The lens guide
The lenses worth knowing, one searchable list.
500 of the most-shot film-era lenses, the same ones in the app's gear picker. Each one gets a short, honest read on how it draws, what it is good for, and where it falls down. Filter by format, focal length, or brand; sort however suits you.
Lenses
500
Makers
22
Mounts
60
Primes / zooms
466/34
Showing 500 of 500 lenses · 500 with full notes
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About this list
These are the lenses the Zone Light Meter app keeps in its gear picker, so picking one here is the same glass you would select on your phone before a shoot. The list leans toward the lenses people actually load: the standard primes, the portrait classics, the medium-format normals, and a handful of large-format workhorses.
For exposure, the lens matters more than people expect. A leaf shutter syncs flash at every speed; a large-format lens on a long bellows draw loses light you have to meter back; a fast fifty lets you place a shadow on a zone the dim viewfinder cannot show you. Each lens page notes where its quirks touch metering, and the app does the arithmetic the moment it applies.