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Photography vocabulary · Lenses & Focus

Zoom lens

Meaning in photography, with examples

nounCore term

In photography, zoom lens means: A lens whose focal length can be changed, such as a 24–70 mm or 70–200 mm, so you can go wider or closer without moving.

In Turkish: zum objektif, zoom objektif

How it is used

Often just called a zoom. You zoom in and zoom out. Zooms with a constant maximum aperture (e.g. f/2.8 throughout the range) are standard for events and weddings. A lens covering a very wide range is a superzoom.

Example sentences

  1. A 70–200 zoom lens lets you shoot the ceremony from the back without disturbing anyone.

  2. My kit zoom lens is slow, so my indoor shots are noisy.

Common collocations

  • standard zoom lens
  • telephoto zoom lens
  • zoom in
  • zoom out
  • prime lensA lens with one fixed focal length, such as 35 mm or 50 mm, that cannot zoom. Primes are often sharper and have wider apertures than zooms.
  • focal lengthA lens measurement in millimeters, such as 24 mm or 200 mm, that tells you how wide or how magnified the view will be.
  • telephoto lensA lens with a long focal length, usually 70 mm or more, that makes distant subjects look bigger and closer.
  • wide-angle lensA lens with a short focal length, roughly 35 mm or shorter on a full-frame camera, that shows a wide view of the scene.

More terms: Lenses & Focus

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