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Film lens focal length vs digital lens focal length?
I have finally made the plunge to a digital SLR. I've ordered my Cannon Rebel XSI with an 18 to 55 mm zoom lens. In my ancient past, when I shot film, I had a good selection of lenses. And I had a pretty good idea of the degree of magnification for the range of focal lengths. For example, I knew what my 100 to 200 mm zoom lens was capable of. But now, as I researched the specs on digital cameras, a whole new set of parameters had to be learned. On my point and shoot digital, I understood that 3X, 5X, 10X optical zoom could be pretty meaningless as what was 5X to one manufacturer was something else to another. But, when it comes to DSLRs, the standards seem to apply across the board, but that doesn't help me understand what to actually expect in performance.
My question is: Can someone copy a table, or please provide a link to one, showing a comparison of film camera lens focal lengths to those of digital camera lenses? Even if not a complete table, one that might show me what today's equivilant is to the old 50 mm 100 mm, 200 mm, 500 mm lenses would be helpful.
Thanks.
Thanks, "proshooter," for your quick answer.
So, if I got this right, if I wanted to find a digtal lens equivilant to an old 500 mm, I divided 500 by 1.6 and got 312.5. So, I'd be looking for something about 300 to 325 mm in the digital formats? Is that right?
7 Answers
- proshooterLv 61 decade agoFavorite Answer
the XSi has a crop factor of 1.6 so your 18-55 lens has the view of a
a 28-88 mm lens on a film SLR, or a DSLR with a full frame sensor.
Just multiply the focal length by the crop factor to the effective focal length for your camera , for every lens and focal length.
- Anonymous4 years ago
1
Source(s): Become Professional Photographer http://teres.info/ProPhotographyCourse - electrosmack1Lv 51 decade ago
From your ancient past, do you remember anything called APS sized film? You know, the smallest widely available film type. Well, that's pretty much what your "modern" camera is. Just multiply whatever lens you currently have by 1.6 and this will be the new focal length.
- selina_555Lv 71 decade ago
To answer your additional question.
Yes, you have that right, at least mostly.
You can't generalize "in the digital formats" because they are not all the same. YOUR camera (and many others, too) has a 1.6 crop factor.
But there are other digital cameras with different crop factors (e.g.1.3) as well as digital full frame cameras that "act" like film cameras as far as the lenses are concerned.
- Anonymous5 years ago
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