what does a 100-300 mm camera lens do?

Question

more specifically what kind of range do I get from this type of zoom lens? and what does the mm range actually mean in laymens terms?

Answer 1

It depends on what camera you put it on. If it's a typical digital SLR, it will give you the equivalent range of about 150-to-450 mm. There are several excellent answers above me, but here are a couple of visual answers. One picture is worth a thousand words in this case. Read the text under the pictures, too, to see what I mean by "eqivalent" focal length. For 100-300 mm, just look at the appropriate samples.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/476181737/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/1245831147/

Answer 2

A 100-300 mm lense is an adjustable telephoto zoom lense (presumably for a 35 mm size camera, because this is now the most common format used).
It is telephoto because it will make obects far away appear close. A lense like this is good for shooting wildlife, sports, concert events, the moon, etc. when you are not close to the subject.
It would be a bad lense for taking a picture of a room you were in. If you were in an average size room you'd use a lense this size to shoot a doorknob and it would fill the entire frame.
These lenses are best outside or in brightly lit situations because the subject is so far away. If the light is poor, you would also have to have a large flash to light up the subject so far away.
This is a pretty big telephoto lense, the kind you want to take pictures of birds in your back yard and fill the frame. Or take on Safari to shoot a closeup of a lion and not be in its mouth. A lense of about 50 or 55 mm is considered "normal" for a 35 mm camera and a lense of 28 or 30 mm is considered a wide angle lense. A wide angle lense is just the opposite of a telephoto lense, it will fit the whole room in the picture. That is the kind of lense to use when you have the whole family of 20 crowded together in front of you.

Answer 3

100-300mm refers to the focal length of the lens, in this case it's a varibale focal length lens or, more commonly, a zoom lens.

Focal length is the distance from the optical center of the lens to the focal point (or the point of focus). On a camera the focal point is the film plane or the digital sensor. This distance can be measured by any unit of distance, but is normally measures in milimeters. So a 100mm lens has a focal length of 100mm, which means from the optical center of the lens to the focal point (film plane) measures 100mm.

In 35mm photography (here 35mm relates to the size of the film) a so called normal lens is 50mm. It is called "normal" because it approximates (1 for 1) what the human eye sees. In other words, there is no perceivable difference when looking through the viewfinder than looking straight on.

A 100mm lens would be 2X or 2 power. A 300mm lens would be 6X or 6 power. So a 100 - 300 mm lens would be considered a 2X-6X zoom lens.

In general terms, with a 300mm lens (6X) and object would appear 6 times closer that with a "normal" 50mm (or 1X) lens.

Answer 4

In layman's terms, it is like a telescope for your camera. You can take images from a distance, as if you were closer to the subject.

The range means that you can vary the degree of magnification. This is extremely handy in helping you frame a shot without haveing to move yourself or your subject back and forth. You may want a full body shot, or you may want a head and torso shot, or you may want a close up of the face. The zoom feature allows you to cover all of these possibilities from a single position.

Answer 5

I have a 70-300 mm lense and its great for zooming. I was in the first row of a met game recently and I got amazing shots very very close up. Have fun with it!

Answer 6

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Answer 7

At 100mm an object may appear 1" tall. At 300mm it will appear 3" tall. Think of it as being 3 times closer.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

MM refers to the focal length...so this lens can shoot from 100mm to 300mm away. (you can convert the mm to feet or whatever your measuring system is though).

Answer 10

its just how far the lesnes goes out