Gear Guide: Every Type of Camera Lens Explained

When it comes to camera gear, the lens is probably one of the most important piece of equipment you can buy. In many cases, upgrading your lens will probably make a far greater difference than upgrading anything else. This is why it's important for photographers and videographers to understand all the different types of lenses that are available. 

In a recent video from StudioBinder, they explain every type of lens that is currently on the market, from fisheye lenses, to telephoto, to tilt-shift lenses. Different kinds of lenses can produce completely different looks of the same scene. For example, with a telephoto lens, you can quite easily completely blur out the background and produce flattering portraits. This isn't necessarily as easy to achieve with a wide angle lens. 

Tilt-shift lenses are another type of lens with which I personally have a great deal of experience. These kinds of lenses allow you to shoot tall buildings from a relatively close distance without introducing any distortion into the image. For architectural photographers, this is obviously extremely useful and, in some cases, crucial. 

The point is that having a good understanding of all the different kinds of lenses can be invaluable. The video linked above does a great job of providing a good explanation for this. I also recommend you check out some of the other videos on the channel, because aside from the brilliant production value, the content is fantastic. 

Usman Dawood's picture

Usman Dawood is a professional architectural photographer based in the UK.

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6 Comments

Oh sucks, I thought it was an article to read, yet again another YouTube video

Apologies for disappointing you, wasn't the intention. We try not to write up content from other peoples videos because they ultimately deserve the views and the audience.

I'll try and write a full article discussing all the different types of lenses, so hopefully that will appeal more to you.

There should be something in the title, before you waste time clicking on it, that says, "This is a video, not something you might be hoping to read."

To be fair, there is an icon on the upper left hand corner of every article that is a video.
Also, this site is mostly videos.

The good thing is that most are well done and Usman's are particularly useful and well done.

I come by fstoppers via Google News on my phone. There is no video icon before I click to open the "article." Written articles and video articles both look the same on my news feed. Also, there are a lot of articles on here that are not videos. I like to read those.

I despise videos. You will not get me to watch those stupid things.
Whatever happened to good informative writing?