Why So Expensive?

Newcomers often get dazzled by the amazing technology available for our shiny new digital cameras.

When buying a new camera often the photographer’s first lens is the “kit” lens that came with the camera. These are relatively cheap slow zooms that actually change aperture as the move through their zoom range. This reduces construction costs and for most amateur shooting the affect of the changing aperture isn’t noticeable.

It’s not until you get faced with more demanding situations that better (and read more expensive) lenses come into play.

For example this morning I replied on FB to a relatively new photographer (I base this on his question.) who asked what would be a better lens for shooting concerts other than his slow zoom lens?

Typically fast zoom lenses are expensive and with f/2.8 apertures are pretty fast and often the choice of wedding photographer. But f/2.8 just won’t cut it when it comes to shots in a dim chapel or concert halls. For that the best choice is a very fast (and now read very expensive) prime lens.

In the Olympus PRO series I recommended a 45mm (90mm equivalent in 35mm terms) f/1.2. Now f/1.2 is super fast (in other words it will let in a lot more light to the sensor thus allowing for higher shutter speeds to prevent blur from camera shake and lower ISO settings thus developing less digital noise).

Aside from the cost the other issue wth super fast lenses is when shot wide open at f/1.2 there is very very shallow depth of fieldd so your focus has to be spot on and it’s not going to be very deep at all.

However when the light is dim there’s nothing like a fast prime.