I often see questions from new first-time DSLR buyers that go something like this:

I just bought my first DSLR. It just came with the kit lens, but I want the best lenses and I have [some predetermined amount of money] to spend. I’m going to buy them later this week. I want to shoot everything from family photos to landscapes to sports. What are the best lenses to buy?

When this or a similar question is posted in an online photography forum the answers typically include a wildly diverse set of recommendations. Among them will inevitably be a few of the standard gems: “Got a cheap 50mm prime and don’t shoot anything else.” “You’ll need the f/2.8 16-35mm L zoom. Nothing else is good enough.” “A full kit includes the following four high-end zooms… You’ll also want a set of large aperture primes…” “It must be the f/2.8 version of Lens X.” “It must be the f/4 version of Lens Y.” “If you want good IQ  you’ll need primes, and don’t even think about using zooms.” “You must invest in the best lenses now!” Even more confusing, you’ll hear some gear-heads speak of “magical lenses” that produce a “wow” effect, produce extraordinary “micro-contrast,” “great colors, contrast, and tones,” “lovely rendering,” and “drawing style,” “3D effect,” among other supposed wonders.

And so on…

For the most part you can safely ignore pretty much all of this stuff. This sometime well-intentioned “advice” falls into several categories, none of which really address what you need in your current situation and a number of which are based more on gear-head fantasies or repeated myths than on photographic reality.

With someone who is new to DSLR photography, especially if they are new to photography in general, it is very important to keep the context in mind. While you are excited about your new camera – and you should be! – there is a lot you don’t know yet. What directions will your photographic interests take? Will photography end up being your passion, one interest among many, something you do occasionally, or a passing phase? Will you gravitate toward landscape, sports, abstract, street, night, or some other genre? How big is your budget, both in absolute terms and in terms of what portion of it you want to devote to photography? How much time will you devote to photography? Will you make prints or share photos electronically? If you make prints, how big and how often and for whom?

The reason I list all of these factors — and it is not a complete list by any means — is that selecting lenses is a very personal and subjective process. In objective terms, there is no one “best lens” that you must buy. The right lens for you is the one that best matches your needs and expectations in the context of your expected use — it does what you need it to do.

Your “best” lens will likely be quite different from another photographer’s “best” lens. The best wide angle prime zoom for a landscape photographer will necessarily not be the same as the best wide angle zoom for a photojournalist. The best telephoto for someone photographing the kids’ soccer match will not be the same as the best telephoto for photographing birds in flight. The best set of lenses for backpacking will not be the same as the best set of lenses for a car tour of national parks. The best lens for photographing friends at parties will not be the same as the best lens for photographing them in portrait settings.

So, how to choose?

Frankly, it is best for the new DSLR owner to not choose right away. Until you shoot a few thousand photos you probably won’t have much experiential context for making good decisions about lenses that will be best for your personal approach to photography. If you decide to throw money at the problem and buy “really good lenses” you may well discover before long that you bought the wrong really good lenses for your photography.

I strongly urge new photographers to be patient and start out with one of the kit lenses that are often sold with entry-level and consumer-level DSLR cameras. I’ll use Canon for my example since that’s what I’m familiar with, but there are comparable lenses for cameras from other manufacturers such as Nikon, Sony, and Pentax and more. The current Canon “kit” lens (Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Autofocus Lens) is an inexpensive but quite decent little variable-aperture 18-55mm image-stabilized lens designed for use on Canon cropped sensor cameras. The newer IS (“image-stabilized”) version is reportedly better than the older non-IS version, though the older lens is also OK at first if you happen to have one lying around.

Take this gear out and have fun shooting a lot of photographs. As the interest arises, read books and online resources about photography and try to learn more about this basic equipment and how to use it. As you do this you will learn what you can do with this gear… and you will also occasionally run into situations where the gear does limit you. When something doesn’t turn out quite right, try to figure out what went wrong and go back and try again – and keep in mind that not every failure is an equipment failure. (In fact, problems are more often related to technique than equipment -which is good news since you can often improve technique for free!) You’ll gain an understanding of what equipment alone can and cannot do for your photography, and – most important – you’ll begin to develop subject and stylistic preferences in your shooting.

At this point you will begin to understand why your original “what is the best lens?” question is just about impossible to answer. Instead based on this practical experience you’ll begin to identify specific lens features and capabilities that you need: large apertures, shorter or longer focal lengths, a tripod, smaller lenses, image stabilization, a few lenses with large focal length ranges or many lenses with smaller ranges, etc. I’m not suggesting that you’ll need or want all of these! What I am suggesting is that you’ll identify some of them that are important to your photography. Consider a few hypothetical examples:

You discover that you love landscape photography and that you have success when you make some prints. But you find that sometimes 18mm isn’t wide enough and that you aren’t getting quite enough detail in some of the images when you send them out for printing large. You may want to think about high quality lenses with a wider angle of view. If you are a Canon shooter using a crop sensor body, the “best” next lens for you might be something like the EFS 10-22mm ultrawide (Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Autofocus Lens).

Or…

You discover that you really like photographing action sports. You shoot your kids’ soccer games, share the photos with friends, and they want copies. Pretty soon you are supplying images for the team web site. You discover that the kit lens isn’t long enough even when they let you shoot from the sidelines. What you need is a longer focal length but your budget is limited right now. Fortunately you aren’t making large prints – and the players are in motion anyway – so the EFS 55-250mm lens (Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II Lens for Digital SLR Cameras) seems like just the thing for your web-shared images.

Or…

You discover that you have an aptitude for and interest in portrait photography. The kit lens – good as it is for many other purposes – forces you to shoot too close to your subject and doesn’t let you isolate them from the background quite as much as you would like. You need something with a slightly longer focal length and a wider maximum aperture, though you don’t think that a zoom is necessary… or affordable. Something like the 85mm f/1.8 prime (anon 85mm f/1.8 EF USM Autofocus Lens) could be the “best” lens for your circumstances, as could a normal to short-telephoto, large-aperture zoom.

Or…

You develop a passion for old-school street photography. The kit lens is OK for this, but when you work quickly on the street you wouldn’t mind a smaller lens and you don’t need the zoom feature and sometimes a larger aperture could come in handy. You might look at a small prime such as a EF 35mm lens (Canon Wide Angle EF 35mm f/2.0 Autofocus Lens, or the newer IS model: Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 IS USM Standard Prime Lens) or something roughly comparable.

Or…

After using your new camera and kit lens for a few months you come to realize that although it is great fun to shoot family gatherings and vacations you are not going to become a professional photographer. Photography will remain an enjoyable past-time for you; something you do casually from time to time. That entry-level DSLR and kit lens is just fine.

In any of these situations, your guesses about what would be the “best” lenses at the time of the camera purchase would most likely have wrong, expensively wrong in some cases. Fortunately, with a bit of experience it is a lot easier to make better decisions that you’ll be much happier with in the long run. You might even find a better price on those lenses if you wait a bit. :-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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