Photos of this life: Glass Eyes

Like I said in my last post I would discuss some of the new lenses I have recently acquired. Lets start this topic with understanding two commonly used terms in the photography world. Full frame and Crop sized. A full frame sensor that captures the image in your camera is the same physical size as a 35mm strip of film. A crop sized sensor is either 1.3x ,1.5x or 1.6x of the 35x24mm area. I have included a picture to help understand. Now I would like to discuss something vital when it comes to using lenses and the way they can work for you. When talking about any kind of lenses you have two different formats, full frame and crop. Full frame format is designed for use on a full frame sensor camera body. Crop format is dsesigned for use on a crop size sensor like a 1.3x, 1.5x or 1.6x. Most camera manufactures do not allow use of crop format lenses on a full frame body but allow use of full frame format on a crop body. Here is where that is very important, depending on the size of your crop sensor this changes the focal length of the lens. The physical size and optics of the lens never change but your camera sees it this way when its taking a picture. To make it fairly simple, My Nikon D80 is a 1.5x crop factor so when using any full frame format lens you simply add half of the focal length to the lens. For example when I use my 50mm it is now a 75mm, the same goes for zooms. When I use my 70-300mm its actually a 105-450mm. This only happens on full frame format lenses used on a crop size body. Crop bodies have specific lens formats for the different sizes the DX and so on. You may be asking yourself what this all relates to. In a fairly simple way money, regardless if you are using a Nikon or Canon dslr you can take advantage of having a crop sensor and using a full frame lens. Older Nikon f mount lenses can be bought for a fair price in comparison to alot of the new lenses on the market. Obviously the older lenses do not have nice features like auto focus and metering but the glass is really nice. Along with having nice optics these lenses can be had with large aperture for a fair price. Its not for everyone but its something to think about. I hope this helps you understand using lenses and what they can do for you. If not here a link thats very in-depth Click here.

Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G

This is a good lens for outdoors during the daytime that offers a 450mm focal length at a fair price.

Tokina 2x converter for use with Nikon f mount. Aperture ring adjustment only with certain lenses. When used with G lenses aperture is stopped down to highest value as aperture is body controlled.