I found a really great article called “Three Lenses Every Photographer Should Own” written by Chris Folsom for Digital Photography School.
These are the 3 lenses he swears by and I believe with these lenses you just can’t go wrong. The only thing I might have added as a little bonus is the Nifty 50mm lens by Canon. It’s an affordable lens and great for various types of photography.
The general purpose zoom
This is the lens that sits on my camera the most. For APS-C cameras, something in the 18-50mm range is best. This will give you the ability to go fairly wide while also being able to zoom into objects off in the distance. This lens might be your kit lens, but it should preferably be fairly fast (a fixed f/2.8 if possible). It makes a great “walkabout” lens when you aren’t sure what you will be shooting.
The macro lens
The length of this lens isn’t as important as its ability to create a 1:1 magnification of subjects. I currently keep a 50mm f/2.8 macro in my bag because it is small and light… easy to carry around for when I might need it. It makes a decent portrait lens (very sharp and the f/2.8 provides a fairly shallow area of focus) and the level of detail you can get when shooting objects up close is fantastic.
The telephoto zoom
The telephoto zoom should be in the general range of 70-200mm with a maximum aperture of at least f/4 (faster is nice though). This will give you a lot of distance to work with and a very shallow depth of field to bring focus to your subjects.
You can read the full article over at Digital Photography School
Source: Digital Photography School
I just wasted three mins looking at this ad.
why is it everytime one of your pages pop up it takes you to your page then onto to other pages ? you never get to actually look at what we want to see …. its bullshit
This drives me crazy, people.
This is the LAST ARTICLE I am viewing on your site if I have to go another WEBSITE”S WEBPAGE to see 2 of the 3 lenses.This is fricken ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
useless article, what about low light? weddings? two zooms and a macro don’t make an article
Not even going to look. It’s a matter of choice with a few variants.
Not yet
Were can you pick these up at?
Click Bait
Yea. Super annoying webpage
Yea. Super annoying webpage
Don’t waste your time looking at this…
Broad blanket statements are just bullshit!
Too many ads, too much click-bait to bother reading.
So many ads that I gave up and closed the page.
Never been a big fan of any kind of article that makes such sweeping generalizations to suggest that a set of 3 lenses will do everything, every photographer needs.
For many photographers (maybe even most) the article would probably make a lot of sense, but certainly not for all.
I would be a terrible failure if this were the test of a good photographer.
I do own and use a 105mm macro….but I don’t use a single zoom lens (mid range or telephoto either one)
I am too stuck on the superior image quality and faster aperture of my prime lenses.
shoul be interesting
should be interesting
You immediately lost me at “ANY”.
If you didn’t know this, why do you even have a camera—how do you even figure you’re a photographer?