Hi Shel, On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 04:13:34 -0800, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
> It seems that if you are standing at a certain spot and want to fill > the frame with the subject, you'd use the zoom feature to do so. I use zooms only occasionally. When I do, it's typically because my distance to the subject can change a lot, whether it's due to me moving or the subject. At the track, for example, I'm often very limited in the envelope within which I can move around the subject, and I've usually got subjects in view on several spots on the track at different distances, plus all of the surroundings, crowd, etc., as potential subjects. > But, is the perspective the same as if you used a shorter focal > length prime lens and moved closer to the subject, assuming that > in both cases the subject fills the frame to the same degree. No the perspective is the same as using a shorter focal length and cropping down to the same FOV as the longer focal length. The movement of your body (or the subject) is what makes the perspective change. > Zooms (from my limited experience) seem to have more distortion at the > wider and longer ends of their focal range compared to primes of a similar > focal length. Is that a generally fair statement? I believe it is. A zoom has to make more compromises than a prime. TTYL, DougF KG4LMZ
