Posted by HOSTS on 12/7/2007, 11:37 pm, in reply to "Optical zoomX vs mm"
Optical zoom is sometimes not very clear when it comes to different maker's models. There is no one formula for what a 10X zoom really means.
Example: The "average" human eye really sees at around 50-55mm when you equate it to a camera lens. Some 10X zoom cameras have a zoom range of 35mm to 350mm, so they actually start a bit wider than the human eye, and end with a telephoto. Others may have a 28-280mm zoom so you get even more on the wide side, but less on the zoom size, but both are still "10X zooms".
In order for a camera to have 10X the zoom of what the average person's vision is, it would have to have a range of around 500-550mm on the zoom end. None of the 10X zoom cameras have that extensive of a zoom, so you're not really getting 10 times the power of your actual vision, just 10 times the power based on the widest part the lens goes down to.
If you want a bit of wide angle plus a zoom that is *really* around 10X that of human sight, you would need to get one of a small handful of the 18X optical zoom models hitting the market. Some of them start at around the 28mm area and end at the 500mm range.
HOSTS
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