New answers tagged zoom
1
The Nikkor 70-300mm F/4.5-5.6G will deliver the most sharpness and least vignetting. It stands out most from the other lenses and exhibits less optical distortion.
The Sigma 70-300mm and Tamron 70-300mm are pretty soft and similar in performance except that Tamron vignettes less. While the Nikkor 55-200mm F/4-5.5G is sharper than both third-party models, it ...
2
As others have stated, "zoom" is a ratio, not a measure of focal length or angle of view. What the zoom ratio does tell you is how much narrower the field of view (FoV) will be at the longest focal length setting when compared to the shortest focal length setting. Another thing it normally tells you is the degree of unwanted things like distortion, chromatic ...
1
The term "zoom" is unfortunately absolutely meaningless - it is just the ratio of the longest and shortest focal length.
I.e.
A 17mm to 50mm lens would be roughly 3x zoom. (50/17 = 2.94)
However a 70-200mm lens would also be a roughly 3x zoom. (200/70 = 2.86)
1
I just bought one of those lenses on your list. The Sigma 70-300 f/4-5.6 DG Macro.
But, unlike your camera, mine has in-body image stabilization by means of sensor shift. And so far I've kept it turned On. The camera is also new to me ;) Anyway, I went out today and turned the SteadyShot Off. It was a bright day today, and shutter speeds were high enough ...
2
Ok, I verified this on my own version of that lens from my old xTi. That's normal behavior. The lens goes between macro and standard zoom. If you notice, when you put the lens at 55 it is a long way out, then as you move to 24, it slowly pulls back up against the body of the lens. Then from 24 to 18, it pushes back out again. Thing is, it does this a) ...
3
Any of those lenses will be fairly comparable. They all have their positives and negatives...
I have the Nikkor lens which I picked up as my first zoom in that range to use on film and it is what it is, it's built to a price and that shows. It's not the sharpest at 300mm but (although that also makes it light if you plan to carry it around). Because of ...
8
Image quality. The wider the range of focal lengths on one lens, the more design compromises are made and the more correction must be applied deal with things like geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and light fall off in the corners.
Aperture. Even though the EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 has the same maximum aperture of f/5.6 as the EF-S 55-250mm ...
6
A smaller zoom range means fewer compromises in the optical design and usually better quality. It's better to have a boat and a car and use them where appropriate than to have some sort of boatcar that doesn't do either job as well.
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