The Four Strategic Lenses

If you've got a Pentax camera and are looking to expand your kit, Ricoh has recommended four Pentax lenses that they think will be ideal for your first steps in advancing your kit. These are looked at in more detail below:

Standard Lens - smc Pentax-DA 35mm f/2.4 AL

This fixed focal length lens is ideal for lots of different areas of photography, from landscapes and portraits to pet photography and taking pictures of gardens or flowers. Simply by altering the angle of the photos a little, you can make this lens perform really well in all sorts of situations. Getting down low and photographing from the eye level of an animal, while using the widest aperture of f/2.4 will give a pleasing background blur.

Fixed focal length lenses are great for getting you to think a bit more about the composition of your photos as you'll have to use your feet to get closer to things. The 35mm standard lens has an angle of view close to the human eye, so using different angles and photographing something you'd usually not go for can really get your creativity flowing.

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Medium Telephoto Lens - smc Pentax-DA 50mm f/1.8

This lens is ideal for giving photos an extra kick through the use of bokeh, which can be used to creatively blur a part of the image to add depth. Its wide aperture of f/1.4 allows it to do this easily. The brightness and background blurring abilities of this lens make it great for arresting portraiture images. 

It is also great for making subjects stand out, such as a loan flower among a bunch. Creating a narrow depth of field allows you to focus solely on a relatively small part of the image, whilst creating an atmospheric blurred background. 

Try shooting a little bit further away from your subject than normal, and experiment with the distance between the subject and the background of the shot, until you get the bokeh just right. 

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Fisheye Lens - smc Pentax-DA Fish-Eye 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 ED [IF]

The fisheye lens is great for creating dynamic and fun images that are a little different form the crowd. The focal length ranges from super wide angle to fisheye, opening up a wide range of possibilities to explore. 

Photographing buildings, or objects with a large volume, will produce some great quirky images as lines that usually appear straight in images will suddenly appear curved. Use the distortion the lens creates to your advantage and shoot some unusual looking imagery.

The lens is also great for putting a different spin on pet and portrait images, too, with the wide view of the lens creating a sense of larger and expansive space around your subject. Pets interested in the camera will allow you to create fun photos of them with enlarged facial features. Getting used to the angle of view, which is far wider than the human eye, will allow you to become more creative with your shooting and think out of the box.

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Macro Lens smc - Pentax-D FA Macro 50mm f/2.8

The macro lens is ideal for lots of close up imagery, whether it be part of a landscape or portrait image. When scouting for images you will most likely find that there are certain parts of the area or subject that stand out and will make great close up images. 

The 50mm D FA Macro will help you to achieve these, but make sure that you don't lose the atmosphere of the image by cropping in too close. A little out of focus background can go a long way to telling the story of an image. 

This lens is really sharp, allowing you to capture your close up subjects in clear, crisp detail. This is great for things like flower photography, where the intimate details of the structure of the plant can make or break the shot. The macro lens is also great for looking at something with a different angle, for example looking closely at a certain feature of an animal, such as the paws or the eye, to denote certain feelings. A macro lens unlocks the fascinating world of the small details around us that we might otherwise miss. 

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To find out more about these four lenses, take a look at the Ricoh website.