I love my zoom lens.
I use it almost every time, I go to take pictures. We use primarily digital for most of the pictures we take. We often use photos for dailydwelling.com or for Monica’s Scrapbook pages.
With our digital Nikon D40, we use a AF-S DX-Zoom NKKOR 55-200mm lens. I also enjoy using a film camera (Nikon N75) and have a similar long lens that I use with this camera.
There are several reasons to love a zoom lens.
1. Close-ups. I tend to shoot pictures closer into the subject—this is something that I learned and practiced several years ago when I took a class at Tri-County Tech. The zoom lens allows me to step in very close without shoving the camera into their face! Or scarring the subject away.
2. Depth of field. With the zoom lens you are able to create a more distinct Depth of Field —or “the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.” (wikipedia)
3. Natural Expression. I believe that the best pictures of people—kids and adults—are those that are taken when the person is not aware tat the picture is being taken. The zoom lens facilitates this by being “out of the way”. Many times, I will go to another part of the yard and just sit and begin to take pictures. There I am able to reach over and take a picture of the subject without any nervousness or posing on their part. This gives the most natural reproduction of the people in the photo.
To say again that I love my zoom lens would be an understatement. I use it every chance I get. Just writing this article makes me want to stop what ‘m doing and go take some photos!