Is my EXIF "lying" to me about my focal length?

Ciel_Rouge

I decided to look over a set I took recently with a borrowed Fujifilm S1600 superzoom to find out which focal lengths I really use and would need on my dSLR. The actual shots that I consider most accomplished happened to be taken at:

37.8 mm
5 mm
14.6 mm
17.1 mm
8.9 mm

However: the focal range for my camera expressed in its specifications is 28 to 420 mm !!! So how could I be taking my 5 mm shots with a 28 mm lens? Should I somehow convert the EXIF values and if so, what would be the formula?

ziggy53

According to the FujiFilm site:

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/finepix_s1600/specifications/index.html

... that camera has a lens with an actual zoom range of 5 - 75mm, representing a FOV comparable to 28 - 420mm in 135 format terms (35mm film/FF digital). This means a conversion of (crop factor of) 5.6x.

You must not take the conversion as an "absolute" factor since it's based on an aspect ratio different from 135 format and you might also have composed the shot differently with the different aspect ratio. Do the conversions but think very much in terms of "around" and "about" the converted millimeters. Then you need to consider the crop factor of the camera body you intend to purchase, 1.6x crop factor is typical for an entry level Canon and Nikon crop cameras are typically 1.5x.