My Favorite Lens
When it comes to choosing a lens to use, there are a lot of factors that influence the decision. Obviously, if your camera only has one fixed lens, that makes the decision for you. However, assuming that you have a camera with detachable lenses, your options are almost endless. You can go from ~800 MM (or even longer with teleconverters!) at the long end all the way down to ~8 MM at the very shortest. Beyond this, most lenses come in multiple versions with different apertures as well. So with all this choice, do I have a favorite? How would I even go about choosing one if I do?
Well (spoiler alert), I do have a favorite lens. If I could only choose one lens to take on a trip for which I have no details, it would have to be my 70-200 MM f/2.8. To start with, it is a very nice lens quality wise. A lens with an aperture of f/2.8 is typically pretty high end. With this aperture, I can easily get a nice and shallow depth of field, which can be useful in any genre and tends to look very professional.
narrow depth of fields can look nice in a lot of different compositions, but the classic example is portraits (taken with a Nikon z6 & nikon 70-200 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/1250 sec, f/2.8)
There are f/2.8 lenses at many different focal lengths, though. What truly makes this lens my favorite is the practicality of its focal length. 70 MM isn't wide, but it is wide enough that I can capture almost anything that isn't a bonafide landscape, while 200 MM is long enough to pick out smaller subjects and bring them into focus (pun intended!). 70-200 MM seems to cover me for most applications, outside of serious landscape photography and photographing skittish wildlife.
EVen at 70 mm, you can still capture some very atmospheric shots (taken with a Nikon z6 & nikon 70-200 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/2000 sec, f/2.8)
with 200 mm and some creativity, you can capture tight, even macro-esque shots (taken with a Nikon z6 & nikon 70-200 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/500 sec, f/2.8)
On top of these practical reasons for liking my 70-200 MM f/2.8, I also just have a sentimental connection to it. It was my first professional level lens, and that was a big step for me. It's also taken some of my favorite shots, particularly in sports. It's certainly been my go to for a lot of the sports I've been doing at MSU! If I had one takeaway to give from this post, it would be this: lenses in and around this 70-200 MM focal lenght are extremely flexible and useful, so if you're looking for one lens to buy first, this would be the focal length I suggest.
As always, let me know if you have comments or suggestions. Until next week!
