Why are superzoom cameras small while long telephoto lenses are so large?

Asked 6/30/2015

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I’m trying to understand why a compact superzoom camera can offer a “2000mm equivalent” field of view, while a true long telephoto lens for an interchangeable-lens camera is enormous, heavy, and expensive. For example, a small-sensor superzoom may reach that angle of view in a handheld body, while a lens like a 1200mm f/5.6 for a larger camera is huge.

What optical differences make this possible? Is the small camera really doing the same thing, or is the comparison misleading? I’m looking for a basic intuition about how sensor size, focal length, and aperture affect lens size and image quality.

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

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The 1200mm lens you cite is something of an aberration, since it's built-to-order, not a general-market lens — see Why are some big telephoto lenses so expensive compared to telescopes? and Why are some lenses so expensive?. But the general rule holds true: lenses for DSLRs and most mirrorless cameras are gigantic compared to those in superzoom cameras. There are three general reasons for this:

  1. The sensor in these superzoom cameras tends to be small — usually 1/2.3" class, which means "thumbnail size". By contrast, the sensors on high-end DSLR are usually the size of traditional 35mm film, and those on mid-range and lower DSLRs and mirrorless cameras still basically in that ballpark, and many times larger than that of the superzoom. This means that the lens has to project a much smaller circle, and can in turn be smaller.
  2. Not always, but often, those big, heavy lenses have faster maximum apertures. That requires a larger front element (at least!) — which means more glass, more expense, more weight. It would be possible to design a superzoom camera with a faster (wider max aperture) lens, but doing so would make the lens bigger (and probably harder to make with such a gigantic zoom range). That would go against the design goal, and so you don't generally see it. In other words, it's a sort of tautology: superzoom cameras have small lenses with a high zoom range because they do.
  3. Again not always, but also often: more is expected from SLR lenses, so they are designed to meet higher expectations. All lens design is compromise, in size, weight, cost, or image quality in many different variations — see What image-quality characteristics make a lens good or bad?. Most superzoom designs prioritize that, and either let people live with the results (assuming less picky buyers in that market) or automatically apply extensive software correction.

That amazing zoom range is pretty cool, and the maximum focal length equivalent seems amazing. But, you do pay the price. The smaller sensor inherently gathers less light overall, just because there's less of it. That means more noise, and there's no way to cheat physics on this one. In fact, you could simply crop the center from a DSLR image with one of those big lenses, and probably get a roughly equivalent result, even though the resolution would be nominally lower (unless you have a very high end DSLR). That's because from a practical point of view, zoom is virtually indistinguishable from cropping.

By way of example, here's a crop from an image Kyla Duhamel took from her backyard and posted to Flickr under a CC-BY license, using a consumer-level zoom for a consumer-level DSLR Even at this crop it doesn't fill the frame, but I think the actual detail is roughly comparable to that in the video you linked.

"Moon, from my back yard (April 13 2014)" by Kyla Duhamel

That's with a lens many of us also call a "superzoom" (terminology is awesomely confusing sometimes!), the Canon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6. This lens weighs about 1.3 pounds and is 4 inches long — Canon's pro-grade 70-200mm f/2.8 (note the reduced zoom range even though both end at 200mm!) weighs more than twice that, at 2.9 pounds, and is almost twice as long, and can probably do somewhat better in detail — but the moon isn't really the primary differentiator between these models. Instead, it's increased sharpness and reduced distortion and other artifacts, faster maximum aperture, more solid build, and so on.

You still do have more size, weight, and cost, though. In exchange, you generally get better image quality outside of that "racked all the way out" situation (and not actually all that much worse in that case.)

Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1943

11y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

The comparison is mostly about sensor size and aperture.

A superzoom camera usually uses a very small sensor, so it only needs the lens to project a small image circle. Its “2000mm equivalent” means it gives the same angle of view as a 2000mm lens on full frame, not that it is literally a 2000mm lens. The actual focal length is much shorter.

By contrast, a 1200mm f/5.6 lens for a large sensor must cover a much bigger sensor and maintain a wide physical aperture. Aperture diameter is focal length divided by f-number, so 1200mm at f/5.6 needs a front opening around 214mm. A superzoom at its long end may be more like 357mm at f/6.5, needing only about a 55mm opening.

That means the big lens needs much larger glass elements, more glass volume, and a larger, more precise optical design. Size and weight rise dramatically.

The tradeoff is image quality and light gathering: the small-sensor camera captures less light overall and generally gives less detail and more noise than the large-sensor telephoto setup. So the compact camera is not really getting the same result—just a similar framing.

UniqueBot

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11y ago

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