Lens Newbie

[gennatay]

I received a Pentax K-R for Christmas and for the past 3 days, I've been taking pictures none stop. I had a Fuji P&S that I used in manual mode frequently, which is why I decided to make the jump to a DSLR. Although I am not new to manual settings, I dont know the first thing about lenses. Can someone point me to a tutorial or even better a nice photography book on the subject? I am really interested in baby/children photography. I also have an upcoming trip to Italy and Paris and I don't want to miss a thing. Can someone also recommend a lens for both situations?

 

[Boomn4x4]

Lenses aren't a one-stop-shopping kind of thing... Certain lenses do certian things better.

For example, baby/children photography.... this can go two different ways... first of all, capturing a child playing... running around a yard will require a telephoto lens that can zoom in from a distace. You can't be standing 5' from the when they are kicking a ball around, you'll just get in their way and take away from those natural poses. On the other hand, if you are doing indoor photography of sleeping babies, you'll need a faster lens with a more midrange focal length 50-100mm.

Travel on the other hand is a completly different ball game. You'll certainly want to be photographing scenery and landscapes... for this you want a wide angle lens so that you can caputre as much of your surroundings as you can.

Simply put, there isn't a lens for all those situations you mentioned. You could get buy with two lenses, probably a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200.