Google is sending me round in circles 🙁

I want to get back into SLR photography, but everything has changed; it’s even called DSLR now! 😉

Long ago I had a 28-210mm lens on a ‘wet film’ SLR. Sadly it was stolen

I then got a Sony Bridge camera (DSC-V3) with 4X zoom. This did not have as much zoom as I was used to, so I bought a 2X converter (yes I know, but it was all done on a budget and it worked suprisingly well!)

I am now looking at a cheap second hand camera and assume that I want/need a zoom that goes up to about 210mm again, but I am not sure if that will be more or less what I have with the Sony….

I don’t want to spend what feels like a lot of money (to me that is) only to feel I have lost out a bit.

Anyone care to comment?

TIA

PS – I have edited out the brands where possible to try and prevent one of ‘those’ discussions 🙂

You have to consider the crop factor for anything that isn’t full frame, all explained here > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_factor

Its related to the ratio of the dimensions of the digital sensor usually in relation to what was the classic 35mm SLR format.

So for example a Micro Four Thirds format camera has a 2X crop factor so a 14-140mm lens is the equiv of a 28-280mm on a full frame (aka 35mm) camera.

On a Nikon DX format DLSR (1.5X crop) to get your 28-210 you’d need 18-140mm lens

The 4x zoom bit is misleading. Well, not a bit, a lot. It’s the difference between the short and long ends as a ratio.

So a 100-400mm lens is a 4x zoom.
So is a 10-40mm lens.

The 2x teleconverter is actually a multiple of the focal lenght, so putting a 2x teleconverter on a 4x zoom lens doesn’t give you an 8x lens but a 4x lens with twice the focal length throughout the range!

Chances are you can find the 35mm focal length equivalent for your bridge camera, that’s what you need to do the comparison with your old slr. But don’t forget what Russe96 said about crop factors when comparing to dlsrs, they’re not all the same (and most are different to an slr).

What they said.

Also, the 4x bit on compact cameras means that the Tele end is 4x the focal length of the wide end, NOT that max magnification is 4x as I thought for ages. To work out how much magnification you get you need to know the sensor size and the focal length of the lens. Compacts have pretty small sensors, and the lens is pretty close to the sensor which means you can quite easily make a lens that is both a long tele and a macro.

dpreview.com is a good place to find camera stats. They will probably quote the 35mm equivalent of your compact:s lens. That’s the normal way to compare lenses.

Ok, two answers that confused me even more (sorry for being thick, thanks anyway), but the DPreview site worked a treat 🙂

So in its basic guise the camera 4X zoom is equivilent to 34-136 (see here)

But I still don’t get what the converter does to that if it is not a simple multiplication 🙁

Can you helpfull peeps give me any more pointers please?

Thanks again

Your teleconverter is a simple multiplication factor that should be applied to the focal length, rather than the amount of zoom.

The 2x teleconverter ends up giving you 68 (34*2) – 272 (136*2) range.
This is still 4x zoom as the long end of the lens is 4x the focal length of the wide end.

Of course if you were to talk about the total range given to you by using the camera without and with the 2x teleconverter, then yes you do have 8x zoom.
Without the teleconverter on, you have a wide end of 34 and with the 2x converter on you have a tele end of 272, which is 8x zoom.

An equivalent lens of your 28-210 is perfectly possible.
The kit lens that came with my Nikon D80 is 18-135, which equates to 24-202.5, or they do an 18-200 which will give you 24-300mm range. You need to take into account the ‘crop factor’ of the sensor on the particular camera body you are considering. ‘Most will be around x1.5.

Fab!

Cheers all 🙂

Looks like I will try and settle for a 18-135. Hopefully the better quality (and possibly more pixels) will make up for the slight reduction in max zoomage