know your lenses!

You need a whole set of lenses to shoot at every focal length

1 MACRO These lenses can range in focal length from an equivalent to 60mm right up to 180mm. The longer the focal length, the more distance you can put between the lens and your close-up subject.

2 TELEPHOTO Lenses in the 100-300mm range are easier to handle than super-telephotos (below). Telephoto zooms in the 100-400mm range add flexibility for quick adjustments to composition, although the maximum apertures tend to be slow compared with prime lenses. 3 MAXIMUM APERTURE A 400mm f/5.6 lens will give you the same view as a 400mm f/2.8 lens, but the faster f/2.8 maximum aperture allows for a shallower depth of field to help the subject stand out, as well as faster shutter speeds without increasing the ISO.

4 TELECONVERTER Many telephoto lenses are compatible with teleconverters – these attach to the back of the lens and increase the effective focal length. 5 SUPER-TELEPHOTO These lenses are mainly available as prime lenses, with fixed focal lengths of between 300mm and 800mm. You’ll need a heavy-duty tripod to keep one of these beasts still during an exposure.

6 SHORT TELEPHOTO Lightweight lenses in the 70-200mm range make excellent general-purpose long lenses. Armed with one of these and a standard zoom, you can cover the majority of photo opportunities.

7 STANDARD A 50mm lens is the standard prime lens, while the standard zoom is equivalent to 24-70mm.

8 WIDE-ANGLE ‘Digital’ lenses – those designed for cameras with APS-C sensors – appear to have very short focal lengths, such as 8 or 10mm. But you need to multiply this by the crop factor of the sensor.

9 FISHEYE These short-focal-length lenses are available as both ‘classic’ circular fisheye designs, which produce a round image with black borders, or as a rectilinear form, which fills the entire frame with the image.