Buying a New Camera? Why You Should Buy the Kit Lens Too
Buying your first interchangeable lens camera is a significant milestone—you’re one step closer to becoming a serious photographer. You can buy your camera as a bundle with one or two lenses. If you do basic research on the internet, it is usually recommended to avoid buying the kit lens and go for a prime lens like 50mm.
Although this advice comes from a good place, a kit lens is more versatile for a newbie photographer. And you will be surprised at some of the great photos you can shoot with it if you know some tips and tricks.
What Is a Kit Lens?
A kit lens is a lens you get along with your camera, like the typical 18-55mm lens or 70-300mm with a crop sensor DSLR camera. You may get 24-120mm with a full-frame DSLR and slightly other variants with mirrorless models. The full-frame lenses may be more expensive and have a better build quality.
The kit lenses for crop sensor cameras are very inexpensive and versatile for beginner photographers, and that’s the reason why they are included with your camera. You may want to skip this and buy a prime lens instead, but as a new photographer, you may end up getting frustrated with a prime lens.
Reasons to Buy a Kit Lens
Here are some compelling reasons to give the kit lens a try.
1. Affordable
Kit lenses don’t cost thousands of dollars. They are wallet-friendly for people who have a small budget. As a new photographer, you may not know how to care for your lens. It is not a huge deal if you accidentally drop or break it. Here’s how you canclean and prevent fungus from accumulating on your camera lens.
Even if you have a bigger budget, buying an expensive lens without the knowledge or experience of using one is not a good idea.
2. Lightweight
A kit lens is entirely made of plastic without high-quality metal or glass elements. This is the reason why the kit lens is not pricey. Although the plastic components don’t always give the best performance, they make the lens lighter. So, it’s easy to carry it for longer travels.
Also, the kit lens doesn’t have weather sealing like the high-end lenses. So, you have to be careful when you’re shooting in adverse conditions. In normal conditions, the kit lens will work just fine.
3. Tool for Learning
For a new photographer, the key thing is to learn the different modes of the camera—especially when it comes tolearning about Manual Mode. Image quality has to take the back seat. Even if you don’t have state-of-the-art lenses, understanding your camera can make you a better photographer.
you could upgrade to a superior-quality lens once you learn the ropes and become comfortable using your camera.
4. A Range of Focal Lengths
The main advantage of a kit lens is the range of focal lengths that you can use for many situations. The shorter focal length is excellent for landscapes and architecture, while the longer one is suitable for portraits.
The general advice is to use a prime lens and zoom by walking closer or further away, but it is not practical for those just starting out. The 50mm prime lens is a great all-around lens until you’re stuck indoors and have to take pictures of a group of people. Having the versatility of zoom lenses is helpful in such cases.
5. Image Quality Is Not Everything
Kit lenses get bad press for their image quality, but it is not a deal-breaker for someone new to photography. Plus, if you know how to use your gear correctly, you can take amazing images just with a kit lens. So, unless you sell your photos, you don’t have to pixel peep and stress yourself.
How to Use Your Kit Lens to Its Full Potential
Image byNijwam Swargiaryvia Unsplash. No attribution required.
Now that you know the advantages of a kit lens, let’s see how to make the most out of it.
1. Shoot in Good Light
A kit lens will likely have a variable aperture with an aperture of f3.5 or above. This makes the lens slower as it cannot let enough light in dark conditions. So, your best bet is to use it in daylight. Your kit lens will serve you well for any daytime shooting.
Use a tripod or try artificial lighting if you want to get great results in low light.
2. Choose One With VR
Vibration reduction (VR) is a feature that helps stabilize your lens while working with a slow shutter speed. Keeping the vibration reduction on will give you additional four to eight stops of light so that you can avoid blur when shooting handheld.
Opt for a kit lens with VR, especially if you’re going for a longer focal length, like 200 or 300mm. With telephoto lenses, you must use a fast shutter speed according to the reciprocal rule. Remember, VR is denoted differently by different camera brands—you can find it as image stabilization or optical stabilization too.
3. Use Filters
The wide-angle focal length, 18 or 24mm, is perfect for landscapes and outdoor shoots. One way to make your outdoor images pop is with filters. Filters can help protect the lens, reduce the amount of light, avoid glare, cut-off reflections, and bring out vivid details in your scene.
Some of the standard filters are ultraviolet (UV), neutral density (ND), andpolarizing filters. you may also buy close-up filters and do some macro photography.
4. Create Background Separation
The bokeh you get from a fast lens with an aperture below f2.8 is stunning. you may’t expect to get buttery smooth bokeh with your kit lens, but you can use some tricks to get it close. First, zoom in on your lens because the longer the focal length, the better the bokeh. Second, put your subject a few feet away from the background.
Then, shoot with the widest aperture possible on your lens. This way, you could get a beautiful blurred background with your kit lens too.
It’s ok if you don’t get it right in the camera. Here’s a guide toblurring background in Photoshop with Luminar’s Portrait Bokeh AI.
Great Photos Are the Result of Your Skills
You may feel your photos are not as good as those you see online, but buying a lot of expensive gear is not going to make you a better photographer. You have to improve your compositional skills and learn you use your camera and lens effectively to take amazing photos.
Remember, the pictures are taken by you with the right tools and settings. The tools by themselves are useless.
Not every photographer needs a telephoto lens as they’re best suited for specific scenes and subjects.
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