Question about a camera lens

[DisneyPeanut]

Hi! I'm not very camera Savy but I am looking at a sony a6000 camera. The deal I found comes with 2 lens and I was wondering if someone could tell me what the equivalent would be in zoom? One of them is 16-55mm and the other is 55-210mm. Thanks in advance!

 

[SkaGoat]

the 55-210mm lens is a 3.8x zoom, but that only measures the the difference between the widest setting (55mm), and the most telephoto (210mm) setting.

The zoom x is marketing hype.... with the 16-55mm, and the 55-210mm you have about 13.1x...

Look at it this way, if you were buying a car, instead of saying this car can travel between 16 mph and 210 mph, they said it could travel 13.1x speed.

See how the figure is precise, but isn't and is completely reliant on the lowest number, so the x number is almost completely useless.

The a6000 is a great camera, and that's a good kit, go out and enjoy, and don't worry about how many xes of zoom you have.

 

[havoc315]

Hi! I'm not very camera Savy but I am looking at a sony a6000 camera. The deal I found comes with 2 lens and I was wondering if someone could tell me what the equivalent would be in zoom? One of them is 16-55mm and the other is 55-210mm. Thanks in advance!

It's 1.5 crop factor, so it's 24mm - 82mm and 82mm - 315mm.

In terms of comparing it to a point and shoot "x" factor, you can't do a direct comparison. If the P&S starts at 35mm, then it would be the equivalent of 9x. If the P&S starts at 24mm, then it would be the equivalent of 13x. (315/24).

 

[DisneyPeanut]

Great! Thanks! Just wanted to make sure it was something I could get good pics of my son playing soccer at a distance.

 

[DisneyPeanut]

Will either one of those lens be something I can use for most pics? Will I have to constantly be changing lens?

 

[SkaGoat]

Will either one of those lens be something I can use for most pics? Will I have to constantly be changing lens?

You'll find the 16-55mm pretty useful for most walk-around situations. I use a 17-50mm f/2.8 on my Canon 7D most of the time.

 

[photo_chick]

The easiest way to compare the "times zoom" factor is to compare to something you already. Just look up the 35mm equivalent for the camera you already have. That will put it in apples to apples numbers for you. To me this is really important because if your point and shoot was a super zoom then you may going to find that 200 or 255mm lens a bit short.

An example.. the Fuji S8600 has a 35mm equivalent of 25-900mm. Of course it advertises 36X zoom which is a lot. But a smaller Fuji Pocket camera that boasts 12x zoom has a 35mm equivalent of 24-288mm, which is still a little bit more than the DSLR lenses you listed.

A lot of this comes down to what you're used to using. Look at your current cameras and find their 35mm equivalent so you can compare to something you know. dpreview.com has the 35mm equivalent listed for many point and shoots, go see if you can find a camera you've got there. That way at least you'll know what to expect zoom wise when you get your new camera and lenses.