You (Probably) Don’t Need Lenses of the Best Possible Quality

Most modern lenses provide astounding image quality. The image is sharp from corner to corner, and any chromatic aberration is kept to a minimum. Flares are suppressed by smartly designed coatings. But you probably don’t need such high-quality lenses for your photography.

When buying a lens, you probably want the best possible one. That’s understandable. An inferior lens will not be able to get the most out of your camera. Cameras with high-resolution sensors require lenses that can produce an image that shows the amount of detail that fits the sensor.

Those types of lenses are truly amazing, with clever optical designs that minimize any optical flaws. These lenses produce almost no chromatic aberration, fringes, or flares. The image that is produced will be sharp from the center to the extreme edges, and vignetting is kept to a minimum.

However, these lenses come at a price that can be staggering. Somehow, we are willing to spend that amount of money. At least, I know I do. But if I’m honest, most of the time, the quality these lenses produce is unnecessary. Let me explain.

What Is the Purpose of Your Photography?

To find out if you truly need expensive, top-quality lenses, ask yourself the following questions: What do you do with your photos? Is it a hobby, or do you work on commission? If it’s the latter, what are the photos you make on commission used for? In either case, the resolution that is needed or required is probably less than what your camera is capable of.

The Hobby Photographer

If you capture photos as a hobby, what do you do with your photos? Are you showing them online, or are you printing your best work? If you print, at what size do you print? For a 12-megapixel camera at 300 dpi, it is possible to print 10 x 14 inches—or even larger if you consider viewing distance. After all, you don’t need 300 dpi for wall art.

Most modern cameras deliver at least a 24-megapixel image; that’s more than enough for large prints. If you print a 10 x 14-inch photo from that 24-megapixel image, you need to downsize the photo. Any lens errors that are present will become less visible.

However, most photos are viewed on a screen, often at a 4K resolution. For this, the photo has to be downsampled as well. If done properly, any lens errors will become completely unnoticeable.

The Professional Photographer

For the professional photographer, things aren’t that much different—at least for most professional photographers I know. Most work that is made for customers is used in low-resolution situations. Headshots are used for social media or company websites. Wedding photos are rarely used at more than a 14 x 20-inch size, and nowadays, many wedding couples view and share their photos primarily on smartphone devices.

However, as a professional photographer, you definitely want to deliver the best possible quality. Unfortunately, this is often a personal matter since the average private customer is less interested in perfectly sharp corners or the absence of fringing.

A large group of professional photographers also work for customers who require perfect quality, and the result is used in large, high-quality prints. For those photographers, top-notch lenses are a no-brainer.

You Don’t Need the Best, but Keep Away from Budget Lenses

If you’re being honest with yourself and you look at the use of your photos, there is a big chance you’ll realize that you don’t need the best lenses available. You probably don’t even need the full resolution of your camera.

However, keep away from most budget lenses as well. Although you often don’t need the best possible quality, you do want good quality. A whole range of lenses sit between the best and—dare I say it—the worst.

There is a trend among manufacturers to produce lenses that are pretty good but rely heavily on lens correction. This is good enough for most uses, and any image deterioration that might occur due to lens correction becomes invisible when downsampled for the intended use. Although I don’t like this trend very much, it does lead to a large selection of lenses that can be considered professional lenses for a reasonable price.

Reasons to Buy the Best Lenses Nevertheless

Nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Although the need for the best possible lenses can be disputed, there may be other reasons for choosing that kind of lens. It’s not all about lens quality; there is more to it.

Most of the time, the best lenses are equipped with the fastest autofocus technology, image stabilization, or an extremely large aperture. The build is rugged, and the finish is of high quality.

You may be forced to choose those lenses if you need ultra-fast autofocus or a large aperture for your photography. In that case, the high-quality imaging can be considered as a nice side effect—if you may call it that.

I tend to buy the best possible quality lenses myself. In a way, I’m not following my own advice, as mentioned in this article. But I love using lenses with large apertures, especially prime lenses, for my wedding photography and night sky photography. I don’t want to rely on lens corrections as well, which, as I mentioned, is increasingly common in the latest lenses.

Fortunately, I can rely on my older lenses. Perhaps they don’t give the best quality image like the latest ones, and perhaps they’re not designed to produce the high-resolution images for the modern sensors, but they’re more than sufficient for the intended use by customers I work for.

What Are Your Requirements?

I’m curious about your thoughts on the matter. Have you ever given this much thought? Are you always upgrading your lenses to the latest versions? Share your opinion in the comments below.