Digital - v - 35mm lens

Alan Baird

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I have an OLympus E520 with a 40mm - 150mm kit lens. I am told that this is equivalent to an 80mm - 300mm in 35mm terms. How is this worked out and how can it be seen. It doesn't seem obvious when looking through the viewfinder - or does it come in to play at the printing stage? Thanks in advance:thinking:
 
Nope it's nothing to do with printing at all. The sensor is a 2x crop meaning any focal length is effectively doubled. See this image from wikipedia as an example of different sensor sizes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sensor_sizes_overlaid_inside.svg


To clarify, it's just the effective field of view that is different, eg with the Olympus system a 50mm lens has the EFV of a 100mm lens on a full frame sensor, the actual focal length of the lens doesn't change in any way, a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens regardless of what type of camera it is fitted to.
 
To clarify, it's just the effective field of view that is different, eg with the Olympus system a 50mm lens has the EFV of a 100mm lens on a full frame sensor, the actual focal length of the lens doesn't change in any way, a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens regardless of what type of camera it is fitted to.

Well, it is the effective focal length, the field of view is actual.

The Olympus 4/3rds system has a sensor that is one quarter the size of a full frame of 35mm film. Ie, it is cropped, by a linear factor of 2x.

If you put a 50mm lens on the Olympus, what you see through the viewfinder is the same as a 100mm lens on a full frame camera.
 
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