What superzoom lenses are available for Sony NEX and Samsung NX, and do any reach 27–810mm equivalent?
Asked 8/7/2012
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I'm comparing Sony NEX and Samsung NX mirrorless cameras and want a long-range zoom similar to the Sony DSC-HX200V, which has a 27–810mm equivalent 30x zoom. Are there native lenses for either system that offer a similar zoom range? If so, what are the lens names, and what equivalent range do they provide?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
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While you cannot get a 35mm APSC lens with zoom ratio as great as that of the "superzoom" you can crop the image of the APSC camera at full zoom to increase the effective zoom range to very comfortable above that of the superzoom.
This is because the APSC sensor is more than 12 times the area of the superzoom's sensor, so using say 1/4 of the sensor area for an effective increase of 2:1 in the maximum focal length will still return superior noise results to that obtained from the superzoom.
By cropping an eg NEX-5 image to 1/4 area you reduce pixels from 14 mp to about 3.5mp BUT can still expect superior image results to that obtained from a superzoom at maximum focal length.
Samsung D-Xenon 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 is probably as wide as you can reasonably get for the Samsung. Similar for the NEX. 18-300mm is available with an A-mount adaptor.
BUT, on an APSC camera, if you crop a portion of the image that is 50% of the width and 50% of the height = 25% of the area you get the effect of a 2X increase in focal length.
To "match the 810/27 = 30:1 ration of a HX200V superzoom you need to increase from 300/18 = 16.666:1 to 30:1 = a factor of 30/16.666 = 1.8:1 more.
SO by using the full image at 18mm and 1/4 of the image at 300mm you more than exceed the effective zoom range of the HX200V's 30:1.
AND this is valid because the APSC sensor is about 23.4mm x 15.6 mm specification here while the HX200V's sensor is 6.17 mm x 4.55mm specification here. After cropping the APSC image to 1/4 the rea you still have a sensor size of 11.7mm x 7.8mm or more than 3 times the area of the "superzoom".
While available sensor area is not an absolute measure of performance it is liable to be a very good indication that the APSC cameras will offer greater effective zoom ratio when using a 18mm-300mm lens than the "superzoom" does.
Originally by user6263. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user6263
14y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Neither system has a native lens that matches the DSC-HX200V’s 27–810mm equivalent range. For both Sony NEX (E-mount) and Samsung NX, the longest commonly available native superzooms mentioned are 18–200mm lenses, which give about a 27–300mm equivalent field of view on APS-C.
Native options mentioned:
- Sony E 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS
- Sony E 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS LE
- Tamron 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 Di III VC (Sony E)
- Samsung NX 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 ED OIS i-Function
One answer also mentions a Samsung 18–250mm lens, but the 18–200mm options are the clear native choices cited for these mirrorless systems.
A key difference is sensor size: APS-C cameras like NEX and NX have much larger sensors than a compact superzoom camera, so even if they don’t reach 810mm equivalent natively, you may still get better image quality and can crop the image to simulate more reach. The tradeoff is lower final resolution after cropping.
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