I Have A Kit Lens – How Do I Know Which Lens To Buy To Progress My Photography?

Hi and welcome to Episode 120 of the Photography Explained podcast. I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google. No offence Google.

Want me to answer your photography question? Get your thinking caps on, more on this at the end.

Here is the answery bit

If you have a kit lens and want to progress with your photography you need to answer the following questions

What do you want to use the new lens for?

What will this new lens enable you to do that you cannot do with your kit lens?
How much are you willing/ comfortable to pay for a new lens?
Do you want a zoom lens or a fixed focal length lens?

Are you planning on changing your camera/ camera system?
Do you buy a lens made by your camera manufacturer, or do you buy a lens made by someone else?
New or secondhand?

Are you going to buy any other lenses in the future?

That is the answer, now let me go through each of these one by one.

You can listen to the episode here

Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!

1 What do you want to use the new lens for?

A good place to start, with the obvious question, what do you need a new lens for?

Is there a specific genre of photography that you want to photograph? If you want to photograph say F1 you will need a fast telephoto lens, in the 200-500mm focal length range.

If you want to photograph weddings you will want a couple of high-quality all-round lenses, say a 28-70mm and a 70-200mm.

Landscapes? Well, you can go wide, but you can also use a telephoto lens.

Or do you want a specific lens for some specific things, like ultra-wide angle photography, macro photography, low light photography, studio work, portraits, photographing babies from 50 feet away, or grizzly bear photography? It just depends… But you get the point…..

Do you need a fast lens with a larger maximum aperture? If not get a smaller maximum aperture lens and save money, bulk, and weight.

Or do you just want a good all-rounder lens that gives you an extended range of focal lengths?

So before you buy your first upgrade lens you need to know what you are going to photograph.

And don’t forget that when you buy a new lens as an upgrade from a kit lens, there will probably be an increase in the quality of the lens too, the sharpness, the reduction in optical errors, just better all around.

2 What will this new lens enable you to do that you cannot do with your kit lens?

Do you really need a new lens? Or is your kit lens just fine? Think about this, and be honest with yourself. If you just want a new lens there is nothing wrong with that, they are very cool bits of kit after all.

Want and need though are different. The problem is this, if you want a new lens, what lens are you going to buy?

With need the answer will be more obvious. Need will take you to the lens that, well that you need?

3 How much are you willing/ comfortable to pay for a new lens?

In theory, the more money you spend, the higher the quality of the lens. Now that is a very broad generalisation, but so many factors influence the cost of a lens.

The different camera types are a major factor, and here I am talking about full frame, cropped sensor, and micro four-thirds camera systems, they each have different price levels within the ranges.

And the focal length/ focal lengths, and also the maximum aperture are major cost influences.

So many factors, that is why you need to be sure that a lens is right for you, and that you really need it.

Some good news though. Lenses generally hold their value much better than camera bodies, as they are not replaced by manufacturers as often. I bought a lens, and 5 years later got back pretty much what I paid for it.

So spend the most you are comfortable spending, and get the best lens that you can comfortably afford.

4 Do you want a zoom lens or a fixed focal length lens?

Zoom lenses are more and more popular these days. With a zoom lens, you get a range of focal lengths, such as on my wonderful Canon 24-105mm lens, which gives me a wide angle at 24mm, mild telephoto at 105mm, and everything in between. This is a great all-rounder lens if you are not sure.

Fixed focal length lenses, known as prime lenses, have fixed focal lengths. Well, you would expect so right?

To get the same range as the 24-105mm lens you would, in theory, need the following lenses.

24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm.

That is six lenses.

I use zoom lenses these days. That is all I need to say on this…..

5 Are you planning on changing your camera/ camera system?

Again, if you are planning to change from a cropped sensor camera to a full frame or micro four thirds camera do this before you upgrade your lens or you will be wasting your money.

And if you are looking to move say, from Canon to Nikon, the same applies.

DSLR to mirrorless? Check first.

The only exception is micro four-thirds cameras, which have a universal lens mount, which is nice.

6 Do you buy a lens made by your camera manufacturer, or do you buy a lens made by someone else?

Camera manufacturers make lenses for their cameras. Third-party lens manufacturers make lenses for a variety of camera manufacturers. And I am pretty confident in saying that third-party lenses are the best that they have ever been, and as good, and in some cases better, than the lenses made by camera manufacturers.

And they are generally cheaper, so well worth looking into.

7 New or second-hand?

I have carefully bought second-hand lenses, and the second-hand lenses that I have bought have all been fine. Just make sure you buy from a reputable place, and that there are comebacks if a lens is not as described.

You will save yourself a good amount of money, but remember that lenses hold their value, so you might not get the kind of savings that you can get with say second-hand camera bodies.

8 Are you going to buy any other lenses in the future?

Last thing to think about. And probably the most difficult. But with careful lens selection, you can cover a very broad range in 3 lenses. This is what I have. I have 17-40, 24-105, and 70-200mm lenses. This is really all that I need.

The talky bit

Gear is important. You need gear to take photos for sure. And it is important to get the right gear for you and for what you are photographing. And also to get the best gear that you can comfortably afford.

A camera lens is a long-term investment, so we need to be sure that we are getting the right lens.

Sorry, exactly what do I mean by a kit lens? Well check out episode 60 of the Photography Explained Podcast, What Is A Kit Lens? What You Need To Know Without The Irrelevant Detail! Yes, I have got to the point where to explain something I am able to refer back to previous episodes of my podcast, which is a wonderful thing.

Basically, when we talk about kit lenses in photography we are generally referring to the 18-55mm type of camera lenses that come with entry-level cameras. 18-55 or similar. There are variances on these, but these are the entry-level lenses that come with entry-level DSLR/ mirrorless cameras. The ones where there is a modest cost increase to go from buying the camera body to the camera body with a kit lens.

So that is what I am talking about here. These are cheaper, lightweight, but excellent starter lenses, but the quality is not the best.

At some point, if you want to progress your photography, you will probably want to upgrade from a kit lens to a higher-quality lens.

Using Canon as an example, they have an 18-55mm kit lens, but their L series lenses are professional lenses. And there is a big difference in quality from one to the other.

And they are not all as expensive as you might think

My go-to lens is the Canon 17-40mm F4L lens, currently selling here in the UK for £779, and in the US for erm $599. Something sounds wrong there doesn’t it? I might as well fly over to the US and buy this lens.

Now I know that this is actually a lot of money, but it is not really for a camera lens. And once you have bought a great lens, look after it and it will serve you well for many, many years.

So that is upgrading from camera lenses covered nicely I think.

Should I upgrade my camera or lens? Now this was the thought that popped into my head as I was writing this. And this is such a good question I will answer that in the next episode of my small but perfectly formed podcast, as I like to say….

What do I do?

I only buy gear if

The thing that I have is broken
The gear in question will help to get photos that I cannot get at the moment

The gear in question will help me to take higher-quality photos
The gear in question will save me time

Other than that, I am on a long-term, self-inflicted gear-buying ban. This is because I used to spend all my time looking at gear.

But back in the day when I started out in digital photography, I had a kit lens, which I used for a few years. I was into travel photography at the time, and when it was time for me to move it up a level from my Canon 18-55mm lens I also upgraded my camera, getting a Canon 5D and Canon 24-105mm lens. And this is a great all-rounder lens I have to say.

And since then I have settled on a Canon 17-40mm lens and 70-200mm lens in addition, which cover all that I need covering.

And I have not bought a new lens in years.

Next episode

As I said earlier, I will answer the question that came into my head when I was writing this post.

In Photography Explained Podcast Episode 121 – What Should I Upgrade First – My Camera Or My Lens? Please Help Me!

I know, seamless…..

Do you want me to answer your question?

Or questions? You are not limited to one question. My podcast has been created to answer your photography questions, not mine, so please get in touch with your question, and when I answer it I will give you a number of shoutouts in that episode, which will exist in podcast land until podcast land is no more. Just head over to photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start, where you can also find out more about my podcast and do stuff to help me.

This episode was brought to you by a rather nice homemade Spaghetti Bolognese, made by the ever-so-lovely Mrs. M. Very nice thank you, babes. And a nice cup of tea I am sipping sat here in my homemade soundproofed recording emporium.

OK – I’m done

I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me and my small but perfectly formed podcast (it says here, yes it really does), and for giving me 10 (ish) minutes of your valuable time. I really do appreciate you sharing part of your day with me, and look forward to hearing from you and answering your question.

Cheers from me Rick

OK – that was the podcast episode.

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Thank you

Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).

Cheers from me Rick