gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

That should be tawbaware.com

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

DX or FX (as Nikon calls them)... lens focal length doesn't change. 18mm is 18mm, regardless. 50mm is 50mm.

HOWEVER, how any given focal length "behaves" changes, depending upon sensor format. (Incidentally, this isn't new with digital.... we saw similar with all the different film formats, too.)

For example... 50mm is a "standard" lens on FX/full frame.... But on an APS-C/DX/crop sensor camera, it acts as a short telephoto. (With some of the really tiny digital sensors, much smaller than APS-C, 50mm can act as "strong" or even "super telephoto". But on larger medium format film or digital, 50mm would be wide angle... And on large format film, the same 50mm focal length would be ultrawide.)

Some lenses... including Nikon DX.... are "crop sensor" designs. They are made specifically for crop sensor/DX cameras. Primarily, they don't need to produce as large an image circle as an FX lens does to adequately illuminate the larger sensor of an FX camera. So DX lenses can be a bit smaller, lighter and less expensive.

The "multiplier" effect is pretty much meaningless to anyone who hasn't used other formats. All you really need to know is if the lens is compatible with and how it will behave on your camera.

For example, on a DX/crop camera:

10 to 14mm is "ultrawide".
15 to 21mm is "wide".
22 to 27mm is "slightly wide"
28 to 35mm is "normal" or "standard" (neither wide nor telephoto)
40mm to 70mm is "short telephoto"
85mm to 135mm is "moderate telephoto"
150mm to 300mm is "strong telephoto"
400mm and up is "super telephoto".

There aren't any hard and fast rules, per se... But each type of lens has common uses and there often are different techniques using them.

For example... Ultrawide and wide lenses give great depth of field and struggle to render very much background blur. They are more commonly used stopped down to a smaller aperture for maximum depth of field. The wide angle of view can be tricky, since it can encompass a lot of different objects and tends to exaggerate relative sizes.... close objects look large, while distant objects appear tiny.

Telephotos sort of do the opposite... They are good at isolating individual objects and can strongly blur down a background to make a subject stand out sharply against it.

Nice thing about a DX camera is that it can use both DX lenses and FX lenses equally well. It so happens that Nikon now makes both DX and FX 70-300mm lenses... and those will give much the same angle of view results on a DX camera. The most immediately noticeable differences are that the DX lens is considerably smaller, lighter and less expensive than the FX version. (There are other differences: image quality, close focusing ability, auto focus performance, etc.)

On the other hand, FX cameras are largely limited to using FX lenses... which tend to be bigger, heavier and more expensive. Nikon full frame/FX cameras actually can use DX lenses, but they self-crop to accommodate the lens and in most cases the smaller image is far lower resolution than if the lens had simply been used on a modern DX camera, for which it was designed. In other words, while they will work, using DX lenses on it sort of defeats the whole purpose of spending extra to get an FX camera! Anyone planning to buy an FX camera really needs to budget for FX lenses, too. (Canon designs their "crop only" EF-S lenses to not be able to mount on their full frame cameras at all.)

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

To be technical, if it says 18mm, it IS 18mm but gives a field of view (or magnification) on a DX body that a 27 would on a FF camera.

dub3 Loc: Sunrise Beach, Texas

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

You are incorrect. Volume anamorphosis is real and very hard to correct. But you are correct that our eyes cannot see the world as a wide angle lens does. We see it more like a panoramic 50mm lens.

https://www.dxo.com/us/photography/tutorials/understanding-volume-deformation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZmI94uL4Kk

Hbuk66 Loc: Oswego, NY

Putting a DX lens On a DX camera there is no factor ...DX to DX... now FX to DX, yes multiply by 1.5... and DX to FX you get a not so nice vignette...

SSam Loc: Sierra Vista, AZ

[quote=armandoluiz]Ok guys, I THINK I'm starting to understand.

So why in many webs people says that wideangle is good for Landscape and Real Estate photography?

NOW I see why is good for real estate, it will make house's interior looks bigger, right?

Armandoluiz, using the above 'thought process' could just do the opposite. It could harm/cancel the sale of a home. A few years ago, I listed my own home on zillow. A man from Colorado called for an appointment to see our home that had an ocean view in northern California. His wife was resisting coming with him. He didn't say why. But on the appointment day she did come in with him and after taking just two or three steps in the front door she said, "Wow, this is exactly has the video/slide presentation showed." I didn't know what she meant. Then they walked down the hall and went into the first bedroom. And again, she expressed surprise. "It is exactly like the video!"

Later, I found out that she had gone with her husband on many "house hunting buying opportunities". They had looked at the photos before going to actually looking 'in person'. Some sellers/real estate agentd used a wide angle lens on the 'wading pool' and it looked like a swimming pool. Each room shown on the photos was made to look larger than the actual size it was. Some even post processed the terrible colored paint on a neighbor's building so it wouldn't be so awful looking in the photos. This couple told me that they just walked out and wouldn't deal anymore with that particular agent because he 'lied' with his photos.

With the extent of how often this 'marketing method' is used, this negative results must not always happen. But, I just wanted you to know that sometimes the opposite (negative marketing) happens.

Sam

PS. We did sell our home to that couple. :-)

EdR Loc: Gig Harbor, WA

If you can't find a rental place, maybe a camera store would let you look at the lens on a DX and a FX camera. Then you would see what the differences were.
I like the shots you share. We have a friend who came from Norway when she was a child.

ggttc Loc: TN

The Nikon 18-55 is a DX lens. So you, with that camera are getting 18-55m

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

But the field of view is still subject to the "crop factor" of the OP's camera, whether it's an 18-55 DX or FX lens. The FL is the FL, regardless of lens type. Agree?

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

Want some friendly advice? Don't worry about crop factor and just go out and photograph!

I use the D3000 and D3200; the kit (18-55) lens is a very good lens. I print some of my photos to 11x14; I recently went back to using the 18-55 (from a 28-75 f/2.8) and I am happy with the results. The printed photos are sharp; you can read the signs on the sides of the buildings; the photos are crisp. I shoot in RAW and I post-process; part of the post-processing involves sharpening, but no amount of sharpening will compensate for a "soft" lens or bad technique.

Fotomacher Loc: Toronto

The camera manufacturers (all of them) print the physical characteristics of the lens on the barrel, not the effective specs which are dependent on the sensor. A 18-55mm has those optical specifications but mounted on a body with a DX sensor will provide a field of view equivalent to a 27-82mm lens on a body with a sensor the same size as a 35mm film frame.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

You clearly don’t understand the term “crop factor.”
It’s the size of the sensor in the body that does it, not the lens.
A 35mm FX or DX lens on a DX body gets you the same image.

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

That is completely incorrect. An FX lens doesn't magically become a longer focal length when mounted on a DX camera. A 50mm FX lens will give you exact same field of view as a 75mm DX lens on a DX camera. The crop factor is exactly the same. The DX lens will be smaller and lighter, because it only has to cover a smaller sensor.

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

[quote=SSam]

Thank you for posting this. I have shot RE in the past, and generally shy away from using very wide lenses for that same reason. Most RE people, as you have described, will "resort to distort" using wide and ultra-wide lenses to give a greater sense of depth and size. It is a complete misrepresentation.

We are in the process of selling our home. The RE agent told me that she could have someone come in an measure the place AND photograph it for $275. I politely told her, but in no uncertain terms, that it was out of the question. I would handle both, but suggested that she should stage the spaces, which is her forté. As for the plans, Over the past 31 yrs I have done a lot to this house, and have a carefully measured plan for every space in the house in Autocad, so it was a simple matter to make them look like simplified RE floor plans.

Initially she was apprehensive, but after I showed her a few samples of my architectural and RE photos, she asked if I could shoot some of her other properties.

On a full frame camera I rarely find a need to go to anything wider than 24mm.