 Chris J. McLuen |
Lens Information I just bought an Olympus E-500 and I know nothing about lenses. The numbers and all that are another language to me. Is it possible for some one to give me a little info about lenses?
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Peter M. Wilcox |
The two most important numbers are the focal length and the aperture. Focal length describes the field of view of the lens, i.e. how much will be in the picture. This defines what the perspective of the picture will be, for Olumpus 4/3 cameras (E1, E300, E500, E330) a lens with a focal length of about 25mm gives a picture with what is called normal perspective. It makes a picture which is roughly like the scene would look with your unaided eyes. Shorter FL lenses include more in the picture (wide angle) and longer lenses include less (telephoto). So, if you want to take a picture of a bird in a tree, use a telephoto (200mm say). If you want to take a picture inside of an entire room at once, use a wide angle (14mm for instance). Most of the Olympus lenses are zooms, and will provide a range of focal lengths. The lens you received with the E500 is probably the 14-45mm, which is wide angle to short telephoto, including the "normal" focal length. The second important number is the maximum F stop, or aperture. It is a measure of how much light the lens captures. The lower the number (expressed as f/2.8 or f/3.5) the more light the lens puts on the sensor, and the faster the shutter speed can be for a particular scene. Hence, an f/2.8 lens is called a faster lens than an f/3.5 lens. Each ratio of 1.4 (square root of 2) in f stop corresponds to a factor of 2 more (or less) light. I.e. if an f/2 lens will let you take a picture at 1/400 second shutter speed, an f/2.8 requires 1/200 sec, f/4 1/100 sec, etc... Aperture also affects depth of field, the nearest and farthest distance which is in focus. The lower the f stop (faster) the shallower the depth of field. Lenses can be stopped down to increase depth of field, increase shutter time, or for other reasons, f/22 is usually the minimum aperture these days. Zoom lenses often have a maximum aperture which varies with the focal length setting. I.e. a lens might be f/3.5 at 14mm, when set to 45mm it might be f/5.6. Your shutter speed will have to be slower to compensate at the longer focal length. The automatic settings of the camera handle all of this, but they may not pick the best combination for a particular scene. Knowing more about the various settings and picking them yourself will improve your pictures.
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Chris J. McLuen |
You have no idea how much I appreciate this. You described it very well and I learned alot from this. Thanks so much :D Your a life saver.
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Peter M. Wilcox |
You're welcome! Have fun with your new camera - Olympus makes great equipment.
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