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A new digital camera comes with a multitude of features, but one of the first things we consider is the quality and power of the lens. But how many of us really understand what can be acheived by creative use of lenses?.

The difference between a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens is about more than just magnification. To get the most out of your lenses, you also need to understand how they affect depth of field and perspective.

You already know that the telephoto lens enlarges everything in the picture. But did you also know that when you zoom in, or attach your large telephoto lens, you also reduce the depth of field around the subject? This is a great method for eliminating a distracting background from your photo. The result is twofold: the narrow field of view minimizes how much of the background we can see, and the small depth of field ensures it will be completely out of focus.

Therefore when you are photographing people, animals or flowers outdoors, zooming in or using a telephoto lens is usually often the best approach. The result will be a very three dimensional effect, with the subject appearing to emerge sharp and clear from the blurry background.

On the other hand, your wide-angle lens does just the opposite. It certainly does a lot more than just make everything appear smaller. The wide angle lens takes in (as the name suggests) a much wider angle of view, and it has a much stronger depth of field than a standard or telephoto lens. That means that not only will you see a lot more of the background in your photo, but it will also be much more focused.

Consequently the wide-angle lens is not so good for portrait style photos, because the background is too distracting. On the other hand, it is excellent for landscape pictures, especially when you have objects both in the foreground and background that you need to keep in focus.

The other aspect of your choice of lens is perspective, which is a lot harder to explain without pictures, but I will give it a go.

Have you ever watched a cricket match on television? (If you are from the United States substitute baseball here). When you see a close-up image of the batsman, you may notice that the wicket keeper (shortstop) seems to be standing right behind him, and the crowd is only a short distance further back. When you see a side-on view, you may be surprised to see that the wicket-keeper is standing about ten meters behind the batsman, and of course we know that the grandstand is a good 60 meters or so further back. So what’s going on?

The answer is simple. The very large telephoto lens used for the close-up shot tends to make objects at different distances seem much closer to each other than they really are. In short, it compresses the natural perspective, making people separated by some distance appear to be quite close to each other.

The same effect applies to landscape photography. Imagine a scene with a tree in the foreground and a mountain range in the distance. By standing a long way from the tree and shooting it with a telephoto lens, you will also enlarge the mountains in the background. As a result, they will appear much closer to the tree than they really are.

Now imagine taking the same scene with a wide-angle lens. By standing a lot closer to the tree, you can photograph it in such a way that it takes up the same amount of space in the composition. However, by reducing the scene to fit the tree in the frame, you also reduce the background…making it appear much further away than it really is.

In this way, the wide-angle lens does the opposite of the telephoto lens. It exaggerates the perspective, making objects at different distances appear much further apart than they really are.

Put simply, the end result of these two approaches is this; the telephoto lens adds prominence to the background, which will appear relatively large in your photos (albeit with depth of field issues in some cases). The wide-angle lens adds prominence to the foreground, making the background appear much smaller and more distant.

Thus by simply changing your choice of lenses, you can dramatically alter the impact of your photos. Imagine the creative possibilities; you have the power to control how the viewer sees not only your subject, but how it relates to the surroundings at the same time.

This is a tough subject to explain without pictures, but hey - you have a digital camera. Why not step outside right now and try out a few of these ideas. Or if you are feeling lazy, sit down and watch some sport on telly. It may actually teach you something about photography.

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In the old days, if your camera (35mm of course) had a battery die on you in the middle of an important shoot, you still had options. I mean after all; the only thing you needed the battery for was the light meter, it’s not like your whole camera will shut down if you have no battery. Oh, I’m sorry . . . if you are using all digital that might have stung just a little bit.

The point was if your battery died, you still had a way to get a good picture. If you were using 100 speed film you could set your shutter speed to whatever the flash sync speed was (usually 1/60th or 1/125th of a second), set your f-stop to f-16, and bracket every shot. Besides the obvious dependency on batteries, there are other differences between film and digital cameras.

If you have ever shopped for a digital camera you have no doubt heard the phrase: “35mm equivalent”. This means that the optics are not exactly the same in a digital camera. Since the 35mm SLR camera has been the standard for so long, that’s what newer cameras are compared to. The difference between the two is a ratio of 1:1.4. Simply put, a 35-200 zoom on a digital camera would be like having a 49-280 zoom lens on a traditional 35mm camera.

The main reason the optics are different is because the sensor (the device that actually reads the light) is also a different size. Film cameras use film (sensitive to light) that is placed directly behind the lens. When the correct exposure is calculated, that image is literately burned into the film. Digital cameras use a sensor; that also sits behind the lens. This sensor is made up of millions of individual points that each represents 1 pixel. Once the sensor has gathered the information for each pixel it transfers that data to a digital media card (which can be used repeatedly.)

The sensor is the physical device that gathers information about the quality of light coming into the camera. The process of “how” the sensor goes about gathering information is referred to as “metering”. The human eye can distinguish a range of about 16 different f-stops; camera meters only have a range of about 5 f-stops. This is why camera meters are calibrated for a “mid range” exposure of 18% gray, because 90% of the time that is as close as they can get to the human eye. It’s not the camera’s fault that it can not see as well as you do, it’s simply a fact of life.

There are basically only three types of metering systems.

A) Spot Metering
B) Center-Weighted Metering
C) Matrix Metering

Spot metering as the name indicates only reads a small spot or portion of the overall image (usually 1% to 3%). This type of metering is useful in any situation where the lighting is extreme. Backlit subjects, macro shots, or even pictures of the moon can benefit from this type of metering. This type of metering is usually found on the more costly upper end cameras.

Center-Weighted metering averages the overall scene with an emphasis on the center area of the frame. Usually this type of meter bases its reading with 75% of the light hitting center frame and 25% for everything else. It assumes that the subject is dead center, most of the time. It is worth noting that most center weighted systems have a greater sensitivity in the bottom half of the frame; to avoid an overly contrasting sky from throwing off the readings. This type of system is the most common used in both digital and traditional cameras today.

Matrix Metering splits your image up into anywhere from 3 to 16 metering zones and evaluates the different zones to come up with one over all reading. In this process of evaluation it takes into account factors like: subject size, position, distance, point of focus, over all lighting, color and more. This system uses a microchip which has been exposed to thousands of different picture-taking situations. Currently this is the most complex and the most accurate metering system to date. This system is usually found on the higher end Digital SLR’s.

I used the word “digital” several times, but these are the same types of metering systems used in traditional film cameras as well. The only other way of reading light has to do with “reflected light” verses “surface light”. Most meters in the camera are reading reflected light (light reflected off the main subject that goes back toward the camera.) Every so often you might see someone with a hand held light meter that will go right up to the subject and read the light that falls on the surface of that subject. Some photographers still debate which way is more accurate. In my opinion; “Spot Metering” does basically the same thing.

All photographers have their favorites; Canon, Nikon, Kodak. Some choose digital, some choose film. The thing to remember is what we actually need to get a great photo. Things like composition, leading lines, framing, and the rule of thirds are much more important to our success as great photographers than the physical tools we use. On the other hand, knowing what your camera can or can not do, let’s you know if you have the right tool for the job.