In the past I have tried to convey a few of my lessons learned about why photographers need to use tripods. I will continue the discussion with some thoughts about lenses – and, I find it difficult to discuss lenses without saying something about filters.

I'll start with something that most experienced photographers will tell you, something you will find quoted in many photography books, and that is, "Buy the best equipment you can afford." That applies to lenses and filters, as well as everything else related to photography. That's if you think you might want to someday get serious about photography. Because, if at first you don't, but someday do, then you will have a whole bunch of less expensive (not as good quality?) equipment that you will want to replace. And , I say "will want to replace", not particularly "have to replace". In any case, it's a lot cheaper to buy the right equipment once than to buy something that you will replace a year or two later. Is there a down side to this? Yes. If you spend the big bucks up front and then decide that photography isn't your thing ... well, it's only money.

I have come to the conclusion that when I get some slides back from the processing lab and they turn out to be not so great, I want the blame to fall on me, not my equipment. I don't want to start second guessing about whether it was me or the "cheap" equipment. If I have the best equipment, I have no excuses. Plus, and maybe more important, knowing that I have the best equipment increases my confidence. With more confidence, I try harder. By "best" equipment, I mean "top of the line" and not necessarily any particular brand name. The Boeing Company currently employs some 16,000 engineers, give or take a few. The reason Boeing needs all these engineers is that most design problems aren't so easy to solve, and it takes a lot of engineers to find solutions to those problems. That gets us back to lenses. Lens design can be a very challenging engineering problem. The perfect lens in my mind would be a 14-to-800mm auto-focus zoom at a constant F1.4 that was 8 inches long and weighed 14 ounces. And this lens would be perfectly sharp across the whole frame, be distortion free, and cost $99.95. We aren't there yet! Why, because the design of such a lens, even if it were even possible with today's technology (NOT!) would be an extremely difficult task. That's why some lenses cost more than others. They have something extra. The point is that the more you expect out of something, the more it's going to cost, because it will be both more expensive to produce and be in higher demand.

So, continuing this thought, it's much easier to design single focal length lenses than zoom lenses that will produce the same level of image quality. Considering this, and the demands of the market place, the typical fixed focal length lens will produce a technically higher quality image than a typical zoom lens will. But, according to most "experts", the difference is usually not very noticeable, especially for the higher quality zoom lenses.

There are lots of benefits to using zoom lenses. The obvious, of course, is that you need only one zoom lens to obtain the coverage of 3 or 4 single focal length lenses. A 20-35mm zoom, for example, will do the job of a 20mm, 24mm, 28mm and 35mm, which combined, will cost more than the zoom. Plus, it's a lot easier to pack three zoom lenses in your bag, than 12 individual single focal length lenses.

To me, a big advantage of a zoom lens is that it allows me to instantly experiment with the composition. When the sun starts to set behind the horizon, it's not a good time to have to stop and change lenses. In fact, I find myself not even changing my zoom lenses sometimes when I think I should, just because I get lazy and don't want to bother doing it. Later I wonder how many good shots I missed because I didn't bother changing lenses. And, of course, changing lenses usually means changing filters, or filter adapters. More work. So, you may decide to get lenses with high zoom ratios. That takes us back to the limits of what engineers can do. The amount of degradation in image quality will increase with increasing zoom ratio, other things being equal.

One area where I think it's worth it to consider a single focal length lens is in macro work. Most of the so called zoom "macro" lenses, in my mind, don't really cut it as macro lenses because they only give you 1:4, or so, magnification. The true macros give you 1:1 magnification. If you only buy one true macro lens, I recommend the longer, the better. The 50mm or 60mm macros don't give you much working distance. Consider the 105mm or 200mm. The 200mm is a lot more money, but with the narrower field of view, it's easier to get a tight shot and eliminate stray background clutter. The down side on the 200mm, in addition to the cost, is that it's big and heavy.

The other area where many photographers buy single focal length lenses is in the really long range, like 500mm and 600mm. That gets us back to how much are you willing to pay, and what do you really want to do with your photography. I haven't taken that step – yet. I have a "cheap" Tokina 400mm/F5.6 and a 1.5X extender. It's OK for scenics, but generally too slow for action shots, particularly with slow film, or with an extender. With 100 speed film, a 1.5X extender, and a polarizing filter, the 400mm/F5.6 won't stop any action, even on the brightest of days. With 400 speed film and without the polarizer, sometimes.

I own about 15 Cokin P-series filters that I keep in a shoe box and never use. But I do use the nice plastic boxes they came in. That's where I keep my square-glass Tiffen filters. Is this an extravagance? Maybe, maybe not. It goes back to what gives you confidence. My theory is that if I'm going to pay the big bucks to get the best lenses, then I might as well use quality filters. I'm not knocking the Cokin filters, but they're resin, not glass, and most of mine got scratched up. Since I had to replace them anyway, well, what's a few more bucks?

Why buy an F2.8 zoom when you can get an F4.0-5.6 for about half the price? Yes, the F2.8 zoom will work in darker light, but there are other considerations too. The F2.8 zooms are the so called "pro" lenses and will give you overall better image quality. This difference may or may not be large enough to justify the extra cost. But, that's not all. SLR cameras auto focus at the maximum aperture of the lens in use, and only stop down to the preset or required aperture when the shutter is released. So, with an F2.8 lens, which lets in more light, the auto-focus will usually respond quicker than with, say, an F3.5-4.5. And if you use an extender, the auto-focus on an F4.0-5.6 may not respond at all. When using manual focus, the F2.8 lens, with the brighter view, will make it easier to focus. One more thing. Solutions to engineering problems often require some compromises and trade-offs. That's why most lenses produce maximum sharpness at F8 to F11 – falling off, sometimes quite noticeably, at the high and low ends. If the low end on your lens is F4, then an F2.8 lens will be sharper at F4 than your lens is.

A few more words about filters. If you think that someday you'll end up with 7 or 8 different lenses, but all with the same filter size, forget it. If you end up with that many lenses, you'll probably need filters of 3 or 4 different sizes to fit them all. Most people don't buy round filters for each different filter size that they need. They buy the Cokin (or different brand) square filters, the filter holders, and the adapter rings that let you use the same filter on a variety of lenses (up to 82mm). The adapter rings cost about $8 each. That's a lot cheaper than buying five different polarizing filters.

You get the same draw back with owning many filters, or filter holders and adapters, as you do with owning many lenses – all that stuff takes up a lot of space and is a real pain to keep track of. Some people have separate bags just for their filters. Another option is to buy the largest round filters that you need, and then get step-up (or is it step-down?) rings to use them on your smaller lenses. But, this would definitely be a poor choice for graduated filters. In fact, I still don't understand why anyone even makes round, graduated filters. That's one of those mysteries of life.

Well, I'm running low on gas here so I'm going to cut this off. There's just one more thing I'll mention, in case you didn't pick up on the inference I made above. There's a big down side to buying more and more, better and better, photographic equipment. Where do you put all that stuff? And how do you carry it all? It weighs a ton. One bag won't hold it all. And, when do you have the time to use it all? Back in the days when I owned one camera body, three fixed lenses, and two filters, life was so much simpler. Now it's gotten so complicated. All those choices – help!!!

Sam Reichmanis

Disclaimer:
The views/comments expressed in this page are not necessarily those of The Boeing Company.
© Boeing Employee's Photographic Society
Last Modified: