Most telephoto zooms that reach 400mm cost thousands and weigh well over a kilo. The Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM costs about $650 and weighs around 635 grams. It’s light enough to carry on a hike, cheap enough to buy on a whim, and a lot sharper than the price suggests.

That’s why it became one of Canon’s most popular RF lenses. It’s the default “first long lens” for R50, R10, R8 and R6 Mark II owners who want to try birds, kids’ sports or airshows without committing serious money.

For years, a fast f/2.8 standard zoom on Canon’s RF mount meant one thing: the big, expensive RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L. The Canon RF 28-70mm F2.8 IS STM, launched in September 2024 at $1,099, changed that. It’s compact, it’s stabilized, it’s sealed against weather to Canon’s L-series standard, and it costs less than half as much.

It’s the lens Canon owners had asked for, especially those with smaller bodies like the R8 and R6 Mark II, and one Sony and Nikon owners had long enjoyed from Tamron.

Every system needs a great “normal” lens, the one that sees roughly the way your eyes do. On Fujifilm X-mount that lens is the Fujifilm XF 33mm F1.4 R LM WR. On an APS-C body it gives the field of view of a 50mm lens on full frame. Fuji launched it in 2021, and it has been one of the most recommended X-mount lenses ever since.

For years the go-to Fuji normal lens was the old XF 35mm f/1.4, a lens with lots of character and slow, noisy autofocus. The 33mm is its modern replacement. It’s sharper, it focuses far faster, and it’s weather resistant.

The original XF 56mm f/1.2 from 2014 was one of the lenses that made people switch to Fuji. It had that creamy look portrait shooters wanted, in a system that was otherwise small and light. The Fujifilm XF 56mm F1.2 R WR, launched in September 2022 at $999, is the full redesign: sharper, closer-focusing and now weather resistant.

On an APS-C body, 56mm gives the field of view of an 85mm lens on full frame. Classic portrait framing, with enough distance from your subject to keep things relaxed.

For Nikon Z wildlife shooters, the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR was the lens that changed the math. Launched in 2023 at about $1,700, it gave affordable 600mm reach with fast autofocus, weather sealing and an internal zoom. A lot of people built their whole bird-photography kit around it, often on a Z8 or Z6III.

Internal zoom means the lens doesn’t get longer as you zoom. The barrel stays the same length from 180mm to 600mm. Balance doesn’t shift, it doesn’t suck dust in, and it sits better on a gimbal head or a monopod.

If you could only own one lens for Nikon Z full frame, the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S would be the strongest candidate. It covers wide angle to short telephoto, holds f/4 through the whole range, and delivers S-line sharpness that rivals Nikon’s f/2.8 zooms. It launched in late 2021 at $1,100, and it’s been the default kit lens on Z6III and Z8 bundles ever since.

That extra reach past 70mm matters more than it sounds. 120mm is a real portrait length, a useful focal length for details and compressed landscapes, and enough to pick out a face across a room at an event.

Kit lenses have a bad reputation. The Panasonic Lumix S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6 is one of the few that deserves a better one. It ships with the Lumix S5II and S9 and sells on its own for about $600, and its trick is the same one that makes Sony’s 20-70mm f/4 popular: it starts at 20mm.

That wider start makes it far more useful for vlogging at arm’s length, interiors, and travel shooting in tight streets. Most kit zooms start at 24mm or 28mm.

A zoom that opens to f/2 at 35mm and stays at f/2.8 all the way to 150mm sounds like something you’d build out of several lenses. The Samyang AF 35-150mm F2-2.8 FE, from South Korea’s Samyang (now LK Samyang), does it in one. It launched in April 2023 at $1,399 for Sony E-mount, with an L-Mount version following later.

For wedding and portrait photographers, that range is magic. 35mm for the getting-ready shots, 50mm and 85mm for portraits, 135mm and 150mm for the ceremony. All at apertures that blur backgrounds and handle low light.

The Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN Contemporary is the lens to buy after the kit lens. It covers the same range as most APS-C kit zooms, roughly 27-75mm in full-frame terms, and it does it at a constant f/2.8. That’s up to two stops more light than a typical f/3.5-5.6 kit zoom at the long end, in a lens that weighs only about 290 grams.

Sigma launched it in 2021 for Sony E-mount and L-Mount. Fujifilm X-mount followed in 2023, and Canon RF-mount in 2024 when Canon opened its APS-C mount to Sigma. That makes it one of the few lenses you can buy for nearly every APS-C system covered on this site.

Sigma’s first mirrorless 24-70mm f/2.8 Art, from 2019, was sharp and good value, but its autofocus lagged behind Sony’s own G Master. The Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN II Art, announced in May 2024 at $1,199, fixes that. New HLA linear motors make autofocus more than three times faster, Sigma says, and the lens gains an aperture ring and better close focus.

It’s available for Sony E-mount and L-Mount, the system Sigma shares with Panasonic and Leica.

The Sony FE 20-70mm F4 G looks like a small change on paper. Most standard zooms start at 24mm. This one starts at 20mm. In practice those 4 millimeters change how you shoot. Indoors, in narrow streets, in front of big buildings, you can step back without stepping back.

Sony announced it in January 2023 at $1,099. It weighs about 488 grams, uses a 72mm filter, and it’s become one of the most recommended everyday lenses for Sony full frame.

A 24-70mm f/2.8 is the lens most working photographers reach for first. Weddings, events, news, travel. It’s the one you’d keep if you could only keep one. Sony’s first G Master version, from 2016, was good and very heavy. The Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II, released in 2022, is the redesign, and for a while it set the standard for what this kind of lens could be.

The headline is weight. The GM II weighs about 695 grams, down from roughly 886 grams for the original. That’s around 20 percent lighter, and on a long wedding day it’s the difference between a sore wrist and not thinking about the camera at all.

If you shoot Sony or Nikon full frame and you’re watching your budget, the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III VXD G2 is probably already on your shortlist. It should be. It’s one of the best-value lenses of the last five years. Fast f/2.8 aperture, sharp, light, and priced at about $880 at launch, compared with more than $2,000 for the brand-name equivalents.

The G2 version arrived in late 2021 for Sony E-mount, replacing Tamron’s hugely popular original 28-75mm. A Nikon Z version followed in 2023. It’s the lens that many A7 IV and Z6III owners bought instead of the kit zoom, and few regret it.

On an APS-C camera, 27mm gives about the same view as a 40mm lens on full frame. It’s a natural, everyday focal length, a little wider than a “normal” 50mm, good for street, travel and environmental portraits. The Viltrox AF 27mm F1.2 Pro gives you that view at f/1.2, for around $550.

Viltrox released the Fujifilm X-mount version first, in 2023, then a Sony E-mount version. Both belong to Viltrox’s Pro line, which uses better build and weather sealing than its budget lenses.

Chinese lens makers spent the last five years going from “cheap alternative” to “serious option”. The Viltrox AF 75mm F1.2 Pro is one of the lenses that made that case. It’s an f/1.2 portrait lens for APS-C cameras with fast-enough autofocus, weather sealing and image quality that holds its own against brand-name glass costing two or three times as much.

On an APS-C body, 75mm gives the field of view of about a 112mm lens on full frame. That’s a classic head-and-shoulders portrait length, with enough distance between you and your subject to keep things relaxed.