What x zoom do

[Elliot B.]

My dad wants to go from a compact digital camera with 5x zoom to a DSLR in the ?300-?400 price range.

We've noticed that practically all of them in that range come with a 18-55mm lens, and that non of them mention the amount of zoom available.

I presume the "18-55mm" part of the lens dictates the amount of zoom?

If that is the case, what x does a 18-55mm lens have if you were to compare it to the zoom of a compact?

As you can tell, we're rather new to this :D

[HawkMan]

55/18 :p

the x amount of zoom means nothing though, but basically an 18-55 would have roughly 3x zoom I believe.

But this is where a lot of confusion comes in. compact cameras often refer to their lenses as 28mm wide angle, whihc means nothing, what they mean is 28mm equivalent. and because of the crop, the 18 mm lens in a 1.6 crop DSLR is basically a 28mm equivalent as well.

Of course you need to learn that the x aount of zoom is useless and instead use mm's. afterall while a 18-55 lens has 3x zoom, a 70-200 lns has 2.8x zoom, so less x zoom, but, it's still got fare more zoom than the 18-55 since it starts farther out. of course you could do 200/28 and get a maximum zoom on that lens compared to a base 28 of 7x. but, it doesn't make much sense.

basically, in short. forget about *x zoom levels.

[Argote]

As stated above, "X" zoom only means the ratio between the longest and shortest focal lengths on a lens.

18-55 lenses are usually your main walkaround when getting started, they do not zoom in very much compared to some compacts but as you get more into photography you'll see that one rarely uses long telephoto lenses unless photographing wildlife or sporting events.