Sigma 500mm F4 DG OS HSM Sport review: specs and price

A shorter minimum focal length allows you to get more of the scene in the photo, and offers a wider angle of view than longer focal lengths.

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A longer maximum focal length allows you to focus in on a small part of a scene, and offers a narrower angle of view than shorter focal lengths.

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A telephoto lens allows you to zoom in on far away objects. This is particularly useful when you need to photograph a subject from a distance, such as wildlife photography, or even in some cases street photography where you can’t get near the subject.

A prime lens has a fixed focal length. In general, these are sharper, with a wider aperture.

Optical image stabilization uses gyroscopic sensors to detect the vibrations of the camera. The lens adjusts the optical path accordingly, ensuring that any type of motion blur is corrected before the sensor captures the image. Show more

The zoom range is the ratio between the longest and shortest focal lengths. A higher zoom range means that the lens is more versatile.

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With a wider aperture the sensor can capture more light, helping to avoid blur by enabling a faster shutter speed. It also provides a shallow depth of field, allowing you to blur the background to focus attention on the subject. Show more

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Lenses with a built-in focus motor can autofocus even if the camera does not have its own focus motor.

Lenses with built-in focus motor focus faster and more quietly than lenses without a focus motor which rely on the camera's body focus motor.

With full-time manual focus, you can move the focus ring whilst it is in AF (autofocus) mode. This means that you can make manual adjustments once the AF has finished, without changing to manual mode.