V1.02
Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300
Page 364
An Aside About Lenses
You’re probably wondering about all those cryptic initials in
Nikon’s lens designations (e.g. “ED AF-S VR DX” or “AI-S”).
Nikon is pretty good at coming up with acronyms for just
about everything associated with a lens design. You’ll find a
full description of the entire range of Nikon abbreviations on
my Web site at
http://www.bythom.com/lensacronyms.htm
.
But let’s get rid of the primary lens designations you’ll
encounter.
For example, a common lens designation might be one like:
Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S VR ED DX.
First up, we have the focal length designation (e.g. 18-
200mm). This tells us a bit about how wide an area the
camera can frame (see “Lens Angle of View” on page <375>).
Roughly speaking, anything less than 24mm is considered a
wide angle lens on the D300, anything over 55mm would be
considered telephoto. Wide angle lenses are used to frame a
large area all at once, telephoto lenses are used to isolate a
single item and bring it closer.
On the left, a wide angle view of the Petito Moreno glacier (24mm
lens used); on the right, a telephoto view of one small section of
the scene near the lower right corner of the wide view (120mm
lens used). Both photos taken from the same position; only the
focal length used was changed.
