At the most basic level, the aperture is the size of the “opening” through which your camera collects light, whereas f-stop is the way we measure the size of this opening. At times, the two terms can really be used interchangeably: “what aperture are you shooting?” or “what’s your f-stop?”. You’ll read later, however, why [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Time for some Q and A. Believe it or not, this is a common one…
Q: I have an f5.6 image stabilized or vibration reduction lens that gives me two more stops of brightness because of the (IS, VR, or whatever). So it’s just like having a f2.8 lens, right?
A: Not exactly. Remember that, while image [...]

Popularity: 15% [?]

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It is the job of the lens to get the light into the camera and onto the medium so it can be recorded as an image. A lens has many ways of modifying light and can be used to adjust the brightness, focus and magnification of the image in various ways. The following table lists [...]

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Whether you’re shooting film or digital, the mechanics that surround photography can be simplified to a matter of recording light onto a material that is “light-sensitive”. We call this light-sensitive material the “medium”.
Differences in mediums include how sensitive they are to light (also known as its ISO) and how reactive they are to color (this [...]

Popularity: 15% [?]

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A friend of mine, who happens to be a chef, has a favorite pastime; she sits down at a dish of food and then proceeds to tell me every amount of every ingredient that makes up said dish of food. It keeps her on her toes, so she says. She also says she had to [...]

Popularity: 13% [?]

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Article 4 of 4 in the Film Vs. Digital Series
Back to the headline, YES, you can use film lenses on digital cameras, and they do offer some advantages!
The biggest advantage is sharpness. It’s not that the lens properties magically change under some digital potteresque spell. Rather, the advantage is (again) a product of the small size of digital [...]

Popularity: 16% [?]

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Article 3 of 4 in the Film Vs. Digital Series 
Apertures are relatively standard across all lenses and measurements transfer from film to digital all the same. The aperture number correlates with the size of a lens “opening” and is often called the “f-stop”, or just “f” followed by a number as in “f2.8 or f3.5”. Essentially, the [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Article 2 of 4 in the Film Vs. Digital Series 
Focal length is measured in millimeters (mm), and is standard across all lenses, digital and film. However, because of the smaller sensor on digital cameras, all lenses have a different “magnification factor” on these cameras when compared with film cameras.
To give an example, using the film SLR as [...]

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Article 1 of 4 in the Film Vs. Digital Series
Lens-speak can be a frustrating thing when you’re starting out in photography. When it comes to the camera lens, most beginners find themselves caught in the middle of that vortex of words: aperture, ISO, depth of field, etc… but it’s not as hopeless as it may seem. [...]

Popularity: 15% [?]

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