How far does a 55-200mm zoom lens actually zoom?

1. how do they zoom, the elements inside the barrel move back and forth, as the lens is shortened and lenghted.

mm is millimeters - 1000mm = 1 meter /// 25mm = 1inch

get a handle on meterics it will help you if you ever travel or go deeper into photography - dont have to know inside out, just enough to convert to imperial if you wish to use that system

300mm = 1 foot

I always get rubished for this use manual focus and the slowness of auto wont effect you, you will have more control of your images that way,

for sharpness use a tripod and/or a fast shutter like 1/500th or faster - use appeture priority to set the shutter speed.

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For reference the zoom of the lens is simply the big number divided by the little number. so for an 18-55 lens it is 55 / 18 which is simply 3X zoom. Why the apparently low numbers? Because with SLR cameras you have a choice. If the current lens doesn't do it for you, then you change it! By making lenses with a smaller zoom, it's actually possible to make them better quality, because there is not so much compromise to work at a wide range of focal lengths. Having said that, you can buy 18-200mm lenses, so that is quite a large 11.1X zoom.

Moving into SLR photography you need to forget about this magic zoom factor and concentrate on focal lengths.

A focal length of 50mm is regarded as "Normal" and all other references are drawn from here. This is something supposedly similar to what the human eye sees. Normal focal lengths are used for portraits, although up to 85mm is still considered a portrait lens.

Any number lower than 50mm is considered a wide angle lens, and any number over 85mm is considered telephoto. SLR lenses can have fixed focal lengths, or they may zoom. An 18-55mm lens is wide angle to normal zoom lens. A 70-200mm lens is a zoom telephoto lens. Notice how a lens can be a zoom lens but not necessarily a telephoto lens, this is a popular misconception.

Your 55-200 mm lens is therefore basically a 4X zoom that starts at normal and goes into the telephoto range. That lens off the top of my head should be able to focus from about 4' up to infinity. The further away a moving object is fro you the more light will be required to get a non-blurry shot. For example at 55mm a slow moving object will produce a reasonable shot down to about 1/100th of a second. at 200mm a fast moving object may still show some blur at 1/800th of a second. In which case you will need at least 1/1000th of a second to get a clean shot.

My recommendation out of all this is to work around at least 1/800th of a second or faster by selecting Shutter Priority Mode (S) and then if you can't get 1/800th of a second move the ISO up until you can. Don't go beyond ISO 800 though. If you still can't get 1/800th of a second then I would think about moving closer or giving up.

From 'How To Select & Use Minolta Cameras' by Carl Shipman:

"... the technical definition of focal length is the distance from lens to film* when the lens is focused at infinity. ... Image distances are not tiny. As a rule of thumb, 25mm = 1 inch. A 50mm lens requires about 2" between lens and film*. A 200mm lens requires about 8" behind the lens to make a focused image. ... Every lens has two points in the optical path from which distances are measured. These locations are called nodes. The front node is used to determine lens-to-subject distance. The rear node is used to determine lens-to-film* distance. ... The lens nodes can be placed anywhere in the optical path by the lens designer. ... In some cases the rear lens node is actually out in front of the lens."

As to zoom ratios, here is what they mean. Find out how close your lens will focus at 200mm. Then set your zoom at 50mm, focus on an image at whatever the minimum focusing distance is at 200mm. Take a picture. Now zoom out to 200mm, focus on the same object and take a picture. A sise by side comparison will show that the object is 4X bigger at 200mm.

Shutter speed is dependent on several interelated factors: Scene brightness, ISO and the aperture (f-stop) being used. In bright daylight with an ISO of 200 you should be able to "stop action" easily. (An old rule of thumb, called the f16 Rule, states "In bright sunlight set the aperture at f16 and the shutter speed at the reciprocal of the ISO." So you'd be using a shutter speed of 1/250 second.)

Your image quality when photographing moving objects is largely dependent on shutter speed and camera stability. The direction of the action also affects your ability to capture it. Subjects moving towards you can be "stopped" with a slower shutter speed than one moving parallel to you. Subjects moving parallel to you and very close will require a higher shutter speed; when farther away you can probably use a slower shutter speed. (Next time you're driving down the road notice how things in front of you come at you. Then glance out the window at the roadside and then at a distant object. Note the difference. This is best done while you are the passenger.)

* Substitute "sensor" for "film".

mm`s are millimetres.the lense will focus as far as you can see.it magnifies the image about 5x.for moving objects i find it better to focus manually,to keep `blurry` photos to the minimum .if you ask at the photo shop they do have lenses with `vibration reduction` these can help with blur.

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200mm Lens Distance

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It is a 3x. 55 divided by 18 is about 3. That is actually pretty normal for DSLR zooms. It is only in the last several years that they have started to produce super zooms, like 18-200mm = 10x.

You still need to use a 1.6 "crop factor" when using the EF-S Canon lenses. This lens will act as a 28-88mm lens. However, EF-S lenses Cannot be used on Cannon's full frame sensor cameras. If in the future, you purchase a full frame sensor camera, such as the 5D, you will be unable to use Any of your EF-S lenses. It's certainly something to be aware of.

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RE:
How far does a 55-200mm zoom lens actually zoom?
Ok, So I'm a dumb blonde. Thinking about getting the Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens for my Nikon D40.

First question is, I don't know what mm's are so someone tell me in feet distance please

Second question is, will the D40 be able to focus in on moving...

http://www.patrickmurphystudio.com/canoneos/canonEOS-by-zoomrange.htm
it's only about canon specific lenses, but you can read all the zoom ranges - very handy page.

depends on how fast it's moving and also whether you'll be moving. if you speed up your shutter speed, you should be able to freeze an object. i use both a digicam (fujifilm S9100) and a dslr (canon 30D) and i can catch a non blurry pic of birds in flight at a distance of 200mm without blurring most of the time - like 8 out of 10 times. i usually speed up my shutter to 1/500th or so. of course, if you're trying to catch a motorcycle breaking the land speed record, you're going to need a lot of practice and a dslr.