Okay, I seem to have opened a can of worms with my comment about kit lenses, " in good light at average settings there will be very little visible difference between the typical kit lenses offered with many cameras and the most expensive glass on the market". If kit lenses are as good as professional ones why should anybody pay the prices asked for professional glass? The key here is good light and average settings. Any decent lens is capable of producing a great image in ideal shooting conditions at f8 to f11 ( I will cover f stops in a later post ). When conditions are less favourable the difference becomes clearer.
I don't want to get into too much technical detail, I'm not a scientist so I would probably explain it badly, but expensive lenses have better glass in them and this results in better images particularly at wider apertures. The availability of a wider aperture allows the use of faster shutter speeds, vital if you are photographing sports for example. You can compensate of course by using a higher ISO but the trade off is increased noise in your images. A wider aperture (lower f number) also results in more bokeh, the out of focus area in an image, used to great effect in portraits where the subject is in sharp focus and stands out from a lovely soft background.
How much do you need to spend on one of these lenses? Surprisingly little is the answer, provided that you don't need a zoom lens. Nikon make a 50mm f1.8 lens which you can buy for about £100 and this lens is as sharp as anything on the market. There are similar offerings from all the major camera brands.
This post barely scratches the surface of the issue. As ever in photography, whether or not you need to spend a small fortune on lenses depends entirely on the use you intend to put them to.
Go to www.imagesbygeorge.co.uk to see more of my work.
