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The Second Eye The Lens
By: Ali Maadelat
One word: Glass...
No, not glass as in your window, but glass as in your lens.
All cameras have lenses. Lenses are there to 1) Focus the light and 2) Focus the light. As you may realize, focusing is VERY important in a trade that it dependant solely on sight. This is why you NEED to have a good lens.
In fact, I will go so far as to tell you to spend MORE on your lens than you do on your camera: Downgrade the camera and upgrade the lens. Believe me.
Light is degraded two times when it goes through any piece of glass: once when it enters and once when it escapes. This is why it is SO important to buy good lenses.
However, again, I lied. The lens does not only focus, it also magnifies and pulls back. This has to do with the focal length which I cant get into now. The zooming also effects the picture in more ways than one: It makes the angle of view smaller or larger depending on the magnification. The more you zoom in, the less of the picture you see and visa versa. I go into detail about this in my secret package.
A 50mm lens is considered by most to produce a result the closest to the human eye's and is thusly called a "normal lens". Anything wider than that is called a "wide-angle lens" and anything closer is called a "telephoto lens".
Aside from having a wide angle of view, wide-angle lenses also cause curvatures shown as distortions in space. I will explain how to use them to your advantage later.
Another type of lens is called a "macro lens". Macro lenses need less space to focus, so they are able to essentially act like microscopes. The "flower" mode on your camera tries to (unsuccessfully) mimic this lens.
When buying a camera, always make sure you have the higest OPTICAL ZOOM possible. Do NOT use digital zoom!
Digital zoom is nothing more than a marketing ploy by camera companies to get money from the masses. Digital zoom works by cropping out existing pixels. It cuts anywhere from 20%-30% of the pixels out of the picture. That leads to loss in picture quality
Essentially, don't use digital zoom. It sucks.
To your success in photography,
The Snobby Photographer
The Snobby Photographer is a veteran photographer who is intent on helping people take better pictures. Sign up for his FREE newsletter at http://www.thesnobbyphotographer.com. |
