Choosing the best lenses for vlogging needs a bit of thought. You need to consider the kind of content you're creating – and how and where you're creating it.
When it comes down to it, choosing the best lenses for vlogging is arguably even more difficult (and important) than picking the best camera for vlogging. The kit lens that came with your camera may just about get the job done, but to give yourself more scope and a more professional look, you need to look at lenses that are designed for the job.
First up is the focal length or zoom range, as you’ll almost certainly want to film yourself talking to the camera. If you're shooting with a gimbal or a grip, you’ll be holding the camera at arm's length and no further, so you’ll need an ultra-wide-angle lens. Most standard zooms go no wider than an ‘effective’ 24mm in full-frame terms, which is barely enough. Even if you have particularly long arms, you'll get precious little of your surroundings into the frame to set the scene.
Zoom lenses also tend to work better than primes, as they give more versatility. It's also important to pick a lens that's tailor made for your camera, whether it's a crop-sensor or full-frame body. With that in mind, I've selected what I think are currently the best lenses for APS-C, Micro Four Thirds and full-frame cameras of many and varied makes. Let's roll...
The best lenses for vlogging
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Best Sony APS-C vlogging lens
Sony's APS-C format A6000-series cameras are often sold with a 16-50mm power-zoom kit lens, which is certainly compact. It's fine for getting started but it definitely has limitations.
The E PZ 10-20mm lens offers a big step up for vlogging, with its generously wide viewing angle at the short end of its zoom range, and a natural perspective at the long end. I love that going from one of the zoom ranges to the other, or anywhere in between, benefits from a motorized zoom mechanism that operates smoothly and in virtual silence, as does the autofocus system.
I also like that it’s small and light, yet has a constant f/4 aperture rating. Image quality is really impressive with excellent sharpness, although the lens lacks optical stabilization. That can be an issue with many Sony A6000-series cameras that lack IBIS, and it’s also pretty pricey to buy, but it's currently the best choice.
Read more: Sony E PZ 10-20mm F4 G review
Features ★★★★★ |
The videocentric feature set includes a power zoom and very useful zoom range, with a constant aperture. |
Design ★★★★☆ |
There’s no aperture control ring but you do get a function button and the weather-resistant design is nicely compact. |
Performance ★★★★★ |
It’s impressively sharp and the motorized zoom works really well for video capture. |
Value ★★★★☆ |
Considering the up-market build quality, performance and handling, it’s good value at the price. |
Best Canon APS-C vlogging lens
An APS-C format Canon RF-S ultra-wide-angle zoom was a long time coming but this lens was well worth the wait. It ticks nearly all of the boxes on a vloggers wish list, even if it doesn't have a motorized zoom facility. On the plus side, it has an ideal zoom range for vlogging as well as for shooting interiors, landscapes and buildings.
The versatile zoom range is backed up by optical image stabilization, which can be a big help considering that most APS-C format Canon R-series cameras don't feature IBIS.
The lens delivers sharp, punchy image quality, while autofocus is brisk and near-silent. The aperture rating isn't the widest, so you might need to bump up your ISO under dull lighting, but the Canon cameras for which the lens is designed will still deliver the goods.
Read more: Canon RF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM review
Features ★★★★★ |
The big feature of this lens is its big maximum viewing angle on APS-C cameras, but there’s also fast STM autofocus and optical stabilization. |
Design ★★★★☆ |
The lens packs its generous viewing angles into a really compact and lightweight package, but it lacks weather-seals. |
Performance ★★★★☆ |
Image quality is impressive but as with many modern lenses, it relies heavily on automatic in-camera corrections. |
Value ★★★★☆ |
It’s good value for an ultra-wide-angle zoom lens but you’ll need to buy the hood separately. |
Best Nikon APS-C vlogging lens
When it was launched a while ago, this became one of my instant favorites for vlogging. The effective 18-42mm zoom range gives plenty of potential for everything from close-up selfie vlogging to a really natural perspective.
I love the way the 11-step speed range of the motorized zoom gives plenty of scope for quick and slow transitions. I also like the addition of optical VR (Vibration Reduction), considering that all Nikon APS-C Z-series camera bodies so far lack IBIS.
The lens is a joy to use on its own, but it's even better with the Nikon’s ML-L7 Bluetooth remote controller (sold separately) for which you can set a zoom speed in advance.
Read more: Nikon Z DX 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR review
Features ★★★★★ |
Optical VR always comes in handy on Z DX lenses and this one also has a video-friendly power zoom. |
Design ★★★★☆ |
Like other Nikon Z DX lenses, it has a plastic rather than metal mounting plate but the overall design is very good. |
Performance ★★★★★ |
Expansive viewing angles are backed up by excellent edge-to-edge sharpness, throughout the whole zoom range. |
Value ★★★★★ |
A little gem for both stills and video capture, the lens is terrific value for money. |
Best Canon full-frame vlogging lens
For my money, this lens has everything I could wish for in a versatile zoom for everyday vlogging. The zoom range is generously wide-angle at the short end and great for shooting at arm's length, thanks to the lens's close-focusing abilities. It also stretches to the natural perspective of a ‘nifty fifty’ at the long end.
For handheld shooting, the lens keeps you going steady with a 6-stop optical stabilizer, boosted to 8-stop effectiveness by Canon cameras that feature IBIS. Either way, its killer feature is power-zoom, for smooth, motorized transitions in perspective.
Typical L-series attractions include superior build quality, complete with extensive weather-sealing, so a spot of rain needn't stop play. Optical finery includes two GMo (Glass Molded aspherical) elements and three UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements, along with both Super Spectra coating and more high-tech ASC (Air Sphere Coating). Considering all of this, it's unsurprisingly a pricey lens to buy, but well worth the outlay.
Read more: Canon RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ review
Best Sony/Nikon full-frame vlogging lens
This Tamron lens is a stellar choice for vlogging with both Sony and Nikon full-frame mirrorless cameras. Like many ‘alternative trinity’ ultra-wide zooms, this one bucks the conventional 14-24mm trend but retains a relatively fast and constant f/2.8 aperture rating. And it does this in a much more compact, lightweight, and affordable package.
A significant upgrade over the original Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD, this G2 (Generation 2) lens has a more generous zoom range and a faster ‘voice-coil motor’ autofocus system, instead of a more basic stepping motor. Sure, it’s not the ‘widest’ ultra-wide zoom, but I love that it has a regular 67mm front filter attachment thread. That’s really useful if you want to add filters for special effects.
Ultimately, the Tamron 16-30mm has lovely handling characteristics, a high-precision autofocus system, and delivers excellent image quality in terms of sharpness, clarity, and color rendition, along with impressive suppression of color fringing, ghosting, and flare. It’s also less reliant on automatic in-camera correction for distortion, compared with many recent wide-angle lenses designed for mirrorless cameras.
Read more: Tamron 16-30mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 review
Features ★★★★★ |
Top features include an ultra-wide zoom range with a constant f/2.8 aperture, rapid voice-coil motor based autofocus, and a customizable function button. |
Design ★★★★★ |
True to Tamron’s original design concept, this ‘alternative trinity’ zoom is refreshingly compact and lightweight, but well built with an extensive set of weather-seals. |
Performance ★★★★★ |
The lens is sharp and crisp, from edge to edge and corner to corner across the whole image frame, matching fast and accurate autofocus with excellent optical quality. |
Value ★★★★★ |
It’s not exactly a cheap lens, but it massively undercuts the price of regular trinity wide-angle zooms and is a real bargain for Sony E mount camera systems. |
Best Fujifilm X vlogging lens
Ultra-wide-angle zooms are the order of the day for vlogging, and if they have a relatively fast and constant aperture rating, so much the better. Fujifilm does offer the XF 10-24mm f/4, but it’s a pretty big lens and not great when matched with the 40MP sensor of Fujifilm's latest 40MP camera bodies. That's where this Sigma steps in.
The Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary isn’t just an extraordinarily compact ultra-wide-angle zoom, it also has a constant f/2.8 maximum aperture. The 10-18mm zoom range is equivalent to 15-27mm in full frame terms, so although it goes very wide, it doesn’t have a lot of reach – it’s a pretty short zoom range. I'll take that any day for vlogging.
And even if the zoom range isn't overly generous, it does tie in perfectly with the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary standard zoom, combining to make a compact and portable twin-lens travel kit.
Read more: Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN | C review
Features ★★★★☆ |
The fast and constant f/2.8 aperture puts astrophotography on this lens’s ‘can do’ list, along with landscapes and the like, but there’s no optical stabilization. |
Design ★★★★★ |
The lens is refreshingly compact and lightweight for an ultra-wide-angle zoom with an f/2.8 aperture. |
Performance ★★★★☆ |
Sharpness is superb across most of the image frame, throughout the entire zoom range, not so great in the extreme edges and corners. |
Value ★★★★★ |
The combination of size, constant f/2.8 aperture and super-slick handling make the value unbeatable. |
The best OM System vlogging lens
Smaller OM System cameras have often come with a terrific little EZ 14-42mm (28-84mm equivalent) 'pancake' zoom which may be all you need, but it's likely that at some point you'll want lenses with a bit more range. I'll go a little left-field here and say that the Panasonic lens below is an ideal mid-price, mid-weight choice for OM System bodies.
However, if you're not fussed about working with slightly heavier lenses, this OM System ED 8-25mm f/4 PRO is a bit on the large side but makes it well worth upsizing. I really like its equivalent zoom range of 16-50mm in full frame camera terms, so it works as both an ultra-wide lens and a standard lens, all in one package. I find that I can shoot selfie-filming and regular shots without the hassle of swapping between lenses.
Another upside is that this lens has a constant f/4 maximum aperture, and I like its fast and quiet autofocus, as well as its excellent optical performance. All in all, it's well worth the weight.
Read more: Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8-25mm f/4 PRO review
Best Panasonic MFT vlogging lens
Creating ultra-wide-angle lenses for Micro Four Thirds cameras has always been a challenge, due to the large 2x crop factor of the physically small image sensors. This Panasonic lens rises to the challenge, however, delivering an 'effective' 14-28mm zoom range in full-frame terms.
Olympus also makes a 7-14mm lens, but it has a constant f/2.8 aperture and is a bit of a monster, less convenient for handheld vlogging. Instead, I'd pick the more compact Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4 ASPH for vlogging, both for self-filming and general vlogging use.
Read more: Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4 ASPH. review
Best Panasonic full-frame vlogging lens
For vlogging as well as for general walkabout, street and travel photography, I often find that I want to squeeze more into the frame than my 24-70mm standard zoom will allow. Instead of enduring the inconvenience of carrying an extra, ultra-wide-angle lens and the chore of swapping between them, this Sigma feels like the only lens I need.
I love that it gives me all the extra viewing width that I crave, especially for presenting to camera while vlogging, without lopping too much off the long end, compared with a more typical 24-70mm zoom lens. I’m really impressed that Sigma has been able to design this lens with its ultra-wide-angle potential, while delivering excellent image quality in a package that’s refreshingly compact and lightweight.
Sure, the inner barrel extends at longer zoom settings but that’s only natural. And although it has a variable aperture rating, it’s faster than is often the case. All in all, I think this Sigma lens is a small wonder, and a bargain at the price.
Read more: Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 DG | C review
Features ★★★★☆ |
All the basics are covered but the feature set doesn’t include any fancy frills, like an aperture control ring, customizable function buttons or even an AF/MF switch. |
Design ★★★★½ |
Sigma’s clever design manages to shoehorn plenty of ultra-wide-angle coverage into a compact and lightweight zoom lens that’s well built with a metal mounting plate and multiple weather-seals. |
Performance ★★★★½ |
Autofocus is fast and consistently accurate, ensuring a great hit rate. Image quality is very impressive in all respects, particularly in ultra-wide-angle sharpness. |
Value ★★★★☆ |
The Sigma is pricier than the equivalent Panasonic zoom but is a little faster in terms of aperture rating, and made in Japan rather than China. It’s priced very fairly. |
Overall |
★★★★½ |
How we test lenses and lab test comparisons
The lens experts in our testing lab run a range of tests under controlled conditions. We take photos of Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts, then use the Imatest Master testing suite to analyze sharpness, distortion, and chromatic aberrations at the centre of the image frame, corners, and mid-point distances across the range of aperture settings (up to f/22, where available).
The graphs below show the comparative performance of the lenses in this guide, based on our in-house lab tests. Only full f-stops are labelled on the X-axis for sharpness, so, for example, an f/1.2 or f/6.3 lens would correlate to f/1 and f/5.6, respectively.
The full-frame Sigma 20-60mm and MFT format Panasonic 7-14mm lead the way for sharpness, whereas the Canon RF-S 10-18mm APS-C lens looks relatively unimpressive, especially at the short end of its zoom range. The full-frame Tamron 16-30mm technically looks worst for color fringing, but it’s still of a fairly low order and well within the remit of automatic in-camera correction. Wide-angle distortion seems pretty horrific for some of the lenses, especially Canon and Sony, but the lab results of some others in the group, like the OM System and Panasonic, have built-in firmware corrections that flatter the optical performance.
For more detailed graphs of each lens's performance that give the full picture, check out the graphs in our standalone lens reviews.
Center sharpness
Use the dropdown menu to select between wide-angle, mid-wide, mid-tele, and telephoto zoom settings (prime lens data is replicated across all charts for ease of comparison)
| Timestamp (f-stop) | Sony E PZ 10-20mm f/4 G () | Canon RF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM () | Nikon Z DX 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR () | Canon RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ () | Tamron 16-30mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 () | Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN | C () | Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8-25mm f/4.0 PRO () | Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4 ASPH. () | Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 () |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | N/A | N/A | 2059 | N/A | N/A | 1513 | N/A | N/A | 2321 |
| 4 | 1882 | 1592 | 2028 | N/A | 1769 | 2023 | 1737 | 2504 | 2561 |
| 5 | 1505 | 1520 | 2168 | 2263 | 2099 | 1926 | 1954 | 2433 | 2517 |
| 6 | 1901 | 1342 | 1945 | 2301 | 2051 | 1798 | 1758 | 2283 | 2314 |
| 7 | 1535 | 1171 | 1622 | 2083 | 1896 | 1397 | 1424 | 1879 | 2037 |
| 8 | 1198 | 967 | 1300 | 1862 | 1712 | 1154 | 1120 | 1540 | 1660 |
| 9 | 893 | 787 | N/A | 1637 | 1472 | 846 | 815 | 963 | 1314 |
| 10 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 1300 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Fringing @ f/8
Use the dropdown menu to select between wide-angle, mid-wide, mid-tele, and telephoto zoom settings (prime lens data is replicated across all charts for ease of comparison)
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| Sony E PZ 10-20mm f/4 G | 0.09 |
| Canon RF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM | 0.12 |
| Nikon Z DX 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR | 0.03 |
| Canon RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ | 0.1 |
| Tamron 16-30mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 | 0.44 |
| Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN | C | 0.14 |
| Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8-25mm f/4.0 PRO | 0.13 |
| Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4 ASPH. | 0.26 |
| Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 | 0.23 |
Distortion
Use the dropdown menu to select between wide-angle, mid-wide, mid-tele, and telephoto zoom settings (prime lens data is replicated across all charts for ease of comparison)
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| Sony E PZ 10-20mm f/4 G | -9.54 |
| Canon RF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM | -10.1 |
| Nikon Z DX 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR | -0.11 |
| Canon RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ | -11.6 |
| Tamron 16-30mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 | -1.35 |
| Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN | C | -5.1 |
| Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8-25mm f/4.0 PRO | -1.5 |
| Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4 ASPH. | -1.79 |
| Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4 | -5.46 |
There's more to it than just the technical side, though! Beyond the lab, our reviewers test lenses in real-world environments. We work with lenses both indoors and outdoors, in studio conditions and in natural light, with as many different subjects as possible (or appropriate – there's no point testing a landscape lens' ability to shoot a portrait!).
We take into account everything from handling and ease of use to autofocus speed and the overall quality of the images produced.
Find out more about how we test and review on Digital Camera World
How to choose your best vlogging lenses
• A wide maximum aperture: This provides two advantages: allowing more light into the sensor and thereby improving the footage you can get in low light, as well as allowing for the creation of shallow depth of field, having a main subject pop against an artfully blurred background. This is especially good for doing pieces to camera or interviews.
Fast, silent autofocus: When vlogging, you aren’t going to want to be manually focusing all of the time, and that means having a lens with a capable autofocus system to keep up. However, you also don’t want a noisy whirring autofocus system ruining the sound of your vlogs, so this means picking up a lens with an STM (stepping motor) autofocus system or similar.
Size and weight: You don’t want to be lugging around something that’s too heavy if you're shooting handheld or on a gimbal.
Optical stabilisation: This can give you an edge in keeping your footage smooth even in tough, low-light conditions.
Power Zoom: Another nice feature if you can get it, making your zoom actions smooth and polished without some of the jerkiness that can come from doing it manually.
• A longer zoom range: Vlogging can mean encountering the unexpected, and can also mean needing to shoot all sorts of different subjects: the near and the distant, the large and the small, the moving and the stationary. Having a broad focal range in a single lens means you’re prepared for all of these situations.
So as you can see, there’s a lot to think about! We’ve factored all these things in and come up with our list of the best lenses for vlogging right now. We’ve shopped around for lenses suitable for a range of budgets and different mounts, so whatever your vlogging setup, there should be the right lens for you.
