Master Your Nikon Lenses

The kit lens that came with your Nikon is great for getting started, but to make the most of your photography you’ll need to explore the many and varied lenses available. Jason Parnell-Brookes and Adam Waring explain…

- Jason Parnell-Brookes and Adam Waring

One of the greatest advantages of using a DSLR or mirrorless over a compact or bridge camera is the ability to change lenses. Lenses come in all shapes and sizes, from compact ‘nifty fifty’ primes that you can easily slip into a pocket, to gargantuan telephoto zooms that come in their own flight cases and are impractical to shoot with unless mounted on the sturdiest of tripods.

There are hundreds of lenses available for your Nikon, both from Nikon themselves and third-party manufacturers such as Sigma, Tamron and Tokina. But what lenses are best suited to what subjects, what is a ‘fast’ lens exactly, and what does all that confusing jargon that manufacturers tack onto the end of lens names actually mean?

Over the following dozen pages we’ll explain everything you wanted to know about lenses but were afraid to ask, as well as offering tips and tricks on how to get the most out of them. We’ve broken down lens types into five categories, though much of the information in one category applies equally well to other types of lenses.

STANDARD ZOOMS

The most useful, everyday lens that covers the majority of situations, stretching from moderate wide-angle to moderate telephoto

Travel Light

When travelling, you often need to travel light, so in these situations a standard zoom that can do everything reasonably well is ideal for shooting everything from wide landscapes to mid-range character portraits, to flora and fauna. Most standard zooms have a reasonably close focusing distance too, making them ideal for detail shots and food photography – in short, the majority of shooting situations you’ll encounter on your travels!

Take a step back