The jack of all trades

A standard lens, generally speaking, is one that stretches from a moderately wide angle field of view to moderate telephoto, and as such they are pretty good at shooting most subjects. Shoot landscapes at the wide end, portraits around the middle of the zoom range and close ups by zooming right in.

If you bought your DX camera bundled with a kit lens, then chances are that it has an 18-55mm focal length range. For FX bodies, 24-70mm is the classic standard zoom. But while they’re pretty good for shooting most things, more specialist lenses will be better. Dedicated wide-angle lenses go much wider, portrait primes offer shallower depth of field, and telephoto lenses will get you much, much closer to your chosen subject…