What’s the difference between a telephoto lens and a zoom lens?
Asked 4/21/2011
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I’m confused by lens categories on product pages. What’s the difference between a telephoto lens and a zoom lens in plain language? When would you use a telephoto lens, and when would you use a zoom lens?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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The focal length of a lens determines its field of view on your camera. If it has a long focal length, it has a narrow field of view, making the things in front of you appear large in the photograph. If it has a short focal length, it has a large field of view--it's a "wide angle" lens that takes in a large area, making objects appear small.
A "zoom lens" is a lens whose focal length can change. You twist the barrel, or push a switch on the camera, and it takes in a narrower or wider field of view, making objects appear bigger or smaller.
The term "telephoto lens" has a particular technical meaning in terms of lens design, but in common usage it refers to a lens with a long focal length.
A zoom lens could "zoom" from a short (wide-angle) to long ("telephoto") focal length, making things look bigger and closer as you zoom in. Or it could zoom from an extreme wide-angle to a moderate wide-angle, never coming close to a "telephoto" focal length. Or any other range of focal lengths.
So "zoom" = focal length you can change, and "telephoto" = long focal length. A lens can be one, or the other, or neither, or both.
The focal length is normally measured in millimeters (mm). A zoom lens will have two measurements, for example "18-200 mm" (a wide-angle to telephoto zoom). It zooms from a short focal length of 18 mm to a long focal length of 200 mm. A non-zoom lens, also called a "prime" lens, will have a single focal length, for example "135 mm" (a moderate telephoto).
Originally by user2138. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user2138
15y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
They describe two different things.
- Telephoto usually means a long focal length lens, which gives a narrower field of view and makes distant subjects look larger in the frame.
- Zoom means the lens can change focal length. You can zoom in or out instead of being stuck at one focal length.
So a lens can be:
- telephoto but not zoom: for example, a 300mm prime lens
- zoom but not telephoto: for example, a wide-angle zoom
- both: for example, a 70–300mm zoom lens
In everyday use, people often say “telephoto” to mean “zoomed in,” even though technically they are not the same thing.
Use a telephoto lens when you want to photograph things that are far away or fill the frame with a distant subject, such as wildlife, sports, or details.
Use a zoom lens when you want flexibility to reframe quickly without changing lenses. A zoom can cover wide, normal, telephoto, or a mix of those ranges depending on the lens.
In short: telephoto describes how tight the view is; zoom describes whether the focal length can change.
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