A Word about Lenses and Cameras

 

If you are like me, you follow some gear related forums, web pages, or photography related magazines regularly. In some way, this can be poisonous. It can mislead you to the idea that you get better photos with better gear. Let me tell you my thoughts about why that rarely works, and on the other side, in what way a better lens can indeed yield better results.

I believe that the best question you should ask about new gear is:

What new options do I get from this gear? And what do I lose?

This is in contrast to the believe that a better, usually more expensive, gear will yield better results automatically. If your camera and lens is already on a modern level, chances are that your photography will look just the same as before. You need to know what the new stuff can do that you could not do before, and more importantly, indeed change your workflow to incorporate the new options.

As an example, let us think about replacing the Nikon Z 24-200 f/4-6.3 VR lens with something better, just because the lens is not the top lens for the Nikon Z system, especially regarding sharpness. The thing to keep in mind that we lose something, namely the flexibility of this superzoom in one compact and relatively affordable package. But what can we gain?

I did the step myself, and replaced the lens with two lenses, the Nikon Z 24-70 f/4 S and the Nikon Z 70-180 f/2.8. Obviously, I lost the compactness and comfort, the VR, and also 20mm on the long end. If you do some tests, shooting these lenses at f/6.3 or f/8 like with the superzoom would indeed bring too little advancement to be worth the trouble of having two lenses instead of one. 

But I can now shoot on the long end at f/2.8 which isolates objects much better than f/6 and works better in lower light. This matters a lot more than the improvements in sharpness. Moreover, I can now put a more compact 24-70 zoom on the camera, which is versatile enough to do almost everything while travelling. The 24-70 f/4 has also a very nice Bokeh, much better than the superzoom. 

The same would be true for a switch to primes, which are believed to be the gold standard of photography. A prime is a commitment to a specific focal length, giving up the flexibility of a zoom. The benefits only materialize if you use it like the lens it is meant to be. Shooting at f/8 will usually not make much difference, although this depends on the quality of your zoom. Use the open apertures! A prime often is not even more compact. Additionally, a prime can be useful as a tool to concentrate on photography rather than gear. It takes away the options for distraction.

Judge the gear by what it can do for your workflow. 

Many reviews of cameras and lenses are based on out-of-camera results. If you are shooting that way, this is of course important for you. But if you are developing your pictures anyway, it is pointless. Defects in lenses can also be healed on the computer today to a great extend. Wanting a perfect lens is nice for technically inclined perfectionists, but not so much for photographers any more. 

The picture at the start of this thread shows my point in two ways. First, is has been done by the Nikon Z 105mm f/2.8 MC macro lens, a specialized lens. The snakes (adders) were in a terrarium with a metal grid. That grid disappears partly by the lens and partly by postprocessing. And the animals were close enough, so that any standard lens at f/6 would not work. The photo has also been cropped to get the right view which is something I often do. A dark spec has been removed too. This photo is far from being an OOC result. Indeed, good postprocessing is just as important as appropriate gear for me.

Macros, ultra-wide lenses or long and fast telephoto zooms are typical examples of lenses which you should only consider if you need them. But if you do, you cannot achieve the results any other way. Or stop! Really? In fact, you can use panoramic shots to mimic wide angle, macro rings to get closer, and teleconverters to mimic long lenses. Often, the image quality of these tricks holds against dedicated lenses well enough. Again, it should be seriously considered, if you really need to burden yourself with one of those specialized purchases.

Often, perfectness can only be obtained with good gear.

I added this after writing the section above, because I do not want to come across as if gear did not matter, or matter only for special photography. How much admirable perfectness you seek is up to you. Unless you do not forget that a story, good light and a subject do matter, you can set your goals as high as you wish. Not everything can be achieved in post processing.