Question about SLR and zoom lenses - alt.photography

Message from discussion Question about SLR and zoom lenses

Mentalguy2k8

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More options Jul 6, 5:38 am

Newsgroups: alt.photography

From: "Mentalguy2k8" <Mentalguy...@gmail.com>

Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 20:38:25 +0100

Local: Mon, Jul 6 2009 5:38 am

Subject: Re: Question about SLR and zoom lenses

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"the Omrud" <usenet.om...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote in message

news:s974m.52038$OO7.34571@text.news.virginmedia.com...

> Mentalguy2k8 wrote:
>> Hi,

>> I'm looking to buy a mid-range SLR digital camera, are there any pitfalls
>> I should be aware of?

> Many, I'm afraid. It's not easy to know where to start.

>> Also, I'm looking at zoom lenses to go with it, how do I work out what
>> magnification they are, eg 5x, 10x etc? For instance, this lens:
>> http://shop.panasonic.co.uk/invt/hfs045200e

>> says "90 to 400 mm (35 mm equivalent)" and "Maximum magnification:
>> Approx. 0.19x / 0.38x (35mm film camera equivalent)".

> SLR users don't tend to talk about 5x, etc, especially those of us who
> have been taking photos since the 1950s. What's interesting are the two
> numbers of the zoom, e.g. 35 to 135, 90 to 400, etc.

> 50/55mm is 1:1 real-life size. So your lens above is a zoom, from medium
> long to very long, a little more than 4x zoom range. To confuse matters,
> many mid-range digital SLR cameras have sensors smaller than an original
> 35mm film frame, so the magnification of any lens is different from when
> you use it on a "full frame sensor" camera. If you need to know why, you
> should read up on focal length, e.g.:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_length.

> Why did you choose this lens? Would you never want to use a wide-angle
> lens, as if you only have one like this, you wouldn't be able to.

It was really just an example, as one of the cameras I was looking at came
as a package with this lens as a 2nd lens here:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/2895441/art/panasonic/lumix-dmc-g1-in...

the standard lens also supplied is 14-45mm

>> Can anyone tell me what this equates to? I'd preferably prefer to buy a
>> camera package with a separate zoom lens, any recommendations for decent
>> UK-based sites or shops? I'm currently looking at the Pixmania site.

> Pixmania will deliver at a good price, but I have heard that they are not
> as friendly as some if anything happens to go wrong. I tend to use Amazon
> if they have what I want. Here's your lens:

Thanks for the advice, I'm just browsing at the moment, I usually do a
Google on a particular model to see if I can get it cheaper elsewhere. I've
decided to take photography more seriously as a hobby, I already have a digi
camera with a 10x zoom, I'd be using a new one for scenery, wildlife etc.,
so I was interested to see how the SLR zoom factors compared to what I
already have. If I wanted, say, better than 10x zoom, is there a rough way
to find out which lens would offer this?

One last question, can I use a remote shutter release with all SLR's or is
it model-specific?

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