Zoom is the stuff. At least as far as convenience goes. When I hired in, it was Nikon’s 18-200mm VR. We just could not keep that sucker in stock. That’s an 11x zoom (welllllll…. 11.111111 yadda yadda, rounding is our friend here.) Last year Canon jumped onto that game itself with the EF-S 18-200. 11x, that’s not too darn shabby there. The average point-and-shoot for years has been 3x.
We should really stop to talk about how unuseful “zoom” is as a measurement. The x zoom of a lens is found by dividing the longest length by the shortest. So, it tells you how much there is, but now where it exists between. Is the widest point 36mm, or 28mm? How long is that telephoto? 100mm? 200mm? Who knows? Zoom is a handy quick measurement, but it’s useless if you don’t also check to see where the limits are at.

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