Maximillion
what type of lenses should i buy for my t3i?
I im looking to do portraits and landscapes. i know i need a wide angle but i don't know what lens. #landscape #lens #canon-cameras #portrait-photography
2 answers
Jared Chung
CareerVillage.org TeamJared’s Answer, CareerVillage.org Team
Hi Maximillion. Are you sure this is a career question or a question related to your professional success? CareerVillage is a place for you to get information that will help you get from where you are (school) to where you want to be (professionally successful). If this is a question that you think is important for your professional success, then please edit your question to introduce yourself, explain your professional goals, explain how this request fits into those goals, and state what research you've done so far. I'm going to flag this question, so please update it soon -- if you no longer think this is the right place for you to get this particular piece of advice, you can delete the question using the "delete" button.
Dylan St. John
Dylan’s Answer
Portraits and landscapes actually call for two different kinds of lenses. For portraits, the objective is to focus the entire photo on a specific person. Often what that translates to is a narrower lens, something in the 80-120mm range for a 'close-up' feeling. This isolates your subject in the frame and directs the viewer's attention solely on the person whose portrait you're taking. However, it's worth noting that the Canon T3i is a crop-sensor camera, so there's a consideration to make. Crop sensor cameras have smaller sensors than full-frame cameras, and as such, there's usually a multiplicative factor to consider when talking about lens focal lengths. The T3i has a crop factor of 1.6x, which you can think of as 1.6 times zoomed in compared to a full frame sensor camera. This factor affects the focal lengths you use. A 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera (like your T3i) will appear like an 80mm lens (50*1.6=80) because it's slightly zoomed in. This brings me to my final point. The Canon 50mm f/1.8 is an incredibly popular, good lens, and can be purchased for under $150.
For landscapes, you typically want a wide-angle lens, which you mentioned in your question above. This wide field of view captures lots of details that typically create that WOW effect that you find in grand, broad, all-encompassing landscape photos. Again, the crop-factor effect will play into your decision here, but luckily there are some great options that still aren't too expensive to get into. The Canon 10-18mm and the Canon 10-22mm lenses are both great affordable lenses that will work on your Canon T3i with no issue. The 'effective' focal lengths of these lenses are going to be 16-35mm and 16-29mm, respectively.
Photography can be broken down into two parts: doing research on how the concepts work, and practicing out in the field. Learn to love the research aspect (and the real world practice aspect!) and you'll be a great photographer in no time!