The camera world loves expensive lenses. There’s always so much love and hype around the Canon L series and I admit, for good reason too. The fact that there are lenses out there that have a mouth watering aperture as wide as f/1.2 is so incredibly dreamy that owning one of these lenses is like something of a career achievement. But at the same time, although expensive lenses have exceptional image quality, at the end of the day, well, they’re still expensive. I mean, $1,000 (usually at the minimum) for the professional realm is just scratching the surface for a lens. But today, I’m going to make the argument of why you should buy some cheap lenses much more often regardless of your stage in the art form. But at the same time, I’m also going to tell you exactly which cheap lenses to look out for because, well, you can’t just buy any of them. Cheap lenses are a like a diamond in the rough. You have to wipe some dirt off of the rocks to know which one is a gem.
So which of these cheap lenses should you be looking out for? I consider cheap lenses to be anything less than $400 (this is relatively inexpensive for a lens), and I include the used market in this price point as well. But the bulk of the lenses I think you should be looking out for are going to be mostly $200 and under. So these lenses shouldn’t be too hard on your wallet, and I even think some of them are more than good enough to use professionally to make that money back as well.
Inexpensive 50mm lenses can have great quality even wide open
But what do you need to consider and stay away from when buying inexpensive lenses? For this, we’ll make a few assumptions. You’re either shooting on a DSLR or mirrorless, and you’re buying lenses that are native to your camera’s mount or at least use an adapter produced by the camera company themselves (like Canon EF to RF or Nikon F to Z). There’s actually another, very spicy type of inexpensive lens you can buy for your camera if you can get crafty, but this is an article entirely for another day. So given these parameters, what should you avoid like the plague?
First, a lot of third party lenses with maybe the exception of Rokinon and Sigma. So yeah, please don’t buy Yongnuo. Basically, don’t buy any kind of lens that’s a rip off of some other kind of lens. You’re going to wish you had just spent the extra $100 on buying the real deal instead of a knockoff.
Second, stay away from cheap zoom lenses like the kit lenses that come with crop sensor cameras. Aside from the fact that you may already have it, cheap zoom lenses do not have great build quality, are only sharp at narrower apertures, and have very little low light capabilities. Basically, forget about that cheap 75–300mm lens your camera manufacturer sells. They’re not worth it, and you’ll likely out grow this as you grow as a creator. There is one type of cheap zoom lens I can recommend, but we’ll get there later, I promise.
So what cheap lenses should you be buying?
Number #1: Cheap 50mm f/1.8 lenses made by your camera brand
The first and most obvious choice is whatever inexpensive 50mm f/1.8 your camera brand makes. They are almost always somewhere around $200 or less. I know that Canon, Nikon, and Sony all make one of these. They are almost always compatible with full frame and crop sensor cameras, so you can graduate with them if you buy a full frame. These should always be the first lens you buy, and I believe that even if you are already past this stage in your photography career, you should go back and buy this lens anyways.
Examples: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, Sony FE 50mm f/1.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.8G
Inexpensive EF Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM
Number #2: Pancake lenses which are usually also primes
Second, any pancake lens that your camera manufacturer also sells. They are typically inexpensive as well, and best of all, they’re very compact. If you can manage to put a pancake lens on a mirrorless camera, you have a set up that’s near pocket-able. These lenses are just so easy to store as well, and at least in my own opinion, they look kind of cool. I think they’re just a really interesting novelty of a lens and usually have pretty good image quality. They’re never typically brighter than f/2 or f/2.8 at best, but I still believe they’re worth it for the convenience alone.
Examples: Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM, Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM, Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 STM, Sony E 20mm f/2.8, Fujifilm XF 27mm f/2.8 (buy used)
Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM
Number 3#: Old prime lenses that still use a modern mounting system
Third, and this applies mostly to Canon, any old primes that are still use a current mounting system. For EF lenses, this looks like the 85mm f/1.8 and the 100 f/2 (I don’t think Sony or Nikon are as fortunate). They definitely have some age on them, but they can still kick, offer great image quality, and can be had for around or less than $350 new. So on the used market, they can definitely be had for even less. I might, however, skip the any 50mm f/1.4 that is also around $300, because I believe the cheaper $100–200 f/1.8 versions tend to be a better deal. Although, this is a gray area, and I leave that up to your own needs and price range. At least on the Canon side of things, I would always recommend the 50mm f/1.8 over the 50mm f/1.4 as the newer f/1.8 version actually tends to have better image quality.
Examples: Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM (buy used), Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM (buy used)
The old but trusty Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM
Number #4: Cheap wide angle zoom lenses made by your camera brand
And fourth, some cheap wide zoom angle lenses are actually a really good deal too. Some ultra wide zoom angle lenses made for crop sensors that are around 10–18mm or 10–22mm are pretty decent. They’re never that bright of a lens so you’re probably only going to get use them in good lighting, but there’s usually no other lens that comes close to their price point and focal range. It’s definitely towards the bottom of this list for a reason, but they’re worth a mention if you really need an inexpensive wide angle.
Examples: EF-S 10–18mm f/4.5–5.6 IS STM, Nikon 10–20mm f/4.5–5.6G VR
Honorable mention: Some third party wide angle primes
On the same token, I hear some wide angle Rokinon lenses are not so bad either. You can use a lot of them on full frame too. The only draw back is that a lot of them don’t have autofocus, so I hope you’re good with manual. I wouldn’t recommend any Rokinon lenses that are around the 35mm to 85mm range because at that point, and you should just buy the equivalent lenses that the camera manufacturer actually makes themselves. And manual focusing is a lot harder at those ranges too. If they do have autofocus, it’s usually not on par with non-third party lenses. But I have observed that these Rokinon lenses, especially the more telephoto ones, may work for you if you do manual focus filmmaking as they can be an inexpensive pathway to cine lenses.
Shot using the Canon EF-S 10–18mm f/4.5–5.6 IS STM
To sum up, in one sentence, for these cheap lenses, you should buy the inexpensive, non-third party prime lenses your camera manufacturer makes (and pancake lenses are included in this description since almost all of them are primes). But be sure to know which ones are compatible with full frame and which are only compatible with crop sensor beforehand. I think these lenses are worth it even if you have to sell them after a full frame upgrade, but it’s still a good idea to check what cameras they work with for the time being.
Now, I’ve told which lenses to get, but why should you be buying and using these lenses?
Especially with primes, the key phrase here is diminishing returns. Frankly, that $1,000 50mm f/1.4 your camera brand makes is not five to ten times better than the $100–200 50mm f/1.8 they also make. I don’t even think they’re twice as better. The difference between what f/1.8 and f/1.4 and some added sharpness can be big but it’s not always worth a price tag five to ten times higher. Some of these lens are still able to provide superb image quality and superb results even to your clients. Usually after like f/2.8 or f/4, you cannot tell the difference between the expensive and cheaper version of a focal length anyways. I’ve even used the Canon EF 100mm f/2, which is some $300, on countless paid shoots for clients too. Although I would love to own the EF 85mm f/1.2 L, I cannot yet justify its $1,500 cost because Canon has made such a superb lens on the lower end of the price range. So, yes, a lot of these cheaper lenses can be used in the professional space! These inexpensive prime lenses are also still decently built, can resist some light weather disruptions, and have pretty bright apertures relative to what you might get on a zoom. Even the pancake lenses that are around f/2.8 are decently bright for dimmer situations.
The $300 Canon 100mm f/2 used on a portrait shoot
And most of the time, these cheap lenses are usually also smaller which means that they can fit and go anywhere with you. They’re usually half the size of lenses that are may times their cost, so you can bring a lot more of them with you wherever you go. But besides the travel aspect of it, there’s an added benefit to the street photographers out there. With a small lens, you’re much more less intrusive to the world around you. With inexpensive, smaller lenses, people will probably act less weird around you when they come into your frame during your street photography. I think this point especially applies to the pancake lenses.
The pancake 40mm for street photography
I cannot deny the simple fact that if you need $1,000 or even more expensive lenses on your work, you should have them. I completely understand that as content creators, we want the best possible tool for the job even if it does cost an arm and a leg. But most importantly, I think even if you do own the $1,000 version of a particular focal length, I still think it’s worth it to own its cheaper counterpart. In high risk situations like on a vacation where you are walking along beaches and cliff sides, it may be worth it just to bring a less expensive lens in case something happens to it (even if you have insurance). You wouldn’t want your best lens to break or get stolen in a situation where a cheaper version of that lens would have also done just fine.
I suppose I always make this point, but at the end of the day, photography’s about the process. If I can make a $100 50mm lens look good, I can make any lens look good. I think it’s great to try to challenge yourself from time to time with inexpensive gear. If you’re an experience photographer, I think you’ll surprise yourself with just how good you can be even with cheap prime lenses. At the end of the day, the most valuable creative asset you have is yourself.
Whether you’re a professional who has all the high end lenses or someone getting a tighter grip on your creative potential, particular cheap lenses will be worth the buy, and I guarantee that anyone with a passion for the art will get their money’s worth from the lens at least many times over.
One of the smallest full-frame setups