Now I want to try and figure this out, but it's not making sense to me. Hopefully someone can help.
I'm doing a project that involves a lot of nature shots, something where a nice long telephoto would come in handy. I've got the good old Canon XL1S with 16X manual zoom. It says on the website that it's a 5.6 - 89 mm lens, equivalent to 39 - 620 for a 35mm camera.
This is the part that confuses me. The zoom is nice, sure, but it doesn't seem that telephoto -- 600mm. That should be a hell of a long lens. But I can't even zoom in on someone's eye, because I have to get within two feet of them (and the camera can only focus at 3 ft minimum). But what the Canon website is telling me is that, by using the longest setting my zoom lens will go to, I would get the same length of lens as using a 600mm lens on a 35mm camera? Or is there some video thing that I'm missing, where you can't really compare them?
Does your camera have a digital zoom? I believe so. That's what it is, I bet. The optical does part of it, then the digital takes over and blows up the image. With a digital zoom you should easily be able to get your eye shot -- only you'll lose some picture quality by using the digital zoom.
Oh, I can zoom in a bit with my editing program and not lose too much quality. I'm just a little confused at all these conversions and relations to 35mm film cameras. Since most of my limited knowledge has to do with the film format, I try to relate my Canon video stuff to what I already know (based on shots I like in movies using ___ lens). It seems that the XL1S lens has a 7 times relation to 35mm film (as in my above example where they say 5.6 = 39). So what I'm trying to figure out is, let's say I want a fairly wide angle but just not fish-eye lens to do a master shot, which I would normally use an 18mm lens in regular film format. Does that mean I have to get a video lens that says 2.6mm? Do they even make such a lens?
They say that the wide angle lens for the Canon is about equivalent to 24mm lens for a 35mm film camera. Fine, so that's the widest I can get in video? Sucktastic.
But I'm more concerned about the telephoto part of it. If all this conversion business is true, and I'm sporting a 600mm lens, I should be able to do pretty much any kind of nature photography. Or am I missing something, and do professional film crews use 800mm+ lenses when they do a shot of this nature?
Hey saw the wideangle topic again well here http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3806642083
is a .3x wide angle lens. Considering how wide it is the lense would equal a 13mm.
The way the count up is .3x(13mm) .4x .5x(40mm) .6x .7x .8x those are all "around" calculations of video wide angles, i am missing a lot, maybe someone can fetch out a chart? The more you punch in the bigger the number gets so
2x((160mm)from 80mm standard video focal length) 3x 4x 5x are video telephotos. Excuse me of my ingorance towars optics very rusty. Well to link the numbers between each other you would have to look at the focal length chart or try to figure out the way to calculate.. I am not exacly sure of how. Since all of the calculations are different when you buy a video lens example http://www.smsprod.com/products/lenses/century3.html
i think you just have to look at the focal length they provide.
Heh maybe this can guide you to the real answer sorry.