Reading the scale

Many wide prime lenses, particularly those from third-party manufacturers, are manual focus only. But don’t let that put you off – manual focusing isn’t as tricky as some may fear. These lenses are largely designed for landscape photography, where you want everything from the foreground to background to be in focus. Markings on the lens barrel are designed to help you get as much as possible sharp and in focus.

01 Wide primes are usually used at narrow apertures, and are commonly marked with f/8, f/11 and f/16 on the lens barrel

02 Line up the leftmost marking of your chosen aperture with the infinity symbol to ensure the horizon is in acceptable focus

03 The rightmost marking points to the closest distance that will be sharp focus for your chosen aperture, in feet and metres