Top

The pros and cons of fixed lenses

August 25, 2007

fixed lens camera

Most cameras come with a fixed lens. Many cameras come with a zoom lens as standard. Fixed lenses might give you the freedom of getting a fixed photographic set up but this can diminish your creativity also. Fixed lenses have their own equalizers and set up, so you don’t need to do anything with your camera lens. You must have seen the flexibility of a zoom lens and how it helps you to get a good hold over your images. Fixed lenses offer you various benefits but in many cameras these benefits are not available. There are various zoom lenses which are higher in optical quality with a compact size. In this review we will discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of a fixed lens.

Advantages
If you wish to have a better quality result from the lens then you can have a fixed lens. A zoom must do a multitude of optical tasks and in order to achieve them, compromises are made in the lens designs which affect optical quality. You don’t need to do any compromise when you use a fixed lens. Having a focal length which is fixed usually a wide view between 28mm and 35mm, means that the lens is made especially for that length making it sharper and to give a brighter and sharper image. This also has a wider field of view too. You can also get compact sizes which are possible because the design doesn’t cater to the mechanisms needed to zoom the optical train back and forth. This is also a reason for a long lasting battery power.

Disadvantages
Fixed lens digital cameras can seem expensive but they are a good option as a good photographic option. These lenses are expensive also because the cost of their optics and the fact that fixed lens digital cameras are often premium models. Another reason is that there are few cameras in market which have fixed lens. But a fixed lens camera doesn’t have the convenient flexibility of a zoom. And this is also a reason why most people are willing to live with the compromises involved in a zoom lens.

Now the option
If you are confused about choosing the right lens then you can get various options which can give you a cheaper deal. These cameras use digital zoom to make up for the lack of an optical zoom. As we had already discussed the main problem with optical zoom and if you use very cheap optical zoom lenses you might get poor optics which results in pure images. And these cheap optical lenses also give poor processing and even poor results.

Comments

Got something to say?





Bottom