zoom lens

zoom lens

a lens system that allows the focal length of a camera lens to be varied continuously without altering the sharpness of the image

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Zoom Lens

 

a combination of a telescopic attachment and an objective lens, forming an optical system with a variable focal length. The mechanical motions of the individual elements of the telescopic attachment ensure that the image scale of an object varies smoothly within a specified range. The focal length of a zoom lens is varied, but the sharpness of focus of the objective and the relative aperture remain unchanged.

Zoom lenses are used most often on motion-picture cameras for creating the illusion that the camera is approaching or receding in cases where it is not desirable to move the camera relative to the object being filmed. Because the aberrations of the telescopic attachment and the objective lens are usually calculated separately, the same attachment may be used with different objective lenses.

L. A. RIVKIN

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

zoom lens

[′züm ¦lenz]

(optics)

A system of lenses in which two or more parts are moved with respect to each other to obtain a continuously variable focal length and hence magnification, while the image is kept in the same image plane. Also known as variable-focal-length lens; varifocal lens.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.