Beth81
TPF Noob!
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Every letter means something when appended to a lens name. One thing does not usually affect another, although there can be some cases where you can make assumptions based on that letter being there.
For Nikon, the "G" designation means that the lens does not have an aperture ring, and will therefore not mount on older cameras that can't control the aperture from within the body. It doesn't mean anything else.
"DX" means that the lens casts an imaging circle smaller than a piece of 35mm film, and therefore can only work on crop cameras or on full-frame cameras set in crop mode.
"VR" means that the lens has components that compensate for your minor movements that may blur an image taken at a low shutter speed.
"AF-S" means that the lens has a built in focus motor, rather than relying on the camera body to drive focus with a screw motor.
Nikkor is what Nikon calls their lenses
Zoom is pretty straightforward-- you can change the focal length.
IF-ED means that it uses special glass elements to reduce aberrations and improve image quality.
So to make an example from left to right. The AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED is:
a lens with a built in focus motor, made for a crop sensor, with image stabilization, with variable focal lengths, made by Nikon, with a range of 18-200mm, a max aperture range of 3.5-5.6, and it has special glass elements.
Lens designators are like a whole different language, and they change from maker to maker, with varying levels of clarity. It's all a matter of reading about what they mean and then seeing them in action on your camera.
Nice break down and thanks. I do tend to be shaky at times so I may need the VR lens after all. I was looking to get a camera that came with a lens already but every d80 I have found doesn't come with a VR lens and if it does it's the 18-55. I was looking to get a lens with more zoom.