What is the difference between the 200mm of a Canon S3IS to a 200mm of a Canon EOS 30D?
I want to know if there is a difference in the magnification of a Canon PowerShot S3IS and a zoom lens for Canon EOS 30D.
Tags: canon, canon eos, Canon Eos 30d, canon powershot, Canon Powershot S3is, Canon S3is, Magnification, zoom, Zoom Canon, Zoom Lens
Hmmm, you should be wondering if you want a camera with interchangeable lenses or not.
The 200mm lens used on a 30D would be like using a 320mm lens on a 35mm camera.
Since the 30D has a much larger sensor (22.5 x 15.0 mm) than the S3 IS (about 5.3 x 4.0 mm) there is a chance that the 200mm rating on the S3 is an approximation of what the image magnification would be like when using a 200mm lens on a 35mm camera.
The Canon S3 IS has a effective zoom range from 36 to 432mm, in terms of 35mm film.
The EOS 30D with a 200mm lens will provide a field of view roughly about 320mm, again in terms of 35mm film.
In other words, the S3 IS can provide the same field of view as the EOS 30D, regardless of what the millimeters will say on the lens.
Two big differences though:
1) the sensor on the S3 IS is physically smaller than on the 30D, so you’ll have more depth of field (more area in focus) which isn’t so good on portraits where you want to isolate the main subject from a distracting background. The smaller sensor will also mean more noise and not so good performance at higher ISO (higher sensor sensitivity).
2) the lens on a 30D is much more specialized than the fixed, general purpose lens on the S3 IS. Thus, it’s likely to do better, although the image stabilization on the S3 is a bonus.
To get the same field of view on the 30D as you get on the S3 IS, you’d need a 22.5mm to 300mm lens mounted on it. While there are 18mm to 200mm lenses out there, I don’t know of any 18-300mm lenses for the 30D.
The S3IS has a range from 36mm to 432mm in 35mm film camera equivalent. People relate back to 35mm film lenses as the benchmark.
As the sze of the image sensor on the EOS 30D is not 35mm, to convert the lens view to 35mm equivalent, you need to know the crop factor. On the 30D the crop factor is 1.6, so a 50-200mm lens has a maximum focal length of 200mm x 1.6, or 320mm.
To have the same maximum zoom on the EOS30D as the S3IS, you need a 432/1.6 = 270mm lens.