Understanding Lenses

Single lens reflex cameras enable you to change lenses to achieve a variety of effects. The camera’s standard lens will give an angle of view roughly similar to that we perceive with the naked eye, a wide-angle lens enables you to get more into the frame, while a telephoto magnifies distant objects.

There are other lens properties to take into account, apart from their focal length, including the maximum aperture. The larger the maximum aperture, the more light the lens can gather. This is useful in poor light or whenever you want shallow depth-of-field in your photographs, perhaps for throwing backgrounds out of focus, or for creating a similar effect.