Different Specialist Lenses Models

In return for their high price, specialist lenses can make a huge difference to your photography. With all these lenses, however, an SLR is essential.

Shift/tilt lenses
The optical elements of a shift lens are mounted on a mechanism that allows the lens to be raised or lowered from its normal shooting position. Tilt lenses contain a mechanism that allows the lens to be rotated, to a limited degree at least, so that it points upward or downward. A few lenses in this category combine both movements in one lens.
Shifting allows you to reduce or increase, say, foreground coverage without moving the camera. Tilting the lens allows you to position the plane of best focus, to give very deep or shallow depth of field, without adjusting the aperture. These lenses are ideal for architectural and landscape photography and are invaluable for still-life, tabletop work, and portraiture.

Macro lenses
Turn to these lenses when peerless image quality is required. Available in focal lengths from 50 to 200mm, these lenses focus very close and their level of image distortion is the lowest in general photography. Digital cameras do offer close focusing, but usually at shorter focal lengths. This means that in order to obtain a magnified image, you have to work at close subject distances.

Super-telephotos
Lenses with very long focal lengths are difficult to manufacture, so prices are usually high. However, for serious wildlife photographers they are indispensable. An advantage of digital photography is that many digital SLR cameras effectively increase focal length over their 35mm equivalents because of their small sensor size. Thus, a 300mm lens can become a 450mm lens. Needless to say, a tripod is essential, even if you can afford the top-grade lenses from Canon, which are equipped with image-stabilization technology.

Catadioptric lenses
These lenses use a combination of curved mirrors (hence their common name of "mirror" lens) and glass lens elements in their optical construction, and are characterized by extreme compactness in relation to their focal length - a 500mm focal length, for example, can be folded into a barrel barely 12cm (4% in) long. These optics usually feature high correction for colour aberrations, irrespective of cost, and can focus at very close subject distances. On the down side, all but one model is manual focusing and they have only a single working aperture - the maximum - and that is usually rather limited: a nominal aperture of f/5.6 or f/8 is usually the case.

Steve J. Wilson is living in the United States and is a freelance writer since 2006, in digital photography related topics. If you are interested in some useful Digital Photography Class, than you are in the right place.

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