and the f/1.4 if you have a bit extra spare. For beauty bloggers I would stick with your 17-55mm and perhaps get something like this and these so you can get some really close shots. Also remember to practice, practice, practice and read through all the functions of your lens. In my next Photography post I will go through understanding your dial and what all of those abbreviations really mean.