As a photographer I have several different lenses in my bag at all times. Each lens has it’s own benefit and down fall. Wide angle lenses, great for getting in large groups, not so good for zooming in at distances. Each lens is unique to its purpose for the most part with a few lenses that serve as good general purpose lenses. In this article I will attempt to break down the different types of lenses every photographer should have in their arsenal. This goes for Studio Photographers and those who primarily shoot on site.

First and foremost it’s important to make sure you can cover the range you plan to shoot in. if you only ever shoot standard portrait head shots in your studio, you probably don’t need to many lenses in your collection. A simple 85mm lens for the studio is probably all that stays on your studio camera. If you are a wedding photographer shooting the ceremony you probably want something with a vast array of rang like 28-135mm or 70-200mm lens (or both) to make sure you can cover things during the wedding without being right on top of the wedding itself, and yet still able to use the lens while not that far away from the subject.

I personally shoot 99% of my weddings with a 28-135mm lens  unless I’m doing group photos, then Ill switch out to a wide angle. The wide range lens is larger enough to give me the coverage I need and yet small enough to not disturb the image quality at large focal lengths. What I want you take from this is that, you will more than likely need more than one lens (and possible body) with you at all times when out on a job.  Below I’ll list some of the lens in my collection, that are all inexpensive lenses that have served me greatly, along with their purpose and benefits. I’ll also give you some image examples of what type of situation the lens works best in.

First let’s start with our multipurpose zoom lens. As I said I shoot with a 28-135mm lens. Specifically the Canon 28-135IS USM its an f3.5-5.6 lens which is decent for normal lighting conditions and will provide the benefit of a fairly wide angle and yet still capable of excellent zoom at 135mm. The key thing to look for in a Zoom lens is the IS which stands for Image Stabilization. At long lengths any movement on the lens is incredibly noticeable so you want to make sure you have a lens with IS built in to keep your shots clear and free of motion blur. I originally owned a Canon 28-200mm USM lens without the stabilizer it was a great clarity lens for 28-75mm but anything past that and I was stuck on a tripod to shoot anything. It’s very important to have image stabilization especially when you are shooting hand held at such things like concerts or weddings. Without it you will end up tossing a lot of  photos that could have been fantastic! It’s also important to note any lens you purchase should have an UltraSonic Motor (name varies by manufacturer) The USM feature allows you quick focus on your subject when snap shooting, a must for weddings and events!

Here is an example of a hand held shot at 135mm with the Canon 28-135mmIS USM Lens. (Post processing applied for toning and shadows)

When I shoot weddings I also use a wide angle lens. Now I’m a thrifty photographer when it comes to gear. Yes I’d love to purchase every L lens Canon makes but I do not do enough weddings or photography work to afford those things so I instead do research and find what works well and go with that. Amazingly enough research has shown between the Canon 17-40mm L and Canon 18-55mm the lens is not that different, Image clarity wise, so for me I’ll take the cheaper (kit) lens that will serve me well at a fraction of the price.

Which brings me to the next class of lens you’ll need in your bag. The Wide Angle lens. Wide angle lenses are great, they come in varying styles and focal lengths and make for some great photos you wouldn’t get with a longer lens. Fisheye wideangles make things very interesting, but I won’t cover those as I don’t consider them a must in your bag.

A good wide angle lens without any distortion is generally going to be something in the 10-25mm range. Anything over 25mm I dont consider to be wide angle anymore as you have to step to far back to get the shot and start to loose the feel you really want with a wide angled shot. I shoot most of my portrait shots with my trusty 18-55mm when at weddings, this allow me to fit a group of 15-20 people in from not to far away so I don’t have to start seeing tiny little faces due to my distance from the subjects. If it’s a smaller group I like to pull out one of my prime lenses( fixed focal length) and shoot with my 24mm Canon lens, it’s an oldy but shoots crystal clear images still. A wide angle really lets you get a nice perspective on things. This image below was shot at 6.3mm on an Olymps UZ-740P&S but I wanted to use to show how you can fit a large object in without being so far back with a wide angle lens.

My last absolute neccesity for a lens is a lens that works well in incredibly low light, where flash is not allowed. I have shot a few Dance performances and the last thing you want to do during the performance is distract from the fluid movent of the dancer by blinding them with flash and making them fall on their face! I have several low light lenses for this purpose. The downfall to a low light lens is that it typically has a small depth of field. So crisp images can sometimes appear mildly blurry due to the shallow depth of field being used. I own a 35mm 2.0 and a couple 50mm 1.8 ( the thrifty fifty is a great buy of a lens!) lenses for usage in these situation.  I prefer a fixed length lens so I am not worrying about mor distortion from movement of a longer lens. I prefer to do the zooming on my own rather than the lens in these situations. These situation are going to require you to also do the control of the aperture and all. No Program mode for these shots, most of the time. It’s important to get as much light in and still preserve clarity so it will take some time for you to get used to shooting in low light, once you get it you’ll love not having to count on flash for the shot to count. It’s important to have this option so you are not relying a high ISO to achieve the shots too. The shot below was shot at f2.0 and ISO 400. Which would not be achievable at f3.5 or above.

Here is a shot using the 50mm 1.8 lens.

Last and not least is a good macro lens. Now you may not be in need of  one but you never know.  Once again I have an older Macro lens. A Macro lens is basically any lens with 1:1 aspect. It’s important to have a lens capable of up close zoom so you can take extreme detail of items such as wedding rings if you are shooting weddings.  Below is an example of a super macro adapter that I have used several times on my 18-55mm to achieve a macro look I needed. You can pick up a super macro adapter for fairly cheap and they give you a neat toy to play with. Downfall to these again is shallow depth of field.  When I first started into photography I primarily shot macro flowers shots because I loved the details of the flowers up close.

Well that should cover all the lenses I recommend having in your bag, there are plenty of others to have in your bag also but thats for another day!

If you have any lens suggestions or question please feel free to email me or leave a comment and I will get back to you!

Rob Higareda