Talk:Zoom lens

message: There is duplication between this article and telephoto lens.  I think the two articles should be combined.  I think a zoom lens should be a subcategory of telephoto lens, as the distinction is basically a zoom lens is a telephoto lens with a varying focal length.  The issues as to what a focal length is, what an angle of view is, and how these things are related are common to both.  Furthermore, the artistic aspects of using a telephoto and zoom to me seem to be the same.  Bottom line, there is information in the zoom article that relates to telephoto and vice versa. --Lenehey 22:33, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
:No, it's not. A telephoto lens is a long lens; a zoom lens is one with a variable focal length. Any confusion is due to the common use of phrases like "zoom in on that", and does not reflect inherent overlap in the article subjects. A 10-22mm zoom is hardly a telephoto, now is it? ('Course, the articles could both point out that the common confusion.) grendel|khan 04:04, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
::I agree with Grendelkhan. Not all zoom lenses are telephotos, and not all telephotos are zooms. This is adequately explained in this article, but could be expanded in telephoto lens. -- DrBob 18:10, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Telephoto / Zoom 

message: The animated graphic, Simplified zoom lens in operation, seems like it contains an error.  It appears that both the incoming light rays and the projected light rays move as the optics move.   It seems like the incoming light rays should stay fixed and the projected light rays should move.  Am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by John0720 (talk • contribs) 
: Interesting observation.  The blue rays (the ones that change) are parallel to each other, and to the lens axis, throughout the animation.  Thus they are all consistent with the same source, an on-axis point source at infinity.  (You could say that there are infinitely many rays from the source to the lens, and the animation is just choosing a different set of three to plot at each step of the animation.)  The question is, why is it picking different rays to plot?  My best guess is that as the lens moves to its "wide" setting (interior element moves to the right), on-axis incident rays arriving at the edge of the front element would be obstructed by baffling and wouldn't contribute to the image.  Note that the full area of the rear elements is used throughout the animation, even as less and less of the front element is used.  -- Coneslayer 19:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in animated graphic? 

message: The Panasonic Lumix TZ1 has a compacted zoom lens technology. Though it is the size of a compact digital camera, it can still zoom up to 10x or 12.5x. They won the TIPA award for smallest camera with the largest zoom in 2006. 128.6.175.77 21:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well thats all well and good, but unless Panasonic has some product literature on it (something like Canons White papers) this information cannot be included, besides, this isn't that relevant to this article anyway. --122.104.46.186 (talk) 11:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different zoom technology 

message: The animation is not good I guess, lights from both image and object are moving with the movement of the inner lense ! this is misleading.
1) the light coming from an object should be independent of the movement of the lense
otherwise
2) the visible movement of the image can either be due to the movement of the object and/or movement of the lense. Which makes the animation not very good since it cannot show the effect of the lense exclusively.
Jeroje 04:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're raising the same objection as in Error in animated graphic? above.  Please see my response to that question, which concerned an earlier version of the animation.  -- Coneslayer 19:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since the question was raised twice... and I too have problems with the animation, I guess the animation is not clear enough - with or without your explanation (which is  not included in the article), the point is not made. The animation should clear the workings of the zoom lenses for everybody, but as is, it's only confusing. So I think it should be changed.89.137.187.148 (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Design

message: 62.1.109.237 added the following paragraph:
:The bigger the zoom ratio, the higher the design complexity of the lens, its bulk and concomitant cost, and the more prominent the optical quality loss. This is significantly masked when recording moving images, which is why video and TV lenses are able to achieve very high zoom ratios. It is also somewhat masked by digital camera sensor sampling, but less so in professional-standard medium and large format photography, both digital and analogue film. Nevertheless a capable zoom lens, with its flexible framing and ease of composition can be invaluable in demanding situations such as news photography. Digital photography can also accommodate optical correction algorithms that partially compensate for optical flaws, both within in-camera processors and in production software.
The statement that larger zoom ratios equate to higher design complexity, bulk, and cost is unreferenced and wrong in my opinion — the most complex, bulky, and expensive zoom lenses are low-ratio large-aperture professional zooms. The statement about quality issues being "somewhat masked by digital sensor sampling" is extremely vague and also unreferenced — if it refers to issues being masked by low sensor resolution, one only needs to scan some reviews of cheap zoom lenses to see otherwise. This I removed these two statements from the article. --Stybn (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition by 62.1.109.237 

message: It would be awesome if someone found/made a photo at 1x zoom, then drew smaller and smaller rectangular crops representing each zoom level, 3x, 5x, etc... It would be similar to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vector_Video_Standards2.svg . I am currently searching for something like that to help me decide what level of zoom I want in a camera, and hoped to find one here. Or even photographic samples of 1x, 3x, 5x, 10x of the same subject would do well. Habanero-tan (talk) 21:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is a good idea. The difference in angle, or size of the image, should be common with prime lenses, but the need for illustration is noted. There is the thing about change in perspective as well (standing close to the subject with a wide lens vs. standing far with a long lens). I do not have the time now to add links, might try later.  Thermofan (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 07:41, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: :A lens with a focal length range greater as factor 5x is called superzoom.
RM'ed above statement to talk because it's unverified. Parent article Superzoom also contains no reliable sources as to what a "Superzoom" lens is. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 19:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Superzoom?

message: I wish this article had a diagram labeling the parts of a typical zoom lens.
By "typical", I mean the parts that typically are included in the thing people buy and attach to the front of a camera -- not just the lenses, but also the lens barrel, the mounting flange, the flange focal distance, the throat, the breech, the image circle, the anti-reflective coatings, the filter mount, etc.
In particular, what is (are) the name(s) of the 2 gear-like rings that many commonly available zoom lenses have,
that are designed to be gripped by a human hand and turned -- turn one to change the zoom, and turn the other to change the focus?
--DavidCary (talk) 00:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  diagram of parts of a typical lens 

message: There are several places in the article that reference "true zoom" and claim that varifocal zoom lenses are not zoom lenses. But there are no sources to back that up. The only source used actually doesn't make the claim at all. Does anyone have any reliable sources that discuss "true zoom" and/or "varifocal not a zoom" info? If not I think I'll do a clean-up and remove this apparent misinformation. CodeCurmudgeon (talk) 18:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the term "True Zoom" is meaningless and silly. There are parfocal zoom lenses and varifocal zoom lenses and that's all there is to it. 87.75.117.183 (talk) 18:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  True Zoom info is silly 

message: Hello,
Does anyone knows how and when the word "zoom" was first applied to a lens with a variable focal length ? Thanks !
Douzelignes (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology