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If you're still craving more, be sure to watch this episode of FocusEd, which discusses lens focal length for photographers. You will learn about what focal length is, how sensor size and lens focal length affects your angle of view, and more!

As we said, anti-reflective glasses can be worn by anyone and applied to any style of glasses, including sunglasses. Meaning they can be worn all year round, within any setting.

One “side effect” of focal length is image, camera, or lens shake. When you handhold a camera, no matter how steady your hands, between your hands and arms and the mechanicals of the camera, things will be moving when you depress the shutter release. This movement causes blur in an image at varying degrees; sometimes not noticeable and other times, ugh.

A lens with a focal length longer than 50mm will give the photographer a telephoto perspective—making it appear that you are closer to your subject by producing a field of view that is narrower than that of a standard lens.

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In fact, if we were really being careful, the second image should be projecting an upside down car on the sensor as lenses flip the image!

Before I go on, I need to say a quick word about “crop factor.” Different digital cameras have different-sized sensors. This causes an effective change in the field of view of the camera, but not in the focal length of a given lens. Because the sensor size is independent of focal length, we often speak of the different field of view produced by a smaller sensor as a “35mm equivalent” field of view or focal length. I will be covering crop factor in an upcoming article but, for the purposes of this article, we will be talking about focal length in relation to 35mm film or a full-frame digital sensor, as it is a standard baseline for discussions on focal length.

In relation to focal length, there is not much more you can say about a zoom versus a prime, but it is important to know that there are usually optical tradeoffs for the convenience of a zoom. For a more thorough discussion about the applications of different focal length lenses and the debate between prime lenses and zoom lenses, see my article “Going Beyond the Kit Lens.”

To counteract this shake, you can stabilize the camera on a tripod or other support and reduce the duration your shutter is open. The faster the shutter speed, the less movement will be captured. In order to maintain the same exposure, you may need to increase the size of your aperture opening or increase your ISO sensitivity.

The other thing that lenses of different focal lengths have an effect on is what is known as “perspective.” To put it very simply, wide-angle lenses distort the scene, and telephoto lenses compress the view.

I wrote this article as an introduction for photographers new to the world of photography. Therefore, I chose not to dive too deeply into the technical.

Remember, when you are comparing a camera lens/photograph to looking at someone up close with your eyes, you are still viewing them through a wide angle lens...your own wide-angle lens—the eyeball. Your eye experiences that same larger delta between light rays at the edges and the center of the "frame." You would see it more if the eye had a closer minimum focus distance.

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On a 35mm film camera, it turns out that the angle of view afforded by a 50mm lens provides a field of view that is approximate to the field of view produced by the human eye. (When we say “35mm film camera” we are referring to the size of the frame of film, not the focal length.) We all know that our eyes have a wide field of view and that we also see things off to the periphery of where we are looking—peripheral vision—but, when you look through a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera, what you see is very similar to what your eye sees. Therefore, the 50mm lens, and lenses measured close to 50mm (say 35mm to 70mm, opinions vary) are known, collectively, as “normal” or “standard” lenses.

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Someone standing 2 feet from you will be just as distorted at 200mm focal length as at 16mm... you'll just see a narrower slice of the scene in front of you. Maybe a nostril!

Hello - Was hoping you could clarify something me.    In some instances (in the top image in the article) the focus point is shown at the image plane.    In other cases ( the lower image in this article) the image plane is shown to be behind the  focal point,  which would be out of focus.

Excess light naturally causes our eyes to squint in order to protect our eyes and focus on what’s in front of us. Less squinting will reduce eye strain, tiredness and headaches too.

If the lens is shorter than 50mm, say, a 24mm lens, then the image produced by that lens will give the photographer a wide-angle perspective of the world before them—wider than your “normal” vision. The field of view of the lens is wider than that of the standard lens.

A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens all the time, regardless of what camera it is attached to...or even if it is attached to a camera!

Prime lenses are those that have fixed focal lengths. Zoom lenses are those that have variable focal lengths. This is accomplished by physically changing the length of the lens, internally or externally.

Focus distance

Although they sound very similar, the main difference is anti-glare protects from external light sources; diffusing light which bounces off surfaces (such as roads, water or snow) and causes that blinding glare. Whereas anti-reflective lenses go one step further by diffusing both internal and external light sources and removing reflections within your lenses.

Anti-reflective lenses become invisible to the camera, so you can enjoy no more reflections in your lenses from flashes or selfies, creating better-quality photos.

The primary measurement of a lens is its focal length. The focal length of a lens, expressed in millimeters, is the distance from the lens’s optical center (or nodal point) to the image plane in the camera (often illustrated by a "Φ" on the top plate of a camera body) when the lens is focused at infinity. The image plane in the camera is where you will find your digital sensor or film plate. If you are an optical engineer, this is important stuff. For the photographer, however, we do not need to know about nodal points or why the 200mm lens in our closet is only 193mm long, to make great photos. What we need to know, as photographers, is what focal length means to our images. When we talk about lenses, the focal length is not only related to the lenses’ physical length, the linear measurement is representative of an angular field of view.

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With more light transmitting into your eyes (99% in fact), you can fully see what’s ahead of you—providing sharper images, crisper contrasts, and more confidence in your sight.

Anti-reflective coating is made up of a thin chemical layer which is applied to both the front and back of your lenses. It is a very effective coating which eliminates the unnecessary light which causes glare and reflective distractions. Instead, it emits more light into your eye, helping improve vision. On average, anti-reflective lenses can last up to 2 years, if correctly cared for.

We already said that the 50mm lens gives us the “normal” field of view perspective. What about lenses of different focal lengths?

Unfortunately, when you venture into the telephoto realm of focal lengths, this movement is amplified by the fact that the field of view of the lens is smaller than that of wide-angle or normal lenses. Therefore, it is more difficult to get a sharp image at telephoto focal lengths, especially extreme focal lengths.

Focal length

Absolutely. Using our reglazing service, you can choose whether to have your existing frames reglazed or have your prescription lenses put into any frame you like via our free-post service. Order a pack from us and select the coatings and prescription you need, and Lensology will reglaze your lenses to order. Our anti-reflective coating is available on all lens types, including single vision, sunglasses lenses, bifocal lenses, varifocal lenses, and more. For more information, read our FAQs or get in touch today.

Again, unless you are designing a lens from scratch, you, as a photographer, are free from knowing the nuances of measuring focal length and you should keep in mind how lenses of different focal lengths affect the way your images look in terms of proximity, distortion, and perspective. Thankfully, on this subject, the bulk of the math can remain with the engineers!

People working in offices or with digital screens are often exposed to more artificial light which bounces off their lenses. Anti-reflection can reduce this, supporting your eye health.

CameraSize comparison with lens

So your use of the term "distort" is misleading as well. It runs the risk of being conflated with barrel and pincushion distortion - genuine distortions that are indeed a property of the lens.

Due to the delicacy of this coating, you should only use recommended cleaning products on your anti-reflective lenses. Always wet your lenses first before cleaning them with a cloth; they can be easily scratched which is more noticeable on AR lenses.

An anti-reflective coating can be applied to both prescription and non-prescription lenses, so no matter your lifestyle, everyone can benefit from anti-reflective glasses! With laptops, phones and digital devices becoming more constant in our day-to-day lives, anti-reflective coatings help protect your eyes from excess LED or artificial light, these are more commonly known as blue light glasses. If you drive a lot, especially at night, anti-reflective can also reduce the distraction of blinding reflections, allowing you to have a clear sight of the road or potential hazards ahead.

If you get close to a subject with a wide-angle lens, the distortion characteristics of that lens will distort the subject. If you don’t believe me, take a portrait of a friend up close with a wide-angle or fisheye lens, and ask them if they like the image. Chances are, they will not.

The top image simulates a single point of light being focused onto the sensor. The second image illustrates how the lens collects the light from a scene and sends it into the camera to cover the sensor.

Different digital cameras have different-sized sensors. This causes an effective change in the field of view of the camera, but not in the focal length of a given lens.

focallength中文

The use of the term perspective here is unfortunate. The only thing that can alter perspective is moving the position of the camera. A wide angle lens does not distort geometric perspective. That's what people look like up close. Take that photo of your friend and print it big. Now stand close enough so that it fills the same angle of view as the lens provided to the sensor. Nothing will be distorted. Check out the skull in Holbein's The Ambassadors. It looks undistorted from a certain angle, as would the corners of a wide angle shot when presented to a viewer in such a way as to match the FOV of the original shot.

When you shoot through a telephoto lens, you will see the image get virtually “flattened.” This means that the image will appear to have less depth—the background behind your subject will appear much closer, and your portrait will be more flattering to the subject.

CameraFOV calculator

The family of wide-angle lenses includes fisheye lenses that can provide more than a 180-degree field of view; much greater than the human eye, including the periphery, so much that if not conscious of it, you can photograph your feet in the frame when holding the camera to eye level. Telephoto lenses, especially extreme “super telephoto” lenses, can narrow the field of view to where it feels like you are looking through a soda straw, albeit a really big and heavy soda straw!

By eliminating the reflection of streetlights, headlights or even your dashboard, you are increasing your vision clarity, helping you stay more alert and reactive on the road.

Have you ever found yourself squinting because light (real or artificial) is reflecting into your line of sight? Anti-reflective lenses eliminate these frustrating reflections. Also known as anti-glare or AR, this particular coating removes scattered light which reflects on the front and back of your glasses lenses. Permitting up to 99% of light into your eye ultimately enhances your vision, creates sharper visuals and allows others to see you more clearly too.

This is exactly the answer I was looking for. Just to put it another way, this means if I have a shot taken on a 50mm prime, with a 1.6 crop factor sensor, it is still correct to say the lens' focal length for the image was 50mm, rather than 80mm? It's the field of view that has changed, effectively cropping the image, although it might be convenient to say the produced image "looks like it's been shot with an 80mm lens and 35mm sensor."

The general rule for maintaining sufficient shutter speed for a given focal length, to avoid the appearance of image shake, is to simply use a shutter speed quicker than 1/focal length. Therefore, you should try to shoot a 300mm lens at a shutter speed quicker than 1/300 of a second and adjust aperture and/or ISO to help you achieve that shutter speed.

When capturing a photograph of an object at very close range with a wide angle lens, you do experience distortion. This distortion is not caused by a rectilinear lens is suddenly distorting the view—recilinear is recilinear— the distortion happens because of the more oblique angles that the light is entering the lens. The closer the subject is to the lens, the more variation there is in the angles of entry of the light rays from an object. Subject-lens distance is the cause...not really a distorting lens. For the beginner, this is difficult to describe without encouraging the audience to study the inside of their eyelids instead of a lens diagram.

At first, you might think that to achieve the same field of view with different focal length lenses, all you need to do is move closer or farther from the subject. This is partially true, but the way your image changes will be very obvious, even if the subject is about the same size in an image taken with a wide-angle lens and then a telephoto lens.