Choosing your first lens: try it yourself

Aim

You should finish with a requirement, not a shopping list: for example, 'I need something longer than 55 mm for birds in the garden.'

Do this step by step

1. Look through twenty photographs you have already made.
2. Note the focal lengths if the files show them.
3. Write down three situations where your present lens genuinely limited you.
4. For each limitation, write the feature that would solve it: wider, longer, brighter aperture, closer focus or smaller/lighter size.
5. Only then make a shortlist of lens types. This exercise does not require you to buy anything.