It's at this point that you want to visit your local photo shop (a
real camera store staffed with camera geeks and gurus, if you have one
in your area) and talk about your needs. Explain that some guy on the
Web said picking the right lens is the best first step in picking a
35mm SLR.
Tell them if you plan on shooting sports (and if so, which ones),
flowers, landscapes, wild animals, portraits, snapshots, architecture,
etc. Based on this they will have a good idea what lens or lenses you
should consider.
Have them show you some of the lenses. Most of the 35mm SLRs on
display will probably have 28-80mm zoom lenses attached. These are
decent snapshot lenses, but they tend to be designed to sell for a low
price, not to provide the best image quality or the most flexibility.
Think about not buying that lens until you've looked at the
other options and decided whether 28-80 is right for you.
Brand Name or Independent Lenses
The day of the really bad third-party lens seems to be behind us.
Thanks to computer design and modern production techniques, sharp
lenses are the norm. And that's just as true of camera brand lenses as
it is for many of the independent lens makers.
In the old days (the 1970s), we had a kind of hierarchy of quality.
Leica was at the top, with Nikon, Canon, and Minolta not far behind.
Pentax, Olympus, Konica, and most of the others also made excellent
lenses. At the top of the independent lenses was Vivitar's breakthrough
Series I line (most which couldn't hold a candle to today's optics).
Then came the better known fixed lenses (such a Vivitar and Soligor),
and then came the zooms, which were considered a real optical
compromise in the old days.
Today you'll generally find that Leica, Nikon, Canon, Minolta,
Pentax, and the other camera makers make mostly excellent lenses. Some
of the lower cost lenses, such as the everyday 28-80 zoom, tend to
offer slightly less quality, which is one reason I recommend looking at
alternatives.
Among the independents, I put Tamron at the top. Tamron has been
making quality optics for decades, created the first wide-angle-to-tele
zoom (a relatively monstrous 38-100 in the 1970s), and has been making
innovative lenses ever since. Unless you plan on making positively huge
prints (16 x 20 and larger), a Tamron will generally offer comparable
quality to the camera brand lens. (The first lens I bought for my
current SLR was a Tamron 28-200 zoom.)
However, keep in mind that just as Nikon makes less costly lenses,
so does Tamron. The lower the price, generally the greater the number
of compromises to get the price down.
Subjectively, I suspect Sigma holds second place. Not only that, but
they make some very interesting lenses, including a 15-30mm ultra-wide
zoom. Sigma lenses tend to be a bit less costly than Tamrons, and in
many cases Sigma makes a lens that Tamron doesn't and vice versa.
Quality will vary throughout the Sigma line, though. If you want their
better lenses, you'll pay the long dollar.
Phoenix is an up-and-comer. Many lenses bearing the Vivitar label
are made by Phoenix. The Phoenix, Vivitar, Quantaray, Tokina, and other
brands of lenses offer decent optical quality, but I don't tend to
recommend them to photographers who plan on making a lot of big
enlargements. (I had a Vivitar Series I 19-35mm zoom which has produced
some excellent 11 x 14 prints with photos taken using a tripod and a
median f-stop.)
If you're serious about photography, consider lens construction an
important factor. I've had lenses that get loose over time and seen
some really shoddy workmanship on obscure brands of zoom lenses that
customers sometimes hoped to trade in. Get a lens that the manufacturer
backs up for several years, not 90 days or 12 months.
That sums it up for brands. Keep in mind that anyone can produce a
gem - and anyone can produce a clinker. Ask the folks at the camera
store what their experience is with the different lenses.
Don't worry about things like the number of lens elements, type of
glass used, or presence of aspheric elements. These can be indicators
of a good lens, but too many lens elements can also be a sign of lazy
design. That said, you'll generally find lenses with ED or LD glass,
aspheric elements, and/or apochromatic design to be sharper than the
rest. Just don't let the buzzwords scare you.
Specialty Lenses
Another thing to seriously consider is whether you might need some
special lens that's only available or only affordable from one camera
maker. That's how I ended up choosing Nikon when I decided to buy an
autofocus camera, as I'll explain.
Perspective Control
If you're doing architectural photography, it might make sense to
buy a PC (perspective control) lens. Different camera makers offer
different focal length PC lenses with different features. To the best
of my knowledge, all PC lenses can shift, which helps you keep the
camera level, but only Canon PC lenses offer tilts, which can help you
square the image and control the plane of sharpness when you need to
tilt the camera.
Soft Focus
Sometimes you don't want the ultimately sharp lens. This can be
especially helpful in portraiture. Again, several camera makers offer
soft focus lenses, which come in different focal lengths. Some are
softer than others, and at least one manufacturer makes a variable soft
focus lens, which lets you control how sharp or soft the focus is.
Getting Closer
Macro lenses will let you create images on the film itself that may
be as big as the thing you photographed. When you enlarge the negative
or project the slide, you end up with a picture many times larger than
what you shot. Regular macro lenses usually focus to half lifesize on
the film; a few go all the way to lifesize. Macro zooms tend to offer
less magnification than that. Macros and macro zooms come in a variety
of focal lengths.
Other Unique Lenses
Minolta makes the only autofocus mirror lens and used to make one or
two wide-angle lenses with variable fields of curvature. Pentax makes a
zoom fisheye lens. Nikon and Canon are producing some vibration
reduction lenses. And I'm sure there are others that escape me at the
moment.
Favorite Lenses
My first camera system included a 50mm f/1.8 normal lens and a 105mm
f/2.8 short tele. The camera had reliability problems, so I traded it
when it came back from warranty repair and bought a brand new Minolta
SR-T 101 back in 1973 or so. It came with a 50/1.7 (shorthand for a
50mm f/1.7) lens. I soon discovered a 100/2.0 lens in the camera shop's
used case and brought that puppy home for just $45. I fell in love with
fast short-telephoto lenses.
Many years later, long after I'd sold that system and spent a few
years using an Olympus OM-1, I was back shooting Minoltas. We got a
beautiful used 85/1.7 at work; I snapped it up for about $85. That
became my normal lens, the one I left on my camera; I rarely used the
50 after buying the 85.
When I decided it was time to go autofocus, I knew I wanted an 85mm
f/1.8. Because Minolta switched lens mounts when they invented the
autofocus Maxxum, it was time to look at Minolta, Canon, Nikon, and
Pentax. All of them had 85/1.4 lenses for about $800-1,000, but only
Nikon had an 85/1.8, and it sold for a whole lot less than any
85/1.4.
In my case, it was that specific focal length and lens speed that
pushed me to Nikon. Then it became a matter of choosing the right
camera. That's one reason I recommend you look at your lens needs first
and then choose a camera brand.
Next: 35mm SLR Features.
