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Question of the week: What five questions should you ask yourself when buying a new lens?

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Mathew Anderson

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The questions are in!

Taking our camera Question of the week to a new level, we asked about lenses this time.

Here is our "DPReview readers answer our question of the week" article featuring several of your contributions:


Stay tuned for a new question with a twist in the coming weeks!

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Our community here at DPReview truly is a wealth of information. To help spark conversations and give you all another place to share your thoughts, we recently kicked off a 'Question of the week' series right here in the forums where we select community responses to showcase!

As the name suggests, we'll throw out one thought-provoking question, and you all get to comment with your own take.

These questions may come from the DPReview team, or could come from you in the community as well. If you have an idea for a question, please also share it here as a forum post response. We'll be sure to recognize those whose queries we use.

This week: What five questions should you ask yourself when buying a new lens?

We'll highlight five distinct answers in an update to this post by next Tuesday, so be sure to post your thoughts before then!
 
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  1. Will this lens give me better photos than the last 5 lenses I purchased?
  2. Will this lens give me better photos than the last 4 lenses I purchased?
  3. Will this lens give me better photos than the last 3 lenses I purchased?
  4. Will this lens give me better photos than the last 2 lenses I purchased?
  5. Will this lens give me better photos than the last lens I purchased?
 
I have one or two lenses on my "get list". So with that in mind....
  1. Does it cover the range I need?
  2. Is it rated at least 7/10 by others who have/had own/owned it?
  3. Is it affordable?
  4. Are good ones available?
  5. Is it durable?
 
Only one question:

Do I still need to keep all the others?
 
Mathew Anderson said:
As the name suggests, we'll throw out one thought-provoking question, and you all get to comment with your own take.

These questions may come from the DPReview team, or could come from you in the community as well. If you have an idea for a question, please also share it here as a forum post response. We'll be sure to recognize those whose queries we use.

This week: What five questions should you ask yourself when buying a new lens?
Click to expand...
Personally, it always come down to this diagram. It's not really "5 questions" but I always felt like it was the most effective way to decide if I should get a specific lens or not.



cf9af40b8cdb4d3dbb285c44df5239b3.jpg



--
(G.A.S. and collectionnite will get my skin one day)
 
1. Is this lens a prime?

2. Is this lens fast?

3. Is this the best available at this FL?

4. Does this lens have an aperture ring?

5. Is it true that I cannot find this lens at 60% or less of MSRP used in great or LN condition?

Any 'no' answers mean your shopping day is over and it's time to get back to work.
 
  1. Do I need it or do I want it?
  2. Do I need it or do I want it?
  3. Do I need it or do I want it?
  4. Do I need it or do I want it?
  5. Do I need it or do I want it?
 
1. Does it cover at least 28-200?

2. Is it better than what I have?

3. Does it have issues with zoom creep?

4. Is it a bargain price?

5. Am I going to use this?
 
Which lens impresses my followers the most?

How do I justify an overpriced lens to my wife?

What compensation gift do I have to buy for my wife?

How do I get a new mortgage to finance this lens?

How do I explain, that the pictures taken with this lens are bogus?
 
  1. Will it solve a problem?
  2. Will it mean that I use other lenses less?
  3. Is it faster or longer than other lenses I have that cover the same focal length range?
  4. Can I hand hold it?
  5. Does buying it make sense?
So far I've bought one lens this year, a 24-120, the answers were
  1. Yes I will be able to carry less sometimes
  2. Yes, but its slow focusing balances that out
  3. Yes, its longer than the 24-70 but it's slower
  4. Yes
  5. Yes
I've considered an 80-400 but it doesn't make sense, In won't be buying one.
 
I like the approach. One point though, I have bought primes of a focal length I already had covered by zooms, simply to get something with larger aperture and better low light performance. It’s sort of embedded in your image quality test, should it be more explicit?
 
1) Do I need this lens?

2) Do I want this lens?

3) Does this lens do what I want it to do optically?

4) Does this lens have other qualities: size, weight, handling, features (working aperture ring, focus limiter, etc.) that I want?

5) Can I afford this lens, and does it offer reasonable value for money?

(Note that I did not include "does it overlap with other lenses I own?" on my list. Most of my lenses are primes between 40 and 90 or so mm, and I have absolutely no problems with having say an 85 and a 90, or multiple 40s or 50s, in a system, as long as each lens has a specific job to do. A big fast serious lens and a small slow street/walkaround lens in the same focal length can be plenty different in use, as can a modern autofocus lens and a vintage or vintage style manual focus lens.)
 
I guess it's a matter of how you define "image quality" when you get over there on the left margin. If it's a matter of lab testing absolutes, then I've failed that one any number of times. I'd never buy a lens where I didn't like the results I got from it, but I like a bit of crunch and sometime buy lenses that are "interesting" when I already have a closer-to-perfect modern lens in the same focal length.
 
I only buy a lens if it fits a need I’ve been thinking about for at least six months, so that would be my first question.

Is it on discount from launch price or available used with a reasonable copy variation history.

Have I read multiple practical and technical reviews and studied sample images from the lens.

Am I going to carry it in situations where I would use it.

Can I afford it.

At the moment there is no gap in my lens set, so I’d need a new photographic interest or a body that needs a different lens.

Andrew
 
I expect there are MORE metrics to factor with a lens than with a body. It impacts so many things about the overall shooting experience & images you can get.

If I had to boil down the 30 or so more specific parameters to 5 more all encompassing questions, I'd say:
  1. What will this lens do that my other lenses don't?
  2. Can I afford it?
  3. Will I like the handling? (Fast AF, smooth linear MF, internal focus/zoom, and not least of all: PORTABILITY)
  4. Will the sharpness be sufficient in the appropriate areas at the appropriate settings? (Doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, corner-to-corner from wide open, though that is nice to have sometimes. Improvements stopped down – or lack thereof – are worth noting.)
  5. Will I like the "look"? (Colors / BOKEH / contrast / flare / sunstars / etc)
Bonus question: is the distortion manageable? (For reasons I can't fully rationalize, I just really like primes with extra low distortion. But I can relax that preference if I get enough in return – like a handy zoom range, compact sizing and/or great overall character.)
 
  • What's my budget?
  • Which focal length or range of focal lengths do I need?
  • Which is the higher priority, portability or light-gathering?
  • Do I care if it's a third party lens or of it's used?
  • Is stabilization a necessary feature?
 
hampshirejohn said:
I like the approach. One point though, I have bought primes of a focal length I already had covered by zooms, simply to get something with larger aperture and better low light performance. It’s sort of embedded in your image quality test, should it be more explicit?
Click to expand...
I thought about that, but more light means lower noise, thus better image quality.

Could also be a quality of the image you like or want to have, even if the lens is not as good on a technical standpoint.

I applied this chart for when I bought my Helios 44-M 58mm f/2 for example :

- had this lens on my mind for a while -> is it compatible with my system? [YES, since it can be adapted to all of my cameras with M42 adapters] -> Do I already cover that range? [YES, I already have multiple 50mm lenses, which are similar enough] -> Is the image quality better? [ Not on a technical standpoint, however the lens has a quality that my other don't, like the swirly bokeh that I was looking for so answer is YES] -> Am I hitting diminishing returns? [NO, since I already have more expensive lenses than this] -> can I afford it? [YES, it was 60€].

So I bought it.

Adding more precise stuff like wide aperture for depth of field, more light for lower noise, sharper optics for cripier photos etc would have completely thrown the chart around and it would have been a mess to read it at the end of the day imho.
 
yardcoyote said:
I guess it's a matter of how you define "image quality" when you get over there on the left margin. If it's a matter of lab testing absolutes, then I've failed that one any number of times. I'd never buy a lens where I didn't like the results I got from it, but I like a bit of crunch and sometime buy lenses that are "interesting" when I already have a closer-to-perfect modern lens in the same focal length.
Click to expand...
As I said in another post, "image quality" can mean a lot of things. It can be "quality" in the lab sense of things, as the image is sharper, devoid of aberrations, has clean bokeh, whatever.

It can also be qualities that you value yourself on a personal level. When I bought my Helios 58mm f/2, the quality that I wanted, and the whole reason why I had this lens on my mind was specifically swirly bokeh and the vintage look.

I had other 50mm lenses that I could use on my system that were brighter, of a similar range, sharper and with less aberrations. But they didn't have the swirly bokeh and vintage look that I valued, so the answer to "Does it have better image quality" was a definite "YES", because it had the qualities that my other lenses didn't.
 
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