For some time now compact cameras have come fitted with zoom lenses, and zoom lenses are often bundled with SLR cameras. Because of the technology involved modern zoom lenses in digital cameras are often even stronger.
So when and why should you use the zoom lens on your camera?
One of the most important rules with portrait photography is €get close€. Unfortunately, for most family snaps, that rule is rarely applied. Uncluttered, closely cropped shots make the best family snaps and natural portrait photographs, and a zoom lens is the ideal way to get close in and get the cropping right.
What does using a zoom do for your photograph?
A zoom lens will get you physically closer to the action, and the content of your photograph will be much stronger if you are be able to isolate parts of the action.
Depth of field can also be used to your advantage when using a zoom lens particularly in portraits. Keep the aperture at around f5.6 and focus on the subject, when the lens is wide open you'll get the subject in focus and the foreground and background out of focus giving you much stronger emphasis on the subject.
A mid range zoom lens is also ideal for travelling. My wife has banned me from taking a tripod and sets of lenses on holiday so I take a 24mm-105mm lens which can deal with most situations. If you can get away with taking another zoom with you take a 70mm-200mm or something up to 300mm or 400mm. Photographing the locals without attracting attention to yourself is much easier with a longer zoom lens.
Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom?
If you are about to buy a camera, perhaps even step into the world of digital, buy a camera with the strongest optical zoom you can afford. Some of the digital cameras available today have zoom lenses that are 10x or even stronger! The higher the number represented in the optical zoom the closer you can get to the action and the more dynamic your pictures can be. €As for digital zoom, well€¦that is another thing altogether. Digital zooms are available in many digital cameras and work on a similar principle to cropping in on a negative. Digital zoom crops in on the digital image and uses only the central pixels in the picture. Then, using inbuilt software, the image is enhanced and built into a file that can be printed. However, the sharpness of your pictures suffers and should only be used if your desperate, if at all. Don't factor the digital zoom into your purchasing decision.
The Great All-Rounders
Advancements in lens technologies have made some lenses possible today that just couldn't have been considered twenty years ago. Today, you can buy one lens that lets you take wide angle landscapes and then zoom in to a person in that landscape. What's more, these lenses are incredibly sharp! Lenses like the Tamron 18-250mm for digital SLR cameras are fantastic and you could travel the world with only this lens and hardly ever miss a shot. In fact, Tamron are packaging their 11-18mm and their 18-250mm lenses together now so that you are covered from superwide to supertelephoto in only two lenses. Most high end lenses also have an image stabilisation capability which can really help with blurred photographs resulting from camera shake.
Compact digital cameras are also including lenses that do much the same thing. The Ricoh R7 has a 7x zoom. The Canon PowerShot is similar. The SX100 IS has a 10x zoom. And there are many others like these. Included with these kinds of cameras are vibration reduction and anti shake modes that prevent your telephoto pictures from being blurred from camera shake.
How Close is €Close'?
If you don't know just how close to get, try this. Compose your picture as you normally would and take it. Then, zoom in. Then, zoom in some more. Keep zooming, or moving closer until you actually begin to see only what you need to see and no more. Take another picture and compare the two. Almost invariably, your second picture will be the more interesting and dynamic of the two.
More here: http://www.weddingphotographerslondon.uk.com/
So when and why should you use the zoom lens on your camera?
One of the most important rules with portrait photography is €get close€. Unfortunately, for most family snaps, that rule is rarely applied. Uncluttered, closely cropped shots make the best family snaps and natural portrait photographs, and a zoom lens is the ideal way to get close in and get the cropping right.
What does using a zoom do for your photograph?
A zoom lens will get you physically closer to the action, and the content of your photograph will be much stronger if you are be able to isolate parts of the action.
Depth of field can also be used to your advantage when using a zoom lens particularly in portraits. Keep the aperture at around f5.6 and focus on the subject, when the lens is wide open you'll get the subject in focus and the foreground and background out of focus giving you much stronger emphasis on the subject.
A mid range zoom lens is also ideal for travelling. My wife has banned me from taking a tripod and sets of lenses on holiday so I take a 24mm-105mm lens which can deal with most situations. If you can get away with taking another zoom with you take a 70mm-200mm or something up to 300mm or 400mm. Photographing the locals without attracting attention to yourself is much easier with a longer zoom lens.
Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom?
If you are about to buy a camera, perhaps even step into the world of digital, buy a camera with the strongest optical zoom you can afford. Some of the digital cameras available today have zoom lenses that are 10x or even stronger! The higher the number represented in the optical zoom the closer you can get to the action and the more dynamic your pictures can be. €As for digital zoom, well€¦that is another thing altogether. Digital zooms are available in many digital cameras and work on a similar principle to cropping in on a negative. Digital zoom crops in on the digital image and uses only the central pixels in the picture. Then, using inbuilt software, the image is enhanced and built into a file that can be printed. However, the sharpness of your pictures suffers and should only be used if your desperate, if at all. Don't factor the digital zoom into your purchasing decision.
The Great All-Rounders
Advancements in lens technologies have made some lenses possible today that just couldn't have been considered twenty years ago. Today, you can buy one lens that lets you take wide angle landscapes and then zoom in to a person in that landscape. What's more, these lenses are incredibly sharp! Lenses like the Tamron 18-250mm for digital SLR cameras are fantastic and you could travel the world with only this lens and hardly ever miss a shot. In fact, Tamron are packaging their 11-18mm and their 18-250mm lenses together now so that you are covered from superwide to supertelephoto in only two lenses. Most high end lenses also have an image stabilisation capability which can really help with blurred photographs resulting from camera shake.
Compact digital cameras are also including lenses that do much the same thing. The Ricoh R7 has a 7x zoom. The Canon PowerShot is similar. The SX100 IS has a 10x zoom. And there are many others like these. Included with these kinds of cameras are vibration reduction and anti shake modes that prevent your telephoto pictures from being blurred from camera shake.
How Close is €Close'?
If you don't know just how close to get, try this. Compose your picture as you normally would and take it. Then, zoom in. Then, zoom in some more. Keep zooming, or moving closer until you actually begin to see only what you need to see and no more. Take another picture and compare the two. Almost invariably, your second picture will be the more interesting and dynamic of the two.
More here: http://www.weddingphotographerslondon.uk.com/
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