Most consumer point and shoot digital cameras say something like, "5x optical zoom," or "9x optical zoom" on the box. But, when you move up to micro-4/3s and SLRs, you lose that. It makes sense - the ...

SEATTLE—Primes are single focal length lenses, which can be designed with a relatively few optical elements and thus are capable of transmitting a lot of light to the film or digital camera sensor.

The main job of a lens is to concentrate (focus) light rays so the film or digital sensor can record the scene. Put simply, the distance it needs to make the light rays converge completely is called ...

This article is the third in a series teaching the basics of photography. We started by learning about the properties of light and how an image is created, and we also learned how a lens bends light ...

Replay: Do we really need to keep using 35mm as our baseline for focal lengths, or is there a much better way? Why do we keep reading descriptions like ‘3.7 mm to 92.5 mm (equivalent to 28.8 mm to 720 ...