How Does A Camera Lens Work

Whether you're a photographer, filmmaker or hybrid shooter, understanding how your lens works is every bit as important equally honing your photographic camera skills. Hither, Canon Lensman Jenn Cooper sheds light on what those numbers on the lens mean, roofing everything from focal lengths and aperture values to the dissimilar types of lenses and when to utilise each 1.

How Exactly Do Camera Lenses Work?

Lenses work similarly to the human eye and permit you to command the corporeality of light that enters your photographic camera. Inside each lens is a series of convex and concave optical elements that piece of work together to bend light and refract it into a single sharp focal point.

What Does Focal Length Mean and How Does it Work?

Every lens has a specific focal length, or magnification number, which is measured in millimeters (mm). This is normally displayed on the lens itself.

The longer the focal length, the college the magnification. The shorter the focal length, the lower the magnification. For instance, a lens with a focal length of 24mm will offer less magnification than a lens with a focal length of 200mm.

Understanding the Different Types of Lenses and Focal Lengths

Photographic camera lenses come in all shapes and sizes and are designed for unlike shooting scenarios. Cheque out the full range of Canon's lenses here.

Zoom Lenses

Zoom lenses, such every bit the EF-South 18-55mm f/3.5-5.vi III or EF 24-70mm f/2.viii 50 IS USM, offer a variety of different focal lengths. This makes them extremely versatile, which is why many photographers consider them to be essential – peculiarly for travelling photographers who don't want to deport multiple lenses.

Prime Lenses

Lenses that have only i focal length, such as the EF 35mm f/2 IS USM or EF 50mm f/1.viii STM, and are known every bit prime lenses. Prime number lenses don't allow you to zoom in on your subject. However, because they have fewer lens elements, and fewer moving parts in general, they typically offer superior image quality.

Prime lenses also have low aperture values, such as f/one.8 or even f/i.ii, which means they offering a shallow depth of field. This makes them suitable for portraits and product photography, or any blazon of photography where a soft blurry background is desired. These broad apertures as well allow more light into your camera, making them ideal for shooting in low low-cal weather condition.

Telephoto Lenses

Lenses with larger focal lengths are called telephoto lenses and offer greater magnification when shooting subjects that are far away. For case the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-five.6 IS II USM lens is frequently used for wild animals and sports photography, allowing the lensman to zoom in on the animate being or athlete when it is not possible to get close to them.

Wide Angle Lenses

Broad angle lenses, such as the EF 10-22mm f/3.v-4.five USM or EF 16-35mm f/4 L IS USM, accept smaller focal lengths and can capture a wider perspective. This makes them suitable for landscape photography, or any type of photography where you are shooting in tight spaces, like architecture/interior photography.

Macro Lenses

Macro lenses allow you to zoom in and focus on subjects at extremely close distances. Macro lenses such as the EF-S 35mm f/1.8 Macro IS STM, enable the objects to look larger than life size with greater detail. This is ideal for magnifying insects, flowers or manmade objects and capturing them in farthermost detail.

What is Aperture (F-Number) and How Does Information technology Work?

The discontinuity of your lens is the opening that allows light to enter and reach your camera's sensor. Information technology can be adjusted much like the irises of the human eye, which dilate or contract depending on the available lite. In photography, the aperture of a lens is measured in F-numbers or F-stops and is typically expressed on your lens like the following: F/4.5-five.5. In this example, the minimum aperture for that lens ranges betwixt f/4.5 and f/v.5, depending on what focal length y'all're using. In general, the smaller the F-stop, the larger the discontinuity opening, and vice versa.

Depth of Field

Discontinuity also controls depth of field, which is used to separate your subject from the background. A small-scale F-number, such as f/1.eight, will requite you lot a sharp focal point with a soft blurry background. A larger F-number like f/16 will give you a larger depth of field, resulting in both the foreground and background being in focus.

Low Light Benefits

Selecting a small discontinuity similar f/2.viii will allow more light through the lens, which ways you lot tin can shoot in low-light with a lower ISO and faster shutter speed. On the other hand, f/16 volition limit the amount of light passing through the lens, pregnant you lot will need to recoup by selecting a higher ISO or slower shutter speed to attain the same exposure. The relationship between these three functions is commonly known as the Exposure Triangle Basics.

What is ISO and How Does it Piece of work?

ISO controls your camera sensor's sensitivity to lite. A lower ISO, such as ISO 100 or 200, is used in brilliant daylight or when shooting well-lit indoor scenes. Higher ISO levels, such equally ISO 3200 or 6400, allow your photographic camera to operate in depression light conditions. However, the trade off is that high ISO levels introduce digital noise to your images. Where possible, information technology'southward ever best to shoot with a low ISO to maintain the best image quality.

Which Cameras Have Interchangeable Lenses?

Canon'south DSLR (Digital Unmarried-Lens Reflex) and mirrorless cameras are designed to have interchangeable lenses. This allows yous to employ the aforementioned camera torso with a variety of dissimilar lenses. For instance, a DSLR camera gives you the flexibility to employ an EF 50mm f/one.4 USM prime lens when shooting portraits or an EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS Ii USM telephoto lens when shooting wild fauna.

Which Lens Can I Use With My Camera?

Information technology's of import to know which lenses can be used with your camera. If the name of your lens starts with EF, EF-S, EF-Yard or RF, this indicates what type of lens mount your camera has. Each lens mount connects to their respective camera bodies.

EF Lenses

EF lenses are Canon'south professional range of lenses. These are indicated with a scarlet dot and commonly feature a cherry-red ring around the outside of the lens which is the signature for our L series lenses. These tin can exist used on all Catechism DSLRs, and on Canon's mirrorless cameras when using an adapter.

EF-Southward Lenses

The EF-Southward lens mount is indicated with a white square on the lens and matched with the white square on the camera body. These lenses can be used on Catechism DSLRs with APS-C sensors, such as the EOS 200D, EOS 80D and EOS 7D Mark Ii.

EF-K Lenses

EF-M lenses are designed for Canon's EOS Grand mirrorless cameras, such as the EOS M50. These are the smallest of Canon's interchangeable lens range, making them ideal travel cameras.

RF Lenses

RF lenses feature Canon's newest lens engineering and have been designed specifically for the Catechism EOS R and EOS RP total frame mirrorless cameras.

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Source: https://www.canon.com.au/get-inspired/camera-lenses-explained-jenn-cooper

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