Hi, I am a complete newbie to photography, so pardon my silly question. Someone has been kind enough to lend me their Nikon D3000, 18-55mm. I have been given an assignment and I have been told to use a focal length of at least 50mm, how do I know when I am using a focal length 50mm?
Thank you for reading.
That's interesting.
Why were you told to use at least 50mm?
Did you know that when using cameras that used 35mm film, the 50mm lens on those cameras sees the world as near to how our eyes see the world, hence it is considered to be 'normal' lens? Our eyes do not see the world like a wide-angle lens do, nor do our eyes see the world like a telephoto lens do.
Anyway, zoom lens will have the focus length numbers marked on the barrel, it would depend on the make and model, but always starts with 18 and ends with 55, with other rounded up numbers in between, depending on model, something alike to 18 20 35 55, or could be 18 20 28 30 35 45 55, or anything like that, just look at the top of the lens, look for this, turn it until you get roughly where you expect 50 to be. If it do have a '50' marked on it, line it up, if not, it could be somewhere between 45 and 55, or between 35 and 55, just turn until just before the 55 mark.
Of course, you are likely to accidently knock the zoom lens to a different focus length, it happens when you put it in camera bag, take it out of camera bag, hold the camera by holding the lens, so just give it a check to make sure it is still at focus length of 50, if not, just adjust it to 50mm again.
