Think you need a $10,000 camera to take good photos? Think again. The one behind this photo cost less than 1/10th of that.

How a Camera Works

       A classic large-format film camera with no electronics at all. It’s just a light-proof box, a lens, and a place to load film in the back.

  A photo I took with the camera above. It can be done!

How a Lens Works

If anything, generally lenses are to be more interesting than cameras. They gather light, focus light, and form it into an image. The camera just records that image.

The best way to think about lenses is to recognize that they work similarly to our own eyes. Indeed, our eyes do have lenses in them!

What we call “a camera lens” these days is almost always made of multiple lens elements that work together to bend the light into a sharp image. You can see that in the cross-section below:

Some lenses are much simpler than this, but generally speaking, a more complex optical design allows a lens to have better qualities – for example, it may be sharper or have a more extensive zoom range.

On advanced cameras today, you can usually swap lenses. (In fact, a reasonably popular word for high-end cameras is “ILCs,” meaning interchangeable-lens cameras.) Swapping lenses is a huge feature of great importance. It allows you to switch from taking wide-angle landscape photos one minute, to beautiful portrait photos with an out-of-focus background the next minute, to photographing a distant bird right afterwards.

When you’re researching camera lenses, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by their different features and things like sharpness and image quality. But above any of those considerations, there is one thing you need to know for any lens that you’re considering: the focal length.

Focal length is essentially how far “zoomed in” or “zoomed out” the lens is. It’s written in millimeters, with a smaller number being a wider lens. (For what it’s worth, only cheap point-and-shoot cameras measure the lens’s zoom in numbers like 8x, 20x, or 30x. Professional lenses list the millimeters instead.)

Here’s the general situation:

• Wide angle lenses – popular for landscape and architectural photography, but too wide for everyday photography. Usually range from about 14mm to 24mm.
• Normal lenses – popular for everyday photography. (The main camera on most smartphones is in this range.) Usually anywhere from 28mm to 50mm.
• Telephoto lenses – popular for portraiture and some wildlife photography. Helps magnify a slightly distant subject. Roughly 70mm to 200mm.
• Supertelephoto lenses – very far zoomed in, only useful for the most distant subjects like faraway wildlife or photographing the moon. Ranges from about 400mm to 800mm, and sometimes even beyond.

Here’s an example of a photo taken with each category of lens:

  Taken at 14mm, a wide-angle focal length

 Taken at 35mm, a normal focal length

Taken at 135mm, a telephoto focal length

                                                                                         Taken at 500mm, a supertelephoto focal length

Some lenses have a fixed focal length, while others are capable of zooming across different focal lengths. A popular do-it-all lens for beginner photographers is something like a 24-105mm zoom, which means it covers both wide-angle and telephoto photography, plus everything in between. Such a lens could work for many types of photography without forcing you to swap lenses very often.

It should be clear why zoom lenses are so popular nowadays, but plenty of photographers still prefer fixed lenses – also called prime lenses. Prime lenses are usually lighter, smaller, less expensive, and sharper than zoom lenses. A very popular choice would be a 50mm prime lens.

One last thing to note: It is also important to find out the maximum aperture of your lens. Among other things, this feature determines how much light a lens can gather. But we’ll get to that later – aperture is the topic of Chapter 5 in this Photography Basics guide, Understanding Aperture.

The Camera and Lens Market Today

It’s never been a better time to be a photographer. Cameras are more advanced than ever, and lenses have made so many strides in just the last couple of decades that it’s pretty remarkable. You can take photos today that would have been exceedingly difficult in previous years.

Around the year 2020, camera companies like Nikon and Canon pretty much completely changed their camera lineups. They stopped making DSLR cameras and switched to making mirrorless cameras instead. The actual difference between DSLR and mirrorless is beyond the scope of this article – you can read more in our post DSLR vs Mirrorless cameras – but it meant that everyone had to design new camera systems basically from scratch. New lenses, new accessories, the whole deal.

DSLR cameras remain extremely capable today. I loved my DSLR and took many of my best photos on it, and I think that almost all professional photographers who lived through the years 2000-2020 can say the same. The good news is that DSLRs are very reliable cameras, and if you’re on a budget, you can find some excellent used DSLRs at very attractive prices these days. I recommend checking KEH or MPB, which are the two largest pre-owned camera retailers (apart from eBay, but that carries more risks).

But since mirrorless cameras have been the main focus of Nikon, Canon, Sony, and pretty much everyone else in recent years, that’s where the most modern equipment can be found. I don’t think that everyone needs a mirrorless camera, though, and sometimes I regret selling my DSLR. But 99% of the new cameras you’ll hear about today will be mirrorless, and if you need any of the newest features like AI autofocus tracking (most people don’t) then mirrorless is really the only game in town.

 Taken with a DSLR, the Nikon D800E

  Taken with a mirrorless camera, the Sony a1

What Equipment Is Needed for Photography?

One should have the necessary background knowledge at this point. So, what camera gear do you actually need? It boils down to the following:

Camera. Professionals usually  recommend  to pick a camera with interchangeable lenses so that you can try out different types of photography more easily. Read reviews, but don’t obsess over them, because every camera available today is pretty much equally good as its competition. Find a nice deal and move on.

Lens(es). This typically matters more than the camera. For everyday photography, start with a do-it-all zoom lens like a 24-105mm or an 18-55mm. For portrait photography, pick a prime lens around 50mm or 85mm. For sports, go with a telephoto lens of at least 200mm and ideally 300mm or longer. For macro photography, get a dedicated macro lens. And so on. Lenses matter more than any other piece of equipment because they determine what photos you can take in the first place.

Post-processing software. One way or another, you need to edit your photos. The software that comes with your computer probably won’t cut it in the long run. I’m not really a pro-Adobe person, but at the end of the day, Photoshop and Lightroom are the industry standards for photo editing. An open-source Lightroom alternative called Darktable is a very good option if you’re on a budget. Whatever you pick, stick with it for a while, and you’ll learn it really well.

There are other things that might be optional, but can be very helpful:

1. A tripod. A landscape photographer’s best friend. See our comprehensive tripod article.
2. Bags. Get a shoulder bag for street photography, a rolling bag for studio photography, a technical hiking backpack for landscape photography, and so on.
3. Memory cards. Well, these aren’t optional, unless you have a phone or another camera with built-in storage. Choose something in the 64-128 GB range to start. Get a fast card (measured in MB/second) if you want to shoot fast bursts of photos, since your camera’s memory will clear faster.
4. Extra batteries. Get at least one spare battery to start, preferably two. Off-brand batteries are usually cheaper, although they may not last as long or maintain compatibility with future cameras.
5. Polarizing filter. This is a big one, especially for landscape photographers. Don’t get a cheap polarizer, or it will harm your image quality. The one that I use and recommend is the B+W high transmission nano filter (of the same thread size as your lens). See our polarizing filter article for more info.
6. Flash. Flashes can be expensive, and you might need to buy a separate transmitter and receiver if you want to use your flash off-camera. But for genres like portrait photography or macro photography, they’re indispensable. (Linked here is one of the cheaper high-quality flashes I recommend, and the associated trigger to use it off-camera.)
7. Better computer monitor. It’s almost essential to get IPS monitor (like this relatively inexpensive one) for editing photos, rather than a TN-panel monitor. If you don’t know what that means, we have an article about the difference. I also recommend a color calibration device so you know you’re editing accurate colors. Here’s the one I use if you care, but there are a million options.
8. Cleaning kit. The top item is a microfiber cloth to keep the front of your lens clean. Also get a rocket blower to remove dust from your camera sensor easily and safely.
9. Other equipment. There are countless photography accessories available, from remote shutter releases to GPS attachments, printers, and more. Don’t worry about these yet; you’ll realize over time if you need any of them. Instead, go out and start taking pictures first!

       Taken in 2010 with a camera (the Nikon D3S) that’s pretty outdated by today’s standards! Any decent gear today can do the same.

Does the Camera Matter?

Let’s  think back to that famous quote by Chase Jarvis: “The best camera is the one you have with you.”

Your choice of camera can matter sometimes, but only at the margins. What makes a great photo is being at the right place at the right time, knowing how to use your camera, and having a compelling reason to take a photo.

Isn’t it true that almost all of the best photos in history were made with cameras far less capable than what we have today? Dorothea Lange photographed Migrant Mother with an ancient Graflex D camera that weighed 7 pounds and only shot two photos per film holder. Steve McCurry photographed Afghan Girl with the Nikon FM2, a fully manual 35mm film camera with barely a hint of modern features.

Any recent DSLR or mirrorless camera will blow those cameras out of the water in almost every way, but does that mean you’ll get photos like Migrant Mother or Afghan Girl just by buying an expensive camera? Of course not – it would be like buying a $1000 keyboard and expecting to write a great novel because of it. The world just doesn’t work like that.

That brings people to the following recommendation: Find a competent camera that you enjoy using, and then don’t buy another one until it breaks. “Better” cameras will surely be released in the meantime, but those are just distractions that won’t improve your photography or your skills in the slightest. The real way to take better photos is to improve your technique and your creative voice. Once you do that, you’ll be able to take great photos with any gear.

It is a photo of  landscape , taken with a cheap, old DSLR. The camera doesn’t really matter!

That wraps up Chapter 3 of my Photography Basics guide. Now it’s time to dive into camera settings, which is really where you’ll start becoming a better photographer. If you’re ready, buckle down, and jump to the next chapter.