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bomberqueen17:
cameraspot:
Hey. It’s Friday afternoon. You’re probably just trying to kill time until you can go home. So here’s the first in what I hope I can make a series: FAQ Fridays.
People ask all the time what all the numbers on lenses mean. Even experienced photographers sometimes get confused about some of the details. So, one slow day at the store, I took a camera, marked a spot in the parking lot, and took a series of photos with four different wide-angle lenses.
Anything 50mm or above is telephoto, anything under is wide angle.
The smaller the number, the wider the angle, but that’s not all there is to it. There’s also the question of distortion. Some ultra-wide lenses are fisheye lenses, meaning they give a distorted view, like the 10.5mm lens above. (This type of distortion is called “barrel” or “pincushion” distortion, and is sometimes desirable as a special effect, but at other times not.) But other ultra-wides are rectilinear, meaning that they have built-in correction to yield un-distorted images, with straight lines represented as straight lines. That’s why, above, the 10.5mm lens has a slightly larger field of view than the technically wider 8mm.
So you’d take the 10.5mm fish (or Sigma’s 10mm) to a band’s promo shoot, and the 8-16 ultrawide (also in Canon) to an architecture shoot. Similar to the 8-16, Tamron has a 10-24 in Nikon and Canon (less wide, quite a bit cheaper), and Sigma has a 10-20. (Those two are usually close in price, and are similar in quality.)
The 18-55, above, is the “kit” lens, usually packaged with intro-level DSLRs. (Canon Rebels, Nikon D40/60/5000/5300, Sony A35/65, etc.) When prospective camera buyers ask how much “zoom” a DSLR has, this is the answer.
The third category of lenses that’s increasingly common are all-in-one zooms. The Tamron 18-270 (here, for Nikon) is one of our biggest sellers in this category (also available for Canon) . These lenses combine wide angle and telephoto optics in a single lens, meaning you don’t have to switch lenses much. I took that last photo by turning 90 degrees from my earlier photos, and taking a shot across the road. That’s a lot of zoom. That’s what you want if you’re used to those point-and-shoots with huge lenses.
So there, to occupy you for a few moments on a Friday afternoon: an intro to wide angle lenses and what the numbers mean.
Hey I wrote an educational thing for work. The More You Know. FAQ Fridays.
HEY here is a comprehensively researched thing that goes along with that “the camera adds ten pounds” post that’s going around now! But this is the for-real one I did for work that I forgot I ever Tumblr’d!
(Your picture was not posted)
bomberqueen17:
cameraspot:
Hey. It’s Friday afternoon. You’re probably just trying to kill time until you can go home. So here’s the first in what I hope I can make a series: FAQ Fridays.
People ask all the time what all the numbers on lenses mean. Even experienced photographers sometimes get confused about some of the details. So, one slow day at the store, I took a camera, marked a spot in the parking lot, and took a series of photos with four different wide-angle lenses.
Anything 50mm or above is telephoto, anything under is wide angle.
The smaller the number, the wider the angle, but that’s not all there is to it. There’s also the question of distortion. Some ultra-wide lenses are fisheye lenses, meaning they give a distorted view, like the 10.5mm lens above. (This type of distortion is called “barrel” or “pincushion” distortion, and is sometimes desirable as a special effect, but at other times not.) But other ultra-wides are rectilinear, meaning that they have built-in correction to yield un-distorted images, with straight lines represented as straight lines. That’s why, above, the 10.5mm lens has a slightly larger field of view than the technically wider 8mm.
So you’d take the 10.5mm fish (or Sigma’s 10mm) to a band’s promo shoot, and the 8-16 ultrawide (also in Canon) to an architecture shoot. Similar to the 8-16, Tamron has a 10-24 in Nikon and Canon (less wide, quite a bit cheaper), and Sigma has a 10-20. (Those two are usually close in price, and are similar in quality.)
The 18-55, above, is the “kit” lens, usually packaged with intro-level DSLRs. (Canon Rebels, Nikon D40/60/5000/5300, Sony A35/65, etc.) When prospective camera buyers ask how much “zoom” a DSLR has, this is the answer.
The third category of lenses that’s increasingly common are all-in-one zooms. The Tamron 18-270 (here, for Nikon) is one of our biggest sellers in this category (also available for Canon) . These lenses combine wide angle and telephoto optics in a single lens, meaning you don’t have to switch lenses much. I took that last photo by turning 90 degrees from my earlier photos, and taking a shot across the road. That’s a lot of zoom. That’s what you want if you’re used to those point-and-shoots with huge lenses.
So there, to occupy you for a few moments on a Friday afternoon: an intro to wide angle lenses and what the numbers mean.
Hey I wrote an educational thing for work. The More You Know. FAQ Fridays.
HEY here is a comprehensively researched thing that goes along with that “the camera adds ten pounds” post that’s going around now! But this is the for-real one I did for work that I forgot I ever Tumblr’d!
(Your picture was not posted)
