Posts Tagged ‘Kit lens’

Interchangeable Lens Cameras are often sold in kits containing a basic zoom lens. Because these lenses come with the camera as part of a kit, they are often referred to as 'kit lenses'.

The kit lens depends on the camera, but it is practically always a zoom. Often it is something like an 18-55mm for an APS-C camera, 24-100mm for a full frame camera, or 14-24mm for a m4/3 camera. These are all roughly equivalent.

The kit lens lets you go from wide-angle to short telephoto and everything in between. It's a good all-round general purpose lens.

Often you may read disparaging remarks about kit lenses. For sure, they're not the sharpest lenses around, and they don't have fast apertures for easily creating smooth and creamy out of focus backgrounds. But they're surprisingly useful and can give great results when you play to their strengths.

In this article I want to look at why using a different lens to the one that came with your camera might be a good idea. I'm not going to go into details about the quality of the lens - most 'kit' lenses sold with cameras today are perfectly fine.

Rather, I want to look at how restricting yourself to using a lens or focal length you don't normally use much can help you hone your photographic technique.

What lens should I buy? is probably one of the most commonly asked photography questions by those with interchangeable lens cameras. Unlike cameras, where differences between different models tend to be fairly minor, the differences between lenses can be quite large.

Lenses can be quite expensive as well, sometimes you may pay more for a new lens than you do for the camera itself. While you may replace your camera body in the future, lenses don't often get outdated, and so should be considered more of a long term investment in your photography. So it is a good idea to think about whether you really need a particular lens before splashing out on it.

Camera and two lens kit

Ultimately, what lens to buy can only be decided by you. A good lens kit depends on the kind of subjects you like photographing, your budget, and even your style of photography. However, there are a number of things you can think about to help you in making a decision that will provide the most Bang for your buck.