Lenses I Live By: The Fast All-Purpose Zoom

I’ve blogged before in this series about “superzooms”, which a lot of folks call “vacation” lenses because they cover a wide range of focal lengths, from wide-angle to long telephoto, obviating the need to bring an array of different lenses on vacation with you.

Thing is, some of your vacation will likely take place indoors, while visits to the zoo tend to happen on nice days, hence why I call these zooms “zoo lenses”. The thing is, the focal length range on these lenses… typically 7X to 10X …precludes both really excellent optical results across the entire focal length range, as well as necessitating slower apertures at longer focal lengths, making them less useful indoors or in otherwise questionable lighting conditions.

Alternatively, most manufacturers make zoom lenses with a slightly shorter focal length range, typically a 24-105mm or 24-120mm equivalent, but better optics and faster apertures, usually a constant f/4 across the whole range, or else an f/2.8-4 or something like that.

These are the real “leave it on the camera all the time” champs for me. They’re long enough for most things short of taking pictures of critters at a distance, and, with any sensor from about 2008 onward, capable of shooting indoors at ISO 800-1000 or so, especially with image stabilization of some sort on tap.

The classics of this genre are full frame lenses from the “Big Two”: Canon’s EF 24-105mm f/4L IS and Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4G VR.

On APS-C size sensors, these translate to 16-70mm and 16-80mm focal length ranges and the heavyweight champion here is the Nikon DX 16-80mm f/3.8-4E VR lens, maybe the best F-mount DX glass ever…

Lastly is my go-to for Micro Four Thirds, the Panasonic 12-60mm Leica DG Vario-Elmarit F2.8-4.0 ASPH, which is a 24-120mm equivalent in that format.