Become a Good Photographer, Part Seven: Choose Lenses Based On You, Not Your Activity

The standard advice for lens selection follows a simple formula: match the focal length to the genre. Portraits need 85mm or longer. Landscapes want 20mm or shorter. Street photography lives at 50mm. This reasoning isn’t entirely wrong, but it misses the more important variable: you. Oslo by night I don’t normally talk about specific gear because it’s a pointless discussion that is more suited to YouTube resellers than photographers. But there is one aspect that is often missed in gear selection: your personality. It is the most important factor in lens choice and many people ignore it, way more important than getting the latest hardware. Obviously some practical limits exist. Taking a 24mm lens to photograph birds would be absurd. Hauling a 600mm prime into crowded streets would make you functionally blind. The activity sets boundaries. But within those boundaries, the decisive factor isn’t what you’re shooting. It’s how you see. Ignoring your own visual nature whilst chasing the…