>>3228717>Extremely noob question but what is the purpose of a lense.Oof, that's *extremely* noob.
Okay, lenses 101:
1. Lenses have a focal length. The focal length (along with the format size) tells you whether the lens is wide-angle, normal, or telephoto.
2. On a 35mm film camera or a full frame digital SLR (which means it has a sensor the same size as a 35mm film frame), the "normal" length (i.e., not wide-angle, not telephoto) is usually around 50mm. "True normal" is something like 42mm, but most camera makers settled on 50mm as close enough. When using a 50mm lens, you get roughly the same perspective as you do with your soft squishy human eyes. I'll refer to the 35mm film size as "FF" (full frame) since having too many things listed in millimeters is confusing.
3. Significantly less than 50mm on FF, you're in wide-angle territory. Usually the next focal length down you'll encounter regularly is 35mm or 28mm. South of 28mm, you're in "ultra-wide" territory.
4. Similarly, larger than 50mm puts you in the telephoto range.
5. The main reason people want different focal lengths is to change perspective. Also, with telephotos, to take pictures of things that are far away without having to go to where the thing is.
6. Wide-angle lenses give you wide-angle perspective, where things that are closer to the lens look much farther away from things farther from the lens (like, more stretched out than you get with your easily-popped, fragile human eyes).
7. Telephoto lenses give you telephoto perspective. Items in the foreground will look closer to items in the background than they look to your human eyes, so easy to pluck from your human skull, like popping a grape from a vine.
