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Anonymous
>>100812
And then there's this big section, which I have no clue as to the accuracy of:
Correct meaning of the term
The misusage of prime lens to mean fixed focal length lens has now been around for several years, and unfortunately has become widespread through the Internet and especially Usenet newsgroups, in recent years extending to printed sources as well. The misusage has become so common that now when it's used correctly, and it still is, the majority of readers are likely to misunderstand it.
When the camera lens is used with some other optical device, such as a close-up lens or tele converter, the camera lens itself is properly called the prime lens. That is really all the term "prime lens" means -- whether it's fixed focal length or zoom makes no difference.
Prime is correctly used in the sense of primary, chief, original, first in order, etc. -- all standard dictionary definitions for "prime." There is no dictionary definition for "prime" that means fixed focal length or fixed anything else.
Old and well-known lens manufacturers such as ARRI Media[1], ISCO Precision Optics[2], Schneider[3], Zeiss, and others still make variable focal length cine and video lenses regularly catalogued as variable primes. And on the other hand, most major camera manufacturers such as Nikon do not use "prime" to mean fixed focal length. Obviously it causes a great deal of confusion when a term properly applied to lenses of variable focal length is also caused to mean fixed focal length. The abbreviation "FFL" is standard for fixed focal length, and its use is encouraged instead of the incorrect "prime."
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