Lenses for Dummies?

Bakko · Jun 4, 2009

Is there a website and/or book that teaches you the basics of lenses?
you guys use all these lens terms and give out lens suggestions and i dont know what they mean ahah =(

so, where is a good place to start learning about lens technology?

Bitter Jeweler · Jun 4, 2009

Photographic lens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is also this cool new site called www.google.com

Samanax · Jun 4, 2009

Understanding Camera Lenses

fred0000 · Jun 4, 2009

Whenever I found that my current lense wasent doing what i'd like it to do, I would do the reasearch for what lense I would need to do it. so as others have said, I turned to google.

SrBiscuit · Jun 5, 2009

Bitter Jeweler said:
There is also this cool new site called www.google.com

smart ass

(i was gonna say the same thing lol)

bigtwinky · Jun 5, 2009

www.fredmiranda.com is a good site for reviews of lenses as well

ANDS! · Jun 5, 2009

Why do people do the Google snark? Is it not possible that the OP ALREADY Googled his question, but lacking a fundamental understanding of what they are asking about, wasn't able to form a solid enough query or interpret the results they got?

OP an example of something you find confusing would help in being able to form a recommendation - as much of the acronyms and nomenclature associated with lenses is absolutely irrelevant to real world shooting.

SrBiscuit · Jun 5, 2009

just a little friendly cynicism.
offending the OP was not the intention im sure.

ANDS! · Jun 5, 2009

No I'm sure it wasn't, and this isn't a denouncement of Bitter - but just an observation in general, because I do see some of these comments that ARE meant that way; and in this case the OP may not recognize that its not meant in that regards.

SrBiscuit · Jun 5, 2009

fair enough.
and you;re right...sarcasm is tough to read in text form.

Bitter Jeweler · Jun 5, 2009

ANDS! said:
Why do people do the Google snark? Is it not possible that the OP ALREADY Googled his question, but lacking a fundamental understanding of what they are asking about, wasn't able to form a solid enough query or interpret the results they got?

I have a really snarky reply to that, but will refrain.

Feel free to call me out on my behaviour. It's fair. This nails one of my peeves that I have seen so frequently. Part of learning is doing research. The OP didn't give enough info to even be helpful. Through my snark, I was helpful though. A good way to learn, even on this forum, everytime you come across something you don't know, or understand, google it. I grew up with parents who, when I asked a question, told me to look it up. The they would ask me what I learned. This was before the internet.

Google also has search suggestions as you type, so typing the subject "camera lenses" yielded "camera lenses explained".

I will refrain from posting snarky google replies, or using www.letmegooglethatforyou.com again.

Blank · Jun 5, 2009

I use Canon equipment and I found no better resource for the complete Canon lineup on this link.

Canon Lenses - Canon EF Camera Lens Information

This should answer most of (if not all) your questions on Canon equipment

Gaerek · Jun 6, 2009

Bitter Jeweler said:
I have a really snarky reply to that, but will refrain.

Feel free to call me out on my behaviour. It's fair. This nails one of my peeves that I have seen so frequently. Part of learning is doing research. The OP didn't give enough info to even be helpful. Through my snark, I was helpful though. A good way to learn, even on this forum, everytime you come across something you don't know, or understand, google it. I grew up with parents who, when I asked a question, told me to look it up. The they would ask me what I learned. This was before the internet.

Google also has search suggestions as you type, so typing the subject "camera lenses" yielded "camera lenses explained".

I will refrain from posting snarky google replies, or using www.letmegooglethatforyou.com again.

I have to agree with you here. I've been around doing this Internet thing for over 15 years now. One of the things that really clutters up forums is people asking questions that could be answered with a quick search. I too had parents who would tell me to look things up when I asked them questions. I understand that forums are a place for people to ask questions and get answers, but people don't need to be spoon fed information.

Any basic photography website could have given the OP the answer he needed I imagine. Typically, I like to help people when they need help, but I usually only do that after they've obviously put in some work trying to find an answer and haven't been able to. One of my biggest Internet pet peeves is people who ask pretty basic questions when the forums were obviously their first stop along the way.

ANDS! said:
Why do people do the Google snark? Is it not possible that the OP ALREADY Googled his question, but lacking a fundamental understanding of what they are asking about, wasn't able to form a solid enough query or interpret the results they got?

There was nothing in the OPs post that would have led me to believe he looked anywhere before posting. Obviously he's been reading the forums, and didn't understand some terms or something. My first reaction to this, if I were in his shoes, would be to start looking stuff up, or even doing a forum search to see if my question was already answered. I apologize to the OP if he had done some research on his own prior to asking the question here. If that's the case, I would simply recommend next time you post a question, mentioning that you looked and couldn't find anything that suited you.

This thread also got me thinking. I see people spelling the word lens, like lense. I wasn't sure if it was simply a misspelling, an alternate spelling (like harbor and and harbour), or something else. Now, I could have asked the forum, and probably gotten an answer in a few minutes. Instead, I worked the Google on my Internet machine, and found the answer in seconds. It's simply an alternate spelling, and I discovered this quickly, and without starting a new thread.

Baaaark · Jun 6, 2009

ANDS! said:
Why do people do the Google snark? Is it not possible that the OP ALREADY Googled his question, but lacking a fundamental understanding of what they are asking about, wasn't able to form a solid enough query or interpret the results they got?

OP an example of something you find confusing would help in being able to form a recommendation - as much of the acronyms and nomenclature associated with lenses is absolutely irrelevant to real world shooting.

+1. Google sucks when it comes to finding QUALITY information. You look at 100 pages and none of them tell you what you're looking for.

Sometimes asking a person about a website is the only way to go. For example, it'd be hard to find the Fred Miranda site above if you were googling in stuff about "lens beginners" and stuff like that.