Anyone who starts acquaintance with the art of photography has probably heard of "whale lenses". The strange phrase conjures up false associations with marine mammals, but its actual meaning is more prosaic.
The expression "kit lens" or "kit lens" comes from the English word kit, which means kit / kit. You can only meet him when buying cameras with interchangeable lenses. Sometimes manufacturers sell cameras without a lens (called a body), which are purchased by photographers who already have a set of suitable lenses, or plan to buy a suitable one separately. Novice photographers are offered a camera with a lens included.
What are the features of kit lenses?
Kit lenses are deliberately made as cheap as possible. This affects the quality. Their bodies are made of plastic, low-quality lenses, simple autofocus drives, etc. are used. While they can take great pictures, the results will be more impressive with more expensive lenses.
Aperture, that is, the ability of the lens to transmit a stream of light without losing its intensity, is also low here, as a rule, f / 3.5-5.6 for short-throw models, which is a very low indicator.
Kit lenses in most kits are universal. This allows them to be used in different types of shooting, but they will always play out to the optics implemented for certain tasks. Such characteristics are understandable, because the task of a kit lens is to acquaint the photographer with different genres, giving him the opportunity to shoot in each of them.
What kits are there
As a rule, cameras are equipped with two types of kit lenses, which have their own characteristics. Short-throw wide-angle lenses - the most common have a focal length of 18-55 millimeters (zoom 3.5 times). This range of focal lengths allows you to capture both portraits and landscapes, and for everyday shooting.
Long telephoto lenses with focal lengths from 55 or 70 mm to 300 - they can also be used to shoot portraits, but with a greater distance to the subject and a narrower angle of view, as well as objects that are at a great distance from the photographer. Novice amateur photographers are better off using the kit lenses from the first kit.
There are also double kits. They include two lenses at once: wide-angle and telephoto. Such a kit is better, since it allows you to more fully reveal the capabilities of the camera, but it also costs more.
