Please help/ Lens Question

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Mfrankfort

Senior Member
I may be wrong in what your asking... but the longer length = longer zoom = closer subject. So 55-300, or 18-300 or anything - 300 will bring it the closest.
 
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Bill16

Senior Member
The 18-300 and the 55-300 will both bring your view closer to the object. They are zoom lenses and basically telescopic starting off at close range and will zoom out to long range. The difference between the two I've mentioned is the 18-300mm starts out closer so it has a wider range of zoom.
I don't own either lens so I can't tell you my opinion of which lens is optically better. I hope this helps answer your question. :)
 
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WayneF

Senior Member
Travanian said:
Can someone pls tell me which lens will bring a subject closer ?
18-200 or 55-300 ?
or 18-300 ?
I have a 3100
Thank you
Click to expand...


Closest possibly could have two meanings..

One might be how near can it focus, how close can I stand? 2 feet? 3 feet?

But probably you refer to telephoto magnification, like looking in binoculars for example, to bring far things up closer.

Not easy to explain, but cameras have a "normal" lens focal length, which give a "normal" view, comparable to the angular view that our eyes see. This is a focal length around the diagonal size of the sensor.

But in practice, it works out to be about a 40 degree view. Humans have wider peripheral vision, but what we mostly look at is around a 40 degree view.

On your D3100 DX camera, this "normal" focal length would be about 30mm.
It takes a picture you may consider to be about your normal vision width, around a 40 degree view. Wider (shorter) is considered wide angle, and a more narrow view (longer) is telephoto.

The 200 mm lens will be 200/30 = 6.7x longer, which will magnify objects 6.7x size (compared to the normal lens), which brings them up about 6.7x closer. On the DX camera, the effect will compare to looking in 6x binoculars. On a FX camera body, same lens would appear 1.5x less, or about 4.4x magnification (compared to that "normal" view of that FX camera).

The 300 mm lens would 300/30 or 10x, or comparable to looking though 10x binoculars. Longer lenses magnify more. For DX cameras (D3100), you can compare their focal length to a 30mm "normal" lens.
 
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Travanian

Senior Member
Thx for all your replies. One of the things I like to photograph is aircraft. I go to Manchester airport often. Sometimes the aircraft are quite far away and that's the reason for my question. I understand better now. Thank You
Stephen
 
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