Lens identification - It`s a mine field out there

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Harry.G

Harry.G

Well-known member
Member's gallery
Hi All

I was wondering if it would be possible to have some sort of reference guide for Lenses right here on the forum ? Or would that be impossible given the amount of Lenses that exist out there.... I`m not talking anything to specific here but more of a quick reference guide

What I mean by that is Not the actual Lens its self but rather the letters by which the lenses are described ..

It can be a mine field out there when trying to decide which lens to buy ""Based solely upon the letters"" ..Get one letter wrong or simply not realising that one letter is missing and you can end up buying something slightly or significantly different from what you intended to buy ..I know this from experience, it was my misfortune and naivety in that I purchased a used lens online quite a few months ago and didn`t realise until sometime later that it wasn`t the Lens that I had researched (Totally my fault) .... As it turned out I kept the lens regardless of my mistake and have since used it a fair amount on my Nikon d500 ...

From what I know ,Nikon have have addressed "Some" of this confusion in an article on a Nikon site,, however I thought it would be a good idea to have a reference here on the forum in more detail that explains the letters .. Possibly along the lines of this below for Nikon, Canon ,Sony etc..

Nikon Lens reference guide

AF ....... Auto Focus
IF ....... Internal Focus
SWM ..... Silent Wave Motor
DX ..... Crop Sensor
PF ...... Phase Frensel
VR ...... Vibration Reduction

The above are just a few that I know of plus there are also many different combinations of letters that make the whole process of buying lenses pretty confusing especially for guys like myself that are somewhat new to photography.... Here is a perfect example of a Lens I saw today ... 70-200mm f/2.8 G AF-S VR IF ED ... most of it I understand but what is ED ? and what does the G stand for or D ...

Thank you in advance for your thoughts


Harry.G
 
Member's gallery
Harry.G said:
most of it I understand but what is ED
Click to expand...
Extra Low Dispersion glass. Basically one or more higher quality glass elements included in the lens design

Harry.G said:
and what does the G stand for or D ...
Click to expand...

- D lenses were Nikons first lenses to convey focusing distance information back to the camera body which is very helpful during TTL flash photography. Technically all lenses since then are still D lenses but it became standard in the Nikkor line up and they dropped the D designation on the lens bodies

- G lenses removed the mechanical aperture ring and aperture was controlled from the camera body via a mechanical coupling.

- E lenses take the camera control of aperture a step further and control aperture electronically from the camera body instead of mechanically

- N refers to a nano crystal coating on the front element which should reduce lens flare

- FL refers to one or more Fluorrite lens elements which among other things makes it easier to wipe dust and water droplets off the front element

- AF-S lenses incorporate the in-lens focusing motor with full time manual focus override which can also be described as SWM as you've listed above if the lens is built with the newer silent wave focusing motors

- The newest AF-P lenses use a pulse stepping AF motor in the lens which provides higher performance AF but isn't compatible with all camera bodies. This shouldn't be confused with Nikon P lenses released almost forty years ago that were manual focus lenses that had an in-lens CPU to convey information like focal length to the camera body.

There are other designations but it does become alphabet soup and even if you know the designations it's not always clear which is the better lens to buy as sometimes the older lenses with fewer modern features out perform some of the newer models. So when you get close to a decision it pays to read some lens reviews and figure out if the latest and greatest is actually what you want.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top