freefalle 0 #1 December 20, 2005 What is the difference, what makes one better than another? How does the F# on lens and the F# on the camera setting relate when you are using an AV setting? thanks. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Miami 0 #2 December 20, 2005 Questions like those are exactly the reason I'm going back to school for a degree in photography. Ask me again in a few years and I should be able to answer!Miami Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
namgrunt 0 #3 December 20, 2005 sigms (bigma) 50-500 super teli 12/50 wide nikor 50/300 tel nikor with these 3 i can pretty much cover what I can see with my eye. match the camera to the lens works best for me determine what you want to do them study/shop and stick with that till you got it down pat then go to another lens and start over camera is where it ALL starts I prefer nikon but cannon is good also there is SO much more to your question than a few lines could answer ..59 YEARS,OVERWEIGHT,BALDIND,X-GRUNT LAST MIL. JUMP VIET-NAM(QUAN-TRI) www.dzmemories.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vdschoor 0 #4 December 20, 2005 QuoteWhat is the difference, what makes one better than another? How does the F# on lens and the F# on the camera setting relate when you are using an AV setting? thanks. The F# on the lens is the maximum aperture for that lens. So if your lens says F2.8, then that's the largest aperture you camera can set the lens' aperture to. The number on your camera controls what the lens is going to be set for. So if you set your camera to F8, it sets the aperture on the lens to F8. With regards to what makes one lens better than another, there is a lot more to that than just the aperture, but generally the lenses with larger aperture values are of higher optical quality. I hope this kind of answers your question. Iwan Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
freefalle 0 #5 December 20, 2005 vdschoor your pretty smart for a skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vdschoor 0 #6 December 20, 2005 Quotevdschoor your pretty smart for a skydiver I have my moments.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
plutoniumsalmon 0 #7 December 21, 2005 The quality of the glass that is used to make the lens is also important. Leica and Zeiss are probably the best in that category. If the camera has auto focus then the motor in the lens used for focusing it also plays a key factor, the better the lens the faster it focuses. Remember also that the smaller the f number equals to a bigger apperture that the lens will open up to, it also means that the lens will be phisically bigger and more expensive. The smaller f number will also require less light and hence less of a lengthy exposure to expose things properly. It will also have an effect on your depth of field, it will make it shallower. ps On canon the better lenses are white or black with a red stripe on their front element. With nikon I believe but am not sure the lenses iare black with a gold stripe on their front elements hope this helpsPointy birds Oh pointy pointy Anoint my head Anointy nointy Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billo 0 #8 December 21, 2005 chuck, when i think about what makes one lens better than the next, i think of a few factors - maximum aperture (how "fast" the lens can be in regard to grabbing light), weight (how much i want strapped to my noggin), focus speed (how fast the AF motors go), and quality/clarity (how good the glass is, how sharp the image is). depending on the type of shooting you're doing, you want to find a mix of these factors that suits you at a cost you can handle. the f/stop, as mentioned by a couple of the other guys, is a way of stating the aperture size of the camera...how big or small the iris/aperture/hole of the lens gets. it is a math ratio that stands for the focal length of the lens divided by the stop #. for example, i've got a 20mm f/2.8 lens. 20/2.8 = 7.14mm iris diameter or a 3.57 radius. area of a circle = pi*r^2, or 3.14*3.57*3.57 = 40.09mm^2. when you stop down the lens to f/4, you're halfing the amount of light that goes through the sensor. 20/4=5dia, 2.5rad. 3.14*2.5*2.5 = 19.6mm^2. rounding differences aside, you can see that when i shoot with my 20mm lens, a f/2.8 setting will have a 40mm^2 sized aperture, whereas a f/4 setting would give a 20mm^2 sized aperture. when you're using the Av setting, it tells the camera, "i want you to shoot with THIS sized aperture for each and every shot". then based on the current ISO, the camera meters the shot that you're looking at selects the corresponding shutter speed that will give you the proper exposure (or as close to "proper" as it thinks). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DancingFlame 0 #9 December 24, 2005 QuoteIf the camera has auto focus then the motor in the lens used for focusing it also plays a key factor Not all AF lenses have motor inside. Nikon and Pentax bodies have built-in motors and lens uses special servo "screwdriver" for AF. Canon bodies do not have built-in motor. Lenses with USM/HSM/SSM (ultrasonic/hypersonic motor) cannot use motor that resides in body thus they have their own motor. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
plutoniumsalmon 0 #10 December 25, 2005 I was of course talking about newer cameras and lenses. But point well taken. Is kiev afPointy birds Oh pointy pointy Anoint my head Anointy nointy Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
