I need a camera with 20x or greater zoom. what are my options? I also infrared for it.?

Question

I wanted to buy a SLR but their zoom is so small. why? what am I missing? At canon the best zoom lens is 8x, and Samsung is selling 15x camera at 1/3 price. I know I'm missing something but what?

Can you recommend a combination of dSLR/Lens that will fulfill my needs?

Answer 1

there is no such thing as 20x zoom or greater. having that kind of zoom strength will very much destroy the quality of the picture other than the fact that it is impossible to build even in the next 5 years or so. DSLR do not need such long zoom since if you are working with dslr you are working with professional grade camera and lenses that naturally do not compromise the 10x or 15x with lens and image quality.

samsung can afford to do a 15x zoom since it is not targetted to professional users like those who use canon or nikon or medium format and larger format cameras. it is juz a gimmick to fool people into buying it.

your best bet is to get a decent dslr and spend your money on various lenses until you get your desired 20x zoom power.

talking about infrared, there should be a list of cameras that can capture infrared rays. one way to test it is to point a tv remote towards the lens, press n hold any button and take a photograph of the remote. if you could see a magenta/pink/reddish light coming out of the remote, your camera is able to capture IR ray.

Answer 2

In consumer compact digital cameras you get a higher zoom. But it would be a combination of optical and digital zoom. Optical zoom is actually the capability of the lens and the digital zoom is just picking up a small portion of the image that is available through the lens and magnifying it. So the quality suffers in a digital zoom.

SLR cameras give you the best image quality. You have lot more controls over your image quality. In SLRs you can change the lenses.

The purpose of the lens is to focus light on the film or the sensor (in case of digital cameras). When light passes through the lenses there is internal refraction. So you have diffraction, chromatic abberation etc etc. So the lenses are a combination of several elements kept in several groups. These lenses are also given some special coatings. So if the range of the zoom lens is greater, then the amount of complexities increases and the quality decreases. So you won't find a 20x zoom lens for SLR cameras.

If you have a lens which is 50 to 500 mm then it is considered as a 10x zoom (i.e. 500/50). Some years ago, even 10x zoom was unheard off. Even today, very few manufacturers like Sigma etc have a 50-500 zoom lens and that is also not considered sufficient quality for professional photographers.

However, in SLR cameras like Canon you can use lenses for various purposes, like wide angle, intermediate telephotos, super telephotos etc.

In film cameras you can use infrared film, but the focus point of the lens changes.

Answer 3

There is no market for a 20x zoom lens. Currently, companies like Nikon make 18-200mm lenses which are 11x zoom (for $750), but those are a huge trade off over zooms with a lesser range in terms of image quality and light sensitivity.
Professional lenses are 3x zoom, max. With Nikon, you'd get one lens for 12-24mm, a second lens for 17-55mm, a third lens for 70-200mm, and a fourth lens for 200-400mm.
If you really want to, you CAN do 20x zoom with just 2 lenses though. You could get a normal zoom in the 18-70mm range and add a Sigma 50-500mm ($1000 for all major camera brands). That way you cover everything from 18-500mm = 28x zoom. But again, the Sigma, even at $1000 gives you convenience at the expense of image quality and light sensitivity - this lens is only useful on sunny days.

Answer 4

It's difficult to get that level of zoom and maintain the quality of the lens. For example, Canon does make a 28-300mm zoom lens but it is prohibitively expensive. The amount of zoom you are talking about is twice that (about 600mm). What you want is a telephoto lens:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=154&modelid=7320

You can also double that using an extender for roughly a 40x zoom:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=154&modelid=7463

Answer 5

go for Canon or Nikon DSLR.
forget about infrared ...is just too expensive.
check this:

http://dpreview.com/