plze could you help me with focal length A95

[beesparkle]

Hello,

Please could anyone help me. I have been viewing a brill site with lovely photos taken with a canon A95. In the details it gives a number for focal length used. I am not sure where to read this on my camera to be able to do the same thing. I do not have any additional lenses just the camera built in one. But would like to know if I zoom in does this change to a different focal length number and if so where do I read it on the camera display?

Sorry to sound simple but really very new to all this!!

Thanks and hoping for some replies :lol:
Bee

[RossW]

Bee, You are correct that zooming in and out changes the focal length of the lens. I'm not sure whether your camera will tell you what focal length you are shooting at or not -- I've never used an A95. Most small digitals I have seen do not. However, you may have an indicator that shows how much you have zoomed in via a bar graph.

Your camera's lens zoom range is 7.8mm - 23.4 mm (38mm - 114mm equivalent on a 35mm film camera)... roughly 3-to-1. So zoomed wide is 7.8mm; zoomed half way in is around 15 - 16mm, etc. If the numbers you read are using the 35mm film equivalent -- commonly used due to the familiarity and consistancy of the values -- you just need to mentally calculate according to that scale: zoomed out = 38mm, zoom in half = 76mm, etc.

Hope this helps.

[Onesimus]

Hello,

In the details it gives a number for focal length used. I am not sure where to read this on my camera to be able to do the same thing. I do not have any additional lenses just the camera built in one.

Bee

If I understand you correctly, then what you need to do is go into your cameras macro settings. You do not have to use macro just for up-close shots. It gives you a range from 2cm to 20ft.

Hope this helps

[Pixel9ine]

In the details it gives a number for focal length used. I am not sure where to read this on my camera [...] But would like to know if I zoom in does this change to a different focal length number and if so where do I read itThe ability to 'zoom' a lens comes from being able to turn or slide a lens and make the focal length longer or shorter. Zoom has everything to do with changing focal lengths.

Now, on the A95, you're not given an exact readout on the screen. BUT, every picture you take has some text information recorded with it - date&time, camera name, your name (if you're recorded it in in the camera), and lots of other technical information, like shutter speed, aperture and the focal length used during the shot. That information is called "EXIF info," and can only be read by certain programs like this one (http://www.takenet.or.jp/~ryuuji/minisoft/exifread/english/). It's really neat, actually. By pulling up that information on your computer, you can see all the nitty-gritty information about the picture you just took.

With small P&S cameras like the A95, the zoom points are already picked. So there's only six stops between 7.8 to 23.4 mm.. I've never looked at what they are exactly. If you take some pictures and read the EXIF info, you'll find out for sure.

Here's another quick math trick: you can easily tell what the "optical zoom" of a lens is using the focal length.. notice how the A95 is a "3x zoom" camera? That's simply because 23.4mm divided by 7.8mm is.. 3.

Hope this helps.