How much zoom?

[Peldor]

This may be a dumb question but here goes. How much zoom does a 70-210 mm lens have? its not written on the lens and I cant find any info on it?
:?: :?: :?:
here is a quick pic

 

[Walt]

210/70=3 3X Is that what your after?

 

[Peldor]

it must have a higher zoom than that... i have a digi cam (Olympus C-4000 Zoom) and it has 3x zoom and i can get in WAY closer with this lens...

 

[ferny]

That is how it is worked out. Your 3x zoom on your Olympus is 35-105mm.
Don't forget, your Olympus is 4.1MP so the picture is pretty big. You could be getting a false impression. Because the image is nice and big you can crop it so that it looks like you have a big zoom.

 

[pursuer]

210/70=3 3X Is that what your after?

So that is for the actual zoom range of the lens right? How about the magnification. Is it focal length divided by the chip or film size? When you hear a camera manufacturer referring to a 3X zoom do they mean the range of the zoom or the magnification? Just curious.

 

[photobug]

Peldor- you kind of have to shift gears when you transition from a consumer digital with a fixed lens (zoom or not) to a SLR type camera (film or digital).

The consumer digitals tout their lenses as 3x or 4x or 10x becuase that's how video cameras have always sold themselves and the target consumer is the same for both markets.

Film camera buyers (until the plethora of P&S cams hit the market) really didn't concern itself with the zoom ratio, but more with the field of view (and hence the focal length) of a lens.

A 15-45mm is a 3x zoom. So is a 200-600mm lens. The shorter lens is gonna be really spiffy at shooting indoors, but suck at wildlife shots. OTOH the long lens will work well for wildlife shots and be nearly useless indoors, except maybe to shoot the cheerleaders at the Astrodome from the nosebleed seats.

 

[Peldor]

also... Im thinking of buying the canon AE-1, where can i get lenses for that thing... isnt the mounting different on newer cams?

 

[Peldor]

ok did a little looking and it looks like it only accepts Canon FD lenses... now if i could only find some of them or an adaptor... *sigh* or im going to get a EOS Rebel GII and forget about the whole "old camra" thing.

 

[molested_cow]

Dude, it's only $50~$100 for the whole package, stop complaining!!!

 

[Big Mike]

It's kind of a shame that we can't really use older Canon FD lenses on new EOS cameras. However, there is nothing wrong with the older system. Of course, FD lenses are not auto focus but they are plentiful on the used market. In fact, if you did buy the AE-1...you could get more & better lenses for your money.

You will find that Canon EF lenses (or third party lenses) are quite expensive.

It's your money so do what you think is best. A new auto focus camera in a nice thing to have. But everyone seems to agree that you would be getting a great deal on that AE-1 with the lenses & filters.

 

[Varthlokkur]

70-210 will be about 1.5 - 4x magnification. The general rule is 1x magnification for each 50mm. Your digital is 3x magnification for its widest point. Most likely a 40-120mm zoom. Or something close to it.

 

[Goofup]

It's confusing because we're talking 2 different things:

The zoom range is 3X (210/70).

The magnification factor, at 210mm, is 4.2X (210/50mm, a standard lens).

However, a digital camera usually has a focal length maginifaction factor depending on the sensor size, probably 1.5 or 1.6, so a 70-210 zoom is really like a 105/315mm, so the zoom range will still be 3X, but the magnification factor will jump up to about 6X.