billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

They do it with small sensor size. The 4.3 mm is not 4.3 mm on a FF camera. the 4.3 mm is on a small sensor size camera resulting in a 28 mm lens. Your welcome.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

When dealing with cameras that have sensors that are smaller than full frame - aka cropped sensor - there are often two but sometimes only one focal length provided. There is actual optical focal length, and the equivalent field of view focal length. The term "equivalent" refers to what focal length on a full frame camera would provide the same field of view. In your camera it seems that 4.3 is the shortest focal length, and that corresponds to the field of view provided by a 28mm lens on a full frame camera. It is still only 4.3mm, but if you look at an image taken from the same position, with a full frame camera, they will look similar.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Marketing crap from people who know nothing about photography. When they are unable to sell crap marketeers will change the products name, re-package it and run it out to the public as "New and Improved". Same ol' shit, new channel.

dave.speeking Loc: Brooklyn OH

My Oly bridge zoom says 4.0 - 160mm.
Mine is wider than yours.

drobvit Loc: Southern NV

Look at the lens specs. It probably is
4.3mm- whatever. The 28-3000 is the 35mm equivalent. That is based on senor size.

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

You have the Nikon P1000, which is one I also have. The 4.3mm is the actual focal length of the lens. But the 35mm equivalent field of view is 24mm- 3000mm. The sensor is VERY small. It is 1/2.3 inches.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

It's now common practice for manufacturers of non-interchangeable lens cameras... such as your bridge cameras... to use "35mm equivalents" when describing the camera's lens.

The reason they do this is because there is a wide variety of digital image sensor sizes being used in this type of camera, making it difficult to compare them. From largest to smallest, some sensor sizes currently or previously being used in "point n shoot" cameras, phone cameras and digital video cameras include: "full frame", APS-C, 1.5", Micro 4/3, 1" (aka "CX"), 1/1.2", 2/3", 1/1.6", 1/1.7", 1/1.8", 1/2", 1/2.3", 1/2.5", 1/2.7", 1/2.9", 1/3", 1/3.09", 1/3.2", 1/3.6", 1/4", 1/6" and more! Currently B&H Photo lists ten different point-n-shoot sensor formats to choose among.

In contrast, interchangeable cameras now essentially come with sensors in four formats: Micro 4/3, APS-C, "full frame" (same as 35mm) and medium format. Note that there's some minor variation in APS-C and medium format sensor sizes. And, there have been some other sizes in the past, such as APS-H. B&H Photo currently lists two formats of DSLRs to choose between (APS-C or full frame). And, for the large part, they list three formats of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (M4/3, APS-C, full frame... although there's one outlier still using APS-H format... and they list medium format digital cameras separately).

Lens focal length doesn't actually change. 50mm is always 50mm, regardless of what size image sensor it's used with. HOWEVER, 50mm on a medium format camera with a very large sensor is a wide angle lens. The same 50mm is a "standard" or "normal" lens... not wide nor telephoto... on a so-called "full frame" camera (i.e., the common 24x36mm image format used with 35mm film for many decades). And the same 50mm on an APS-C or Micro 4/3 sensor camera will behave as a short telephoto. On a point-n-shoot camera with a tiny sensor, that same 50mm can be a powerful telephoto.

Since there are fewer sensor formats with interchangeable lens cameras, they let us work it out for ourselves (if we wish). Probably the manufacturers also assume it's likely most users of these cameras are relatively experienced and understand how lens selection is related to sensor size. I can tell you that any lens on my Canon APS-C format camera will "act like" it's 1.6X longer focal length than when the same lens is on my Canon full frame camera. That "1.6X" is called a "lens factor". With many some other cameras (Nikon, Sony, Fuji, etc.) APS-C lens factor is 1.5X... With some previous models (Sigma), there have been APS-C formats with 1.7X lens factor. These are all close enough that we just lump them all together under the APS-C format label.

But there's huge variation among non-interchangeable lens cameras. For example, a Canon G7X Mark II has a 1" sensor with a lens factor of about 2.7X. It's advertised and marketing as having a "24mm to 100mm equivalent" zoom lens. The actual focal length range of it's zoom is 8.8 to 36.8mm. Compare that to a Nikon P1000 camera that uses a much smaller 1/2.3" sensor, with approx. 5.6X lens factor, to be able to brag that it's zoom covers an incredible 24mm to 3000mm equivalent range. The actual focal length range of it's zoom is 4.5mm to 539mm (which is still pretty impressive).

If the manufacturers didn't use "35mm film camera equivalent" lens focal lengths, how would you compare those two cameras, as well as the hundreds of others with a variety of different sensor sizes both larger and smaller? Maybe you're an experienced photographer who knows about and understands how and why to apply lens factors... Or maybe you're a less sophisticated buyer who has no idea about these considerations when shopping for a camera. The latter is more likely to be the case with digital point-n-shoot cameras, where a lot of buyers are relatively inexperienced and casual users. The "equivalent" focal lengths offer sort of a "common denominator" to allow comparisons. Reference to 35mm film cameras' 24x36mm format... which is the same as "full frame" digital... is used because it was relatively ubiquitous at one time. Sure, there were other film formats (such as APS-C, APS-H and medium format, for example)... but virtually everyone knew at least a little about 35mm roll film and the lenses used with those cameras. At one time virtually every 35mm film SLR was sold with a 50mm (approx.) lens on it. That was true of many non-interchangeable lens cameras (rangefinder/viewfinder) 35mm film cameras too. Sure, there was some minor "standard/normal" lens focal length variation... 45mm, 48mm, 52mm, 57mm and more, in addition to 50mm. Even so, they all rendered pretty similar angle of view... images that weren't wide angle or telephoto. If you wanted wide you bought a 35mm, 28mm, 24mm or shorter focal length. If you wanted telephoto you bought an 85mm, 100mm, 135mm, 200mm or longer focal length lens.

Hope this makes sense. I didn't really get into some other closely related considerations.... Such as that larger sensors can be used at higher ISO to be able to take usable photos in lower light conditions.... And there's significant difference in how depth of field is rendered indirectly related to sensor size and directly related to lens focal length and lens aperture.... Or that a larger sensor can allow for more enlargement of images later for various uses, or for more cropping of images if needed... Or that cameras with larger sensors tend to be bigger, cost more and require bigger, heavier, typically more expensive lenses.

By the way, none of this is new. We had the same situation with many different formats of film, back in the "Dark Ages" before digital. We had everything from spy cameras that used tiny rolls of film... to cartridge cameras like 110, 126 and APS... even some variation in image format on 35mm and medium format roll film.... as well as large format cameras that used individual sheets 4x5", 5x7", 8x10" and even bigger. Anyone using multiple formats had to take the difference into consideration when they were choosing what lenses to buy and use.

1Feathercrest Loc: NEPA

Proof reading your comment and corrections would make reading your commentary much easier.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That would be my guess too.

jhkfly

Don't you have a "photography folder" on your computer? Windows comes with a "Pictures" folder. You could make a "Tech" sub-folder there.

howIseeit Loc: Kootenays, BC Canada

I apologize for not being more specific, as it pertains to the P1000, hence 28 on the wide and *3000 mm on the long side. What confuses me is the fact that that lens is only 28mm eh, on the widest and not nearly the fantastic 4.3mm.
As I now understand it, the 4.3 mm reference is to the Sensor, the cell phone size one in that beast. I love it and I hate it at the same time. Does that make sense?

howIseeit Loc: Kootenays, BC Canada

Yes, You're correct of course, I should have said 24mm-3000mm. when I wrote I had another lens on the table in front of me and accidentaly read its wide spec's. (it was 28mm to 300 I recently aquired)

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

The real fact is that your lens is 4.3mm on the long end, not 28mm (or 24mm depending on which post is correct.
With the much smaller sensor of your camera, it gives the approximate view as a 28mm (or 24mm?) on a full-frame (24 x 36mm) sensor, but it's still a 4.3mm lens.

The sensor size has nothing to do with measuring the focal length of a lens, only the view you'll get when a lens is mounted on that particular camera.
The focal length does not change.

howIseeit Loc: Kootenays, BC Canada

Thank You for taking time to explain a lot in above lines eh. I do recall my Voigtlander vito c has a 28mm lens and I took some great photos with it, even enlarged to wall hangin frames..

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

The lens is called "28mm" on the wide end, because that is what a 35mm camera would show at 28mm, but it is actually only 4.3mm. It is very simple. What is confusing you??