Gear Up Yourself: Selecting Prime Lenses for Successful Vlogging

A Vlogger’s Guide To Camera Lenses

Richard Bennett

Nov 01, 2022• Proven solutions

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The staple of any vlog is the talking headshot, a shot of the speaker talking directly to the audience. You can compose this shot with different kinds of lenses for your interchangeable lens camera.

But which kind of lens is the right lens for you as a vlogger?

In this article, I’m going to help you figure that out.

• Part 1: Three Focal Length Groups: Wide, Standard, Telephoto
• Part 2: Vlogging With Each Focal Length Group
• Part 3: Crop Factor
• Part 4: Focal Length Equivalency Table
• Part 5: Aperture
• Part 6: Vlogging With a Fast Lens
• Part 7: Optical Image Stabilization

Three Focal Length Groups: Wide, Standard, Telephoto

There are three main ranges in focal lengths that camera lenses can be categorized into wide, standard, and telephoto.

Wide-Angle Lens

Wide-angle lenses can “see more.” They allow more of your scene to fit inside your frame. Objects that are closer to the lens appear much bigger while objects that are further away appear even smaller. Perspectives are also enhanced, making close objects and people that just make it into the sides of the frame appear more stretched out. Out of all the other ranges in focal lengths, wide-angle lenses will appear the least zoomed in.

Standard Lens

With standard lenses or normal lenses, you won’t get the stretched out objects or enhanced perspectives that you get from wide-angle lenses. Instead, standard lenses are meant to see scenes as the natural human eye is meant to see them. If you shoot a scene with both a wide-angle lens and a standard lens from the same position, you’ll notice that less of the scene fits into your frame. Standard lenses will appear more zoomed-in than wide-angle lenses, but less zoomed-in than telephoto lenses.

Telephoto Lens

Out of all the other ranges in focal lengths, telephoto lenses will appear the most zoomed in. This can be beneficial for the shooter who wants to get a closer shot of a scene without having to physically be in close proximity to the scene. Objects that are further away in the background also appear larger and closer than they would appear on wide-angle or standard lenses.

Vlogging With Each Focal Length Group

You can get your talking head footage using lenses from any of the three focal length groups. Depending on how you plan to vlog most of the time, though, one of the three focal lengths might be more suitable for you.

When to vlog with a wide-angle lens

Wide-angle lenses are the most commonly used lenses for vlogging. Wide-angle lenses are great when you need to be close to your camera. This might be the case for you if your recording space is small or if you want to film yourself as you hold your camera up with your own hand.

Being close to your camera not only gives you the option to use your camera’s built-in microphone, but it also gives you the option to make use of camera-mounted shotgun microphones.

When to vlog with a standard lens

Standard lenses are great when you have more space to be further away from your camera. The perspectives in your shot will look more natural through a standard lens, making your talking head footage feel more corporate or professional. You’ll also be able to get blurrier backgrounds using a standard lens versus a wide-angle lens.

Being further away from your camera, however, means that you’ll have to use a separate microphone positioned closer to you.

When to vlog with a telephoto lens

As telephoto lenses are even more zoomed in, you’ll need to be even further away from your camera to fit yourself inside your camera frame. Why would any vlogger ever need to be that far away from their camera? One word… teleprompter. If you want or need to stick to a script, you’ll have to be far away enough from your camera that it doesn’t appear like your eyes are scanning left to right. You then close in the distance with a telephoto lens.

In the above video, Marcos Rocha compares different focal lengths for talking head videos. Which focal length range do you like the look of?

Crop Factor

Focal lengths in camera lenses are measured in millimeters. You can vlog yourself handheld with a 24mm lens on a camera with a full-frame sensor (the sensor is the piece of hardware inside your camera that turns the light it receives into a digital image). But if you use a 24mm lens on a camera with a smaller sensor, like an APS-C sensor or even smaller Micro 4/3 sensor, more of you will get cropped out (see below).

In order to make up for the cropping that occurs, you will need to use a wider lens on cameras with smaller sensors to get the same shot you’d get with a full-frame camera.

Focal Length Equivalency Table

This table shows you the focal lengths needed to achieve the same shot between cameras with different sensor sizes. In order to take a shot as wide as the shot I took of myself with the 24mm lens on my full-frame camera, I would need a 15mm lens on an APS-C sensor camera or a 12mm lens on a micro 4/3 camera.

Aperture

The next thing to consider when you’re looking for a lens is the aperture, the hole (often adjustable) within the lens that lets light in. Aperture for camera lenses is measured in f-stops (f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.0) - the smaller the f-stop number, the larger the aperture (bigger hole letting even more light in).

Because larger aperture lenses let more light in, they need a shorter time for cameras to compose an image. This is why larger aperture lenses are also called “fast” lenses.

Fast lenses are more expensive because they cost more to produce. There’s a lot more that goes into them, including larger and higher quality glass elements.

But do you even need a fast lens?

Vlogging With a Fast Lens

Pros of Vlogging With a Fast Lens

• Better low-light performance
• Better autofocus performance
• Better “bokeh” (out-of-focus areas, like your background, having that nice blurry look that you see in a lot of movies)

Cons of Vlogging With a Fast Lens

• More expensive
• Moving subjects more likely to get out of focus when shooting with a large aperture
• Better continuous autofocus performance needed when shooting moving subjects with a large aperture

Optical Image Stabilization

Finally, you’ll have to decide whether or not you want your lens to have built-in optical image stabilization (OIS).

OIS is very beneficial to have on a lens if you’re a vlogger who films mostly handheld footage. Although this technology adds to the price of your lens as well, it can greatly help you to capture smoother footage that may otherwise be shaky. Nikon calls this technology “Vibration Reduction” (VR) for their lenses.

In the above video, you can see how much OIS can help to stabilize your footage. MicBergsma simultaneously compares the footage between two GoPro Hero5 Blacks, one with OIS on and one with OIS off.

If, however, you are shooting most of your vlogs on a tripod, you won’t need a lens with OIS.

Looking for ways to set up your talking-head shot for YouTube with any of these lenses? Check out our post on 4 Ways To Set Up Your Talking-Head Shots For YouTube .

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Convert Any YouTube Tracking: IOS Solutions in 6 Free Tools

6 Free Software to Convert YouTube to MP3 for iPhone

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Loved a video on YouTube, but was unable to find the MP3 version? Worry not! Now, with a YouTube music converter, you can easily convert YouTube videos into MP3 files for your iPhone and enjoy them to your heart’s content. A trusted brand can offer you the best MP3 audio files out of your favorite YouTube videos within no time. Here we bring free apps to convert music for your iPhone.

• Part 1: YouTube to MP3 Converter on iPhone
• Part 2: YouTube to MP3 Converter for iPhone (on Desktop)
• Part 3: FAQs About YouTube to MP3 Converter

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Part 1: YouTube to MP3 Converter on iPhone

1. Video to MP3 Converter

Video to MP3 Converter is an App that allows you to convert videos into different formats of audio such as MP3, M4A, OPUS, WAV, and a lot more, and save it on your iPhone.

The features of this App are –

• You can select audio tracks and customize sample rate, volume, and bitrate.
• You can decide the starting and ending point of the audio to be converted.
• You can import audio or video from Album, camera roll, One Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud.
• You can open audio files with this App and share them with other Apps as well.

2. MyMP3

MyMP3 can convert videos available on your device into MP3 quickly. You can save recorded audio into MP3 and WAV format.

The main features of MyMP3 are –

• You can convert local videos into MP3 and share them on any social media, email, or instant messaging App.
• It allows you to edit the metadata.
• You can record from a microphone, CD, turntable, audio streamed from the internet, Skype call or phone calls, and the likes.
• It allows ripping CDs, renaming batch files, scheduling recordings, silence detection, and playlist management while recording vinyl albums.

Part 2: YouTube to MP3 converter for iPhone (on Desktop)

1. Filmora Editor

You can use Filmora as a YouTube music converter which will help in converting without much effort. Filmora is basically a video editing software that can help you edit videos in various ways. You can edit any of your video projects with ease when using Filmora. In order to convert Youtube to MP3 in iPhone, you can choose iPhone as the target device while exporting. Let’s check out some amazing features of this software. Or you can learn more from Wondershare Video Community .

Key Features:

• Anyone can easily use it for its extremely easy interface and design.
• People can have the delight in various graphical features with this tool such as filters and overlays.
• With this software, one can seamlessly merge multiple videos without compromising quality.
• There are lots of advanced tools associated with Filmora including background blur option, audio mixer, screen splitting, text editing, green screen, speed ramping, and more.
• If you are looking for stunning effects, Filmstocks, NewBlue FX and BorisFX can definitely meet any of your needs.
• 4k videos are also supported via Filmora easily.

Try It Free >>

2. Freemake Video Downloader

Freemake Video Downloader is a YouTube music converter that allows you to save YouTube videos and MP3s on your iPhone. While converting the videos into MP3s you need to specify the destination device (Export to iPod/iPhone), so that the right format can be set for the same.

Features of this application are –

• You can have the audios exported to iTunes automatically.
• Simple 3 step process to download and save YouTube videos into your iPhone.

3. Any Audio Converter

Any Audio Converter is an online converter and downloader that allows you to convert YouTube videos to MP3 for iPhone to your desired quality, and size of audio files. This YouTube music converter can convert downloaded videos and music to MP3, WAV, and WMA faster with better quality.

Major features of this audio converter are –

• You can download online videos and music from more than 100 sites.
• It helps you to rip and extract audio from CDs and videos.
• It supports audio conversion in multiple formats without compromising the quality.
• You can burn videos to AVCHD DVD or DVD.
• You can edit videos with special effects, clips, or crop effects.

4. Softorino YouTube Converter 2

Softorino YouTube Converter 2 can not only convert YouTube to MP3 for iPhone, but also to MP4 for all iOS devices as well. It is compatible with over 60 top sources.

• With this App, you can access videos, music, and ringtones as well.
• It supports all iOS devices and delivers 4K ultra HD, with subtitles.
• Automatically connects your device to Wi-Fi, and recognizes content automatically for the album

Part 3: FAQs About YouTube to MP3 Converter

1. Can You Convert YouTube Videos to mp3 on iPhone?

Yes, you can. There are numerous YouTube to mp3 convert websites and YouTube audio downloader apps that let you convert YouTube videos to mp3 on your iPhone.

But there are legal issues you need to consider before joining the conversion trend. Technically, it is not illegal to convert a YouTube video to MP3 - but it is illegal to download a copyrighted music video. Moreover, YouTube has stated that stream-ripping violates their Terms of Service, and both YouTube & Google have tried to shut down numerous websites that provide video conversion services.

2. How Can I Save a Song From YouTube to My iPhone?

There are several ways to do that. The legal and recommended method is to get a YouTube Music Premium subscription. This will enable you to download songs from YouTube and save them on your iPhone for offline consumption. The alternative way involves numerous websites and apps that enable you to convert YouTube videos to mp3 and download them on your iPhone. This approach, however, is illegal and should be avoided.

Final Verdict

After going through the list of YouTube music converters in this article, we have found that Filmora is the ultimate solution for all your video download and audio conversion needs. With its matchless features, this App makes your life simple and melodious. However, it is our suggestion, the final call will be yours. We would like to know which was your choice and how was the experience using it. Thanks, readers for having a glance at this post. We hope you are delighted after reading it and finding what you needed.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison