I need to know of a web page or book that would help me learn about lenses and filters. I only got into photography because I wanted a digital camera. Now I have a Kodak DC260 and going to by a Nikon Coolpix 990. I would like to learn about lenses and filters and the differences and also about using scopes and monoculars? Can you help me?

-- Tab Moore (mheaton443@pnv.net), May 28, 2000

Answers

Tab:
Actually I think this site (Imaging-Resource) is among the best for information - but there are other sites that are good too. While there is no dedicated area to lenses & filters (good suggestion though) lens issues are being mentioned more and more in each of the reviews. What you want, however, is only now being recognized by the industry as an issue.
Up until recently the need for top quality lenses was minimal - because digital cameras resolution capabilities were limited. Many digital cameras are being built with very inexpensive plastic lenses built for the the video industry (video cameras just don't need super high quality lenses). The focal length requirements for digital cameras is also more along the lines of video cameras as well. The focal plane area of CCD's is much smaller than 35mm film - and the lenses must be of a much shorter focal length. Top quality short Focal Length lenses are much more difficult to manufacture. Also - many of the manufacturers of today's digital cameras didn't have simple access to higher quality lenses from companies like Zeiss, Canon, Minolta, Nikon. But that's all changing now.
Canon just announced a 10X zoom with stabilization for digital cameras - Canon makes excellent optics so I trust it will be on-par with their 35mm offerings. Other manufacturers are starting to show specific digital offerings. Digital Camera resolutions are now good enough to require better optics - and the CCD's are getting larger so the need for exremely short focal lengths is waning. Unfortunatly there isn't enough volume to get prices in-line. The Nikon D1 is my dream camera - but with a lens and a few basic accessories it's over 6-thousand US dollars! Eeeek. I have a Nikon F3 & 7 lenses ranging from 20mm to 300mm that's all in Mint condition - but not worth enough to even get the D1 body. sigh...
Here's a web site that sells filters.
Tiffen Filters
I think a close examination of this site highlights the current thinking in the industry...
They have a page dedicated to "Filters for Digital Photography" - which is really a bit lame. While the current spate of digital cameras can benefit from wide-angle and telephoto adapters - the need for filters isn't really any different from conventional photography. In fact this site makes the ignorance-revealing mistake of offering close-up filters for the Sony FD-91 - which already can focus down to about .5 inch! This smacks of a marketing effort to create a need where none exists.
Filters can be used to create many of the spectacular effects heretofore only thought possible with film cameras. Here is an example of a web site that shows Near Infrared Photography with a Nikon Coolpix.
Eric Cheng's Near Infrared Photography
Of course digital photographers can use polarizing filters, colored filters for B & W (even if the camera is color you can still get nearly the same effect by shooting with the colored filter then converting to grey scale in Photoshop

Des

-- Dan Desjardins (dan.desjardins@avstarnews.com), May 29, 2000.