Question about the Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S...

[rocky89]

I watched a short review for the lens on Youtube, and the man talking about the lens said with the right camera, like the Nikon D7100 or maybe even D7000 was could be the equivalent to a 600mm lens. Is that correct?

 

[Sambr]

Yes sir it would become a 100-600 with the D7000 a fair bit more with the D7100

 

[Dave_W]

Yes and no. Using either a D7000 or D7100 your image will have the same field of view as a full frame camera with a 600mm lens on it. It's the result of the cropped sensor that gives images that equal the field of view of a lens equal to 1.5 x the actual focal length. So in that way it's similar to a 600mm lens but is still only a 400mm lens. You could use a D800 and crop it by a factor of 1.5x and you'll have the same result as you would with a D7000/7100. Either way, it's still a 400mm lens.

 

[rocky89]

Yes sir it would become a 100-600 with the D7000 a fair bit more with the D7100

Yes and no. Using either a D7000 or D7100 your image will have the same field of view as a full frame camera with a 600mm lens on it. It's the result of the cropped sensor that gives images that equal the field of view of a lens equal to 1.5 x the actual focal length. So in that way it's similar to a 600mm lens but is still only a 400mm lens. You could use a D800 and crop it by a factor of 1.5x and you'll have the same result as you would with a D7000/7100. Either way, it's still a 400mm lens.

Radical. I own the D7000 (Love it) and some of my friends own a 500mm lens, and I'm VERY please to hear and understand that the Nikkor can provide a 600mm equivalent.

Though, what would I have to do, or how would I modify my D7000 to provide a 600mm view?

 

[Dave_W]

Your D7000 is already doing it right now. It's the crop factor that separates a DX format camera (D7000) from an FX format camera (D800). But again, you're not actually increasing the focal length of a lens by 1.5x (400 into a 600) you're merely cropping the image so that it would be equal to the field of view that a longer lens would deliver to an FX camera body.

 

[Whiskeyman]

But again, you're not actually increasing the focal length of a lens by 1.5x (400 into a 600) you're merely cropping the image so that it would be equal to the field of view that a longer lens would deliver to an FX camera body.

So true, Dave. With a DX sensor, you are really cropping every image when compared to a full frame sensor. The 1.5 focal length multiplier is really a marketing/sales ploy. That's why you hear about it when discussing long focal lengths and telephoto lenses, but not so much when talking about wide-angle lenses. I mean, how good does it sound to say that a camera turns a higher-priced wide angle lens into a normal lens.

Where it can make a difference is when enlarging the image. Theoretically, a DX sensor image can be enlarged by a larger factor than an FX sensor image, if both have the same number of photo receptors (pixels).