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Author Topic: Origin of typical zoom ranges?  (Read 628 times)

Rado

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Origin of typical zoom ranges?
« on: July 17, 2018, 03:03:34 pm »

I was googling the origins of the typical focal length ranges of zoom lenses we have today for 35mm cameras i.e. 16-35mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm and didn't really find anything.

Those ranges are incredibly inconvenient for me and there's very little alternative. Sigma makes a wonderful 50-100mm zoom but it's for crop cameras. If I had a 50-100mm zoom for full frame that would cover 95% of my portrait shoots. Similarly I hardly ever shoot wider than 20mm, so a 20-50mm zoom would cover 95% of my landscape shots. One lens. Instead I have to swap lenses and lose time and/or gain sensor dust, it's stupid.

Who picked those numbers and why? Is it a case of someone doing it first just because and everybody else following it blindly? A 2-2.5x zoom should not be that challenging to design and manufacture with good optical quality for reasonable price.
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Telecaster

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Re: Origin of typical zoom ranges?
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2018, 04:32:15 pm »

I think the current Big Three zooms came about due to some combo of user requests and marketing. Before the *16–35mm we had 21–35s, before the 24–70 there were 28–70s and 28–85s and prior to the 70–200 the common options were 80–200 and 70–210. In the former two cases at least, demand for greater width had a lot to do with what we've got now. My own all-time favorite zoom rig was the Zeiss 28–85/100–300 combo on Contax (Y/C mount) SLRs. With both lenses some speed was sacrificed for greater range, moderate size and better performance. Personally I think this is the way to go with zooms, though I can see the point of a faster 70/80–200mm portrait-centric lens.

-Dave-

*If necessary substitute the "equivalent" focal lengths for your preferred non-35mm format.
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