As a travel hobbyist, I definitely love to take pictures of places I visited. Shot a scene while you embark on a journey is one of the most satisfying things you can do. To shot the scene, of course you need a camera; Whether it's a compact camera, mirrorless, or DSLR. These cameras (except compact camera) often comes with a kit lens and it's a zoom lens (mostly); These zoom lenses is versatile but will be oppressed by prime lens on some specific condition as most prime lens has larger aperture which allows the photographer to take a shot under low-light condition called as low-light photography.
The camera I used for taking travel photograph is a Fujifilm X-T10 (Black) with its kit lens an XC 16-50mmF3.5-5.6. This lens is great and versatile for most cases; daylight photography for example, shot beautifully with great sharpness. I recommend using a lens with longer focal length for bokeh and of course telephoto and one with shorter focal length for landscape photography as these lenses is categorized as wide-angle lenses; But I'm not going to expose about any of those lenses for now because this particular post's purpose is to showcase the ability of kit-lenses.
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| Fujifilm X-T10 camera body (black) |
Kit lenses provides a good range of focal length from wide angle to medium ranged and usually designed towards beginner photographer. The focal length range is varied depends on the brand, the manufacturers and types of camera. I'm going to use my kit-lens as a benchmark from this point forward.
Casual shot
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| Victoria clock shot at F6.4 ISO 800 1/30 Sec |
The first one is casual shot; I'm also a snap shooter whenever I visit places I've never been, because it's faster to get as much as possible information and detail on the spot. for this kind of photography some of you maybe prefer the "auto" mode, but i prefer learning the exposure triangle for the best utility of the camera; you can learn this anywhere on the internet. For beginner, you can check the guide on here and here. On the first picture, you can see that I'm using a slower shutter speed to regain light better while the aperture is smaller to improve the depth of field; and to balance it out I use ISO 800. For this one I didn't use F5.6 (which is the largest aperture on my kit lens at full zoom) and smaller ISO because I want the depth of field to include the clock holder so the overall object in the focus looks sharper.
Bright places
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| Bali statue shot at F5.6 ISO 2500 1/500 Sec |
For the second picture, I use the faster shutter speed to balance the amount of light because the actual scene is actually so bright and there's so many spot to shot so faster shutter speed means more pictures can be taken at the same time. To get a deeper depth of field, I once again use the full zoom at 50mm F5.6 and to balance it out I use ISO 2500 because using lower ISO would make the details on the statue disappear and higher ISO would create more noise on the picture.
Low-light
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| Sunset in Bali shot at F3.8 ISO 1000 1/30 Sec |
The third one was shot in a dimly lit condition when the sun sets. To get better light, the shutter speed is set to 1/30 sec in which I can shot a picture with steady hand without a tripod, some may need a faster shutter speed about 1/60 sec or even faster. To get a sharp detail on people's silhouette, I set the aperture at F3.8 and ISO 1000 to balance it out.
Macro
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| Tree trunk shot at F6.4 ISO 3200 1/125 Sec |
For this macro photograph, I go full zoom on the kit lens to make the object appear closer. It was shot at F6.4 to take only a portion of the trunk that is the closest to the lens; at smaller aperture (at F/16 maybe), the focus would be on the entire tree and would make the picture less dramatic. I use 1/125 Sec for the shutter speed to speed up the shooting process, because I need to go somewhere afterward; ISO 3200 to balance it out.
Portrait
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| Sleeping Puppy shot at F5.6 ISO 2500 1/250 Sec |
This cute dog sleeping so soundly make me want to pet it a thousand times but before the dog woke up, I need to take a photo of it first. So I get my camera out of my bag and take a picture of this cute beautiful puppy. Because the sun is so bright and I want to go full zoom once again, I decided to set up the shutter speed at 1/250 and ISO 2500; I could've make it at lower ISO and a faster shutter speed, but then it's my choice to decide which setting works best for my style.
All of the shots above was taken with the kit lens on different settings; I hope this post could give you the insight on how you can use the kit lens for many occasions and how versatile it is. The exposure triangle actually doesn't have an exact law or rules, but you need to understand how they works to get a balanced exposure on your picture, not some under exposed or overexposed one; Though there is an important rules you must know like when to use aperture priority or shutter speed priority depending on your needs whether you want to shot a moving objects, a portrait, or want to get that smooth silky landscape photos.
Am I missing something? let me know in the comments!!
I hope you enjoy your time in my tavern!!
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