Nikon D50- Help I'm lost!!

[TracyZeuner]

OK.
My wife is the photo bug in our family, but I want to learn to take pictures of my fish and corals. This is what she has-
She has the Nikon D50 with an attachable flash and 3 lenses.
28-80mm f3.3-f5.6G
70-300mm f4-f5.6G both Nikon Nikkor
Nikon ED 28-200mm 1:3.5-5.6G

Can you please give me some background on these lenses and which one would work best for fish photography, and what do all those numbers mean on 28-80 and f4-f5.6.
Thank for your help. I have read some of the links already about fish photography but dont understand all the numbers.....yet!

 

[VoidRaven]

Check out this website for some help. GHO has put together a very comprehensive list of lessons to help you understand photography and post-processing.

http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html

 

[Ebn]

I'll provide the short answer to the question, but definitely check out the site listed.

The 28-80 is the focal length of the lens. It starts out at 28mm and zooms all the way out to 80mm. The f/4-5.6 is the affective aperture of the lens. Aperture is basically the amount of light that the lens will let through - size of the hole at the end of the lens. The smaller the aperture, the more light it will actually let in. At the same time, with a high aperture, small f/stop, the depth of field is extremely shallow. This can be a good or bad thing depends on what you choose to do with the shot.

The aperture determines the speed of the lens and most of the higher end lenses are fixed at a much faster speed (e.g. f/2.8 throughout the zoom range).

At 28mm, your lens' max aperture is f/4. As the lens extends to 80mm, you lose light so your max aperture falls to 5.6.

Hope the above works for you. The explanation on aperture is really more indepth than that, but it should give you a quick answer. If you want the longer discussion on ISO, aperture, and shutter speed let me know.

 

[TracyZeuner]

I'm learning alittle bit at a time, thanks