{"id":17346,"date":"2019-03-30T22:58:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T21:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/?p=17346"},"modified":"2024-04-21T13:46:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T12:46:49","slug":"building-a-lens-kit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/building-a-lens-kit\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a lens kit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/h1>\n
\"carl
Loxia 21mm 2.8 – Loxia 35mm 2.0 – Loxia 85mm 2.4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When you start getting more involved with photography – and especially when you prefer using prime lenses – at some point it makes sense to spend some thoughts on building a lens kit.
\nIn this article we want to give you a few ideas of what to consider when building your own lens kit and show you some of ours in the end.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n

What is a lens kit?<\/h1>\n

\"Mindshift<\/p>\n

A lens kit consists of a few lenses that (usually) cover different focal lengths and should work well together for your needs. A kit can also be built towards a certain task, like travel, wildlife, portrait, architecture photography or anything else that comes to mind.<\/p>\n

Aspects to consider<\/h1>\n

1. What do you want to use your kit for?<\/h2>\n

This is obviously the most important to figure out. If you are heavily into wildlife you probably want to look at those longer tele lenses and at the same time have little need for an ultra wide angle lens.
\nIf you are more into architecture photography it will be the other way round.
\nFor portrait you might favor faster lenses to get that shallow depth of field look, for landscape you may need to hike a bit and therefore prefer lighter, slower lenses.<\/p>\n

2. How much money are you willing to spend?<\/h2>\n

This is also a very important aspect. You might have already figured out a kit that works perfectly for you, but those lenses are too expensive, so you have to compromise.
\nMy personal recommendation is to spend more money on the lenses you intend to use most.
\nIf you only use that 2.8\/400 super tele two times a year it may not be the greatest idea to spend big money on it. You might consider one of the slower 150-600mm zooms or just rent that special purpose lens when you need it.
\nSometimes third party manufacturers offer more reasonably priced lenses. That fancy Sony FE 24-70mm 2.8 GM<\/a> is too expensive? Maybe have a look at the Tamron FE 28-75mm 2.8<\/a> instead.
\nOften you can save money when going for (legacy) manual lenses instead of the newest AF lenses.<\/p>\n

\"55er\"<\/a>
$1000 Zeiss 1.8\/55 vs $20 Minolta 1.7\/55<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rule of diminishing returns also applies to lenses. You can take very nice pictures with that $20 Minolta 1.7\/55<\/a>. If you buy the Sony FE 1.8\/50<\/a> for $200 you get a modern lens with AF and much better coatings and better contrast. If you spend four times as much again for the Sony FE 1.8\/55<\/a> you get a nicer feeling lens, sharper corners at wider apertures and smoother bokeh but someone without a technical background probably won’t notice the difference. Spend twice as much again on the FE 1.4\/50 and you gain half a stop, exceptional sharpness and much better CA correction but again: your partner is much more likely to notice the depleted bank account than the difference that it makes for your pictures.<\/p>\n

3. How much do you want to carry?<\/h2>\n

The importance of weight depends a lot on your shooting circumstances. For a multi day mountain hike <\/a>every gram counts and weight will be the most important factor in deciding which lenses to bring and slower lenses will often be the best choice. For reportage work on the other hand one wants to be prepared for any situation and gear can usually be stored or carried without too much inconvenience so other aspects become much more important.<\/p>\n

4. Autofocus or Manual Focus?<\/h2>\n
\"canon
Sony A7rII | Canon EF 200mm 1.8 L | f\/1.8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am pretty sure for those of you into sports photography this is easy to answer, you want fast and reliable AF<\/strong> (which means in most cases you should stick to native lenses). Same goes for most wedding photographers or just parents with young children.<\/p>\n

For architecture, landscape and macro photography on the other hand you might even prefer manual focus lenses because they can be more enjoyable to use<\/strong>. Many manual focus legacy lenses are very affordable<\/a><\/strong> and you can build a solid kit for just a few hundred dollars with them.<\/p>\n

5. Zoom or Prime? A mix of both?<\/h2>\n

Some people prefer the flexibility of zoom lenses while others prefer the (often) superior image quality, smaller size or the faster maximum aperture of prime lenses. This is also a really personal decision.
\nThe really good zooms are also quite expensive, so you may spend some time figuring out if you really want to cover every focal length from 10 to 400mm, which brings us to the next point…<\/p>\n

6. Focal length gapping<\/h2>\n

Some people can spend a near infinite amount of time figuring out what focal length gapping works best for them.
\nSome of you cannot sleep well when they haven’t covered every focal length gaplessly, in that case you pretty much have to resort to zoom lenses.
\nIf you want to build a kit of prime lenses there will be gaps so you should really figure out what focal lengths are most important to you first.<\/p>\n

Bastian<\/strong> tries to have roughly a gapping of focal length x2. So something like 21mm, 40mm, 85mm. Or 12mm, 25mm, 50mm, 135mm. With that gapping he still has enough resolution for cropping to get the framing of focal lengths not covered directly. You can also resort to a simple 3-shot-1-row-in-portrait-orientation panorama to cover the focal lengths inbetween at higher quality.
\nHe found that when carrying lenses that are closer in focal length, like a 35mm and a 50mm, one of those two he only uses very rarely.<\/p>\n

Phillip<\/strong> usually carries a set of the three primes 21mm, 40mm and 110mm. Compared to a 21\/40\/85 kit he trades a close to 3x gap for a little more reach.<\/p>\n

7. Lens Rendering<\/h2>\n
\"jupiter-3
Sony A7rII | Jupiter-3 50mm 1.5 | f\/1.5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For some people this is the most important aspect while others don’t care about it at all, so what is this about?
\nLenses are not only differentiated by focal length and maximum aperture, there is much more to it: Bokeh, contrast, correction of optical errors, shape of sunstars or color rendition, to only name a few. The sum of these optical qualities we call rendering.<\/p>\n

Again, to the trained eye these qualities can be pretty obvious while a bystander will only raise his eyebrow while you talk about the quick transition to a low contrast out of focus background with very little spherochromatism.<\/p>\n

For certain tasks it might be preferable for all the lenses in your kit to “look the same”. For Bastian this is definitely true for wedding and also architecture photography. He wants to spend as little time as possible with post processing and it helps when in terms of colors, bokeh and sunstar rendering the output of lenses is very similar.
\nSo if rendering is important to you it might make sense to stick to the lenses of a certain manufacturer and also from roughly the same era.
\nThe big manufacturers put quite some effort into making sure the output of their lenses looks the same.<\/p>\n

Some ideas for lens kits<\/h1>\n

We will mostly cover native lenses here to keep this article somewhat short. Nevertheless it should be noted that for Canon EF mount there are many fast zooms available that adapt well to newer generation Sony cameras (gen 2 or newer for fast AF, gen 3 for eye AF). AF is not as good as on a native lens when it comes to tracking, but might still be good enough for your needs. We also have an article on affordable manual lenses<\/a> that might be worth a look if you are running on a tight budget.<\/p>\n

Zoom Kits<\/h2>\n

Slow-Zoom Kit (AF)<\/h3>\n

FE 12-24mm 4.0 G or Sony\/Zeiss FE 16-35mm 4.0 ZA OSS<\/a>
\nFE 24-105mm 4.0 G OSS
\nFE 70-200mm 4.0 G OSS<\/a> or FE 100-400mm 4.5-5.6 GM OSS<\/p>\n

These are all well balanced lenses in the Sony ecosystem and if you don’t need a faster maximum aperture they will go a long way.<\/p>\n

Fast-f\/2.8-Zoom kit (AF)<\/h3>\n

FE 16-35mm 2.8 GM or Tamron FE 17-28mm 2.8<\/a>
\nFE 24-70mm 2.8 GM<\/a> or Tamron FE 28-75mm 2.8<\/a>
\nFE 70-200mm 2.8 GM<\/p>\n

If you need faster zooms you have the choice between the GM lenses (better build quality and bokeh) and the Tamron lenses which are significantly cheaper and smaller mostly due to their more restricted focal length range.<\/p>\n

Prime lens kits<\/h2>\n

“Cheap Primes” (AF)<\/h3>\n

Sony FE 28mm 2.0<\/a>
\nSony FE 35mm 1.8<\/a>
\nSony FE 50mm 1.8<\/a> or Sony FE 50mm 2.8 macro<\/a>
\nSony FE 85mm 1.8<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a kit of Sony’s current “cheap” prime lenses. Personally I think the gapping of these 3 is too narrow. I would advise using a wide zoom instead of the 28mm 2.0.<\/p>\n

“Balanced Primes” Batis\/ZA (AF)<\/h3>\n

Zeiss Batis 18mm 2.8<\/a> or Zeiss Batis 25mm 2.0<\/a>
\nZeiss Batis 40mm 2.0 CF<\/a> or Sony\/Zeiss 55mm 1.8<\/a>
\nZeiss Batis 85mm 1.8<\/a> or Zeiss Batis 135mm 2.8<\/a><\/p>\n

These offer a bit better image quality than the aforementioned primes and while still being lightweight and reasonably compact they are noticeably more expensive.<\/p>\n

“Fast Primes” GM\/ZA\/Sigma (AF)<\/h3>\n

Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM<\/a>
\nSigma 35mm 1.2 Art<\/a> or 1.4 Art<\/a> or Sony\/Zeiss 35mm 1.4<\/a> or Sony\/Zeiss 50mm 1.4
\nSony FE 85mm 1.4 GM<\/a> or Sony FE 135mm 1.8 GM<\/a><\/p>\n

If you like fast lenses with nice bokeh and money is not really an issue a kit of the 24\/50\/135 will surely give you great results.
\nIf you care less about bokeh and are focussed primarily on sharpness and resolution Sigma offers a full kit of prime lenses from 14-135mm which yield comparable levels of sharpness that you should have a look at.<\/p>\n

Manual focus primes (MF)<\/h3>\n

Voigtlander 10mm 5.6E<\/a> \/ 12mm 5.6E \/ 15mm 4.5E<\/a> or Laowa FE 10-18mm 4.5-5.6<\/a>
\nZeiss Loxia 21mm 2.8<\/a> or 25mm 2.4<\/a> or Voigtlander 21mm 3.5<\/a> or 21mm 1.4<\/a>
\nZeiss Loxia 35mm 2.0<\/a> or Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7<\/a> + 5m PCX<\/a> or 40mm 1.2E<\/a>
\nVoigtlander 50mm 1.2E<\/a> or 65mm 2.0<\/a> or Zeiss Loxia 50mm 2.0<\/a>
\nZeiss Loxia 85mm 2.4<\/a> or ZM Tele Tessar 85mm 4.0<\/a> or Voigtlander 110mm 2.5<\/a><\/p>\n

The Zeiss ZM\/Loxia and Voigtlander VM\/E lenses mix really well, they are all manufactured by Cosina and usually share a 10 blade aperture diaphragm (some newer Voigtlander lenses have 12 blades, still looks nice).
\nThese lenses usually offer superior flare resistance and contrast, but vignetting is on the high side.<\/p>\n

Our personal kits<\/h2>\n

Bastian’s Travel Kit<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zeiss Loxia 21mm 2.8<\/a>
\nVoigtlander VM 35mm 1.7<\/a> + 5m PCX filter<\/a>
\nZeiss Loxia 85mm 2.4<\/a><\/p>\n

When I travel size is a very important aspect, so I want my lenses to be small. To capture unforgettable moments I also want high image quality, so these are very high resolving lenses. I also do a lot of blue hour and backlit shooting, so I want nice sunstars (all lenses feature well defined 10 stroke sunstars) and I need good flare resistance. These lenses also share a 52mm filter thread, which is nice to have. The lenses are all manufactured by Cosina, so color rendition is very similar.
\nNone of these lenses is super fast and they are all manual which saves some weight. If often complement this set by bringing an ultra wide lens. So if I was to do some astrophotography on a given trip I would be using the Laowa 2\/15<\/a>.
\nAs there is no really close focusing lens in this kit I often carry an extension tube<\/a> to use with the 85mm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bastian’s Architecture Kit<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Canon TS-E 17mm 4.0L<\/a>
\nCanon TS-E 45mm 2.8<\/a>
\nCanon EF 70-200mm 4.0L USM<\/a>
\nCanon TC 1.4 II extender<\/p>\n

For architecture assignments I really want the outcome of the different lenses to look the same to save some post processing time. The Canon TS-E 17mm 4.0L<\/a> is without question my most used lens for this type of shooting so I built this kit around it (all these lenses feature pretty much the same color rendition and 8 aperture blades).
\nMy architecture shooting is mostly tripod based and around f\/11 so I don’t care about a fast maximum aperture. Weight and size of the lenses is also less of an issue.
\nThe TS-E 45mm 2.8 offers the same “Tilt\/Shift shooting experience”<\/a> as the TS-E 17mm 4.0L<\/a> which I like. The TC 1.4x II turns the 17mm 4.0 into a 24mm 5.6 Tilt\/Shift lens which is still good enough stopped down and saves me money for another lens.
\nFor detail shots I am using the Canon EF 70-200mm 4.0L USM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bastian’s Portraiture Kit<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sigma 35mm 1.2 Art DG DN<\/a>
\nSony FE 85mm 1.4 GM<\/a>
\nCanon EF 200mm 2.0L IS USM<\/a><\/p>\n

I really like shallow depth of field in my portraits so all of these lenses are very fast. For some portrait shootings the AF (especially eye-AF) also comes in really handy, so these are all AF lenses.
\nEvery now and then I like to take a Brenizer\/Bokehpanorama<\/a>.
\nThe Canon EF 200mm 2.0L IS<\/a> is my lens of choice these days for this task, as of all the lenses in this class I tried it is the one that works best on Sony cameras.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Phillip’s Default kit<\/h3>\n