"Sweet spot of the C5050" = f6.3?? What's a sweet spot?

[dlwalke]

I'm reading an online review of some strobes and it states, refering to the now discontinued D-180 "it's the least powerful strobe in the grup, but consider: when metered at a distance of 2 apparent feet...it calls for an aperture of 6.3, right near the sweet spot of the C-5050."

I didn't know that cameras have sweet spots. Can anyone shed some light on this for me...so to speak?

Thanks

 

[Reefwalker]

The sweet spot of a camera is generally referring to the lens capabilities. All lenses have a point in their aperature range that is the sharpest (corner to corner) and has the best colour saturation. This point in most zoom lenses is 'normally' in the middle of its range of aperatures. In the C5050's case its range is from f8-f1.8, so 6.3 is around midway.
Some lenses, like Macro types on SLR's, have their sweetspot at the smallest aperatures (F22 or F32) as this is the end of the lens most used in macro photography, these lenses are designed that way.
Hope this helps with your query.

 

[dlwalke]

The sweet spot of a camera is generally referring to the lens capabilities. All lenses have a point in their aperature range that is the sharpest (corner to corner) and has the best colour saturation. This point in most zoom lenses is 'normally' in the middle of its range of aperatures. In the C5050's case its range is from f8-f1.8, so 6.3 is around midway.
Some lenses, like Macro types on SLR's, have their sweetspot at the smallest aperatures (F22 or F32) as this is the end of the lens most used in macro photography, these lenses are designed that way.
Hope this helps with your query.

Yes indeed. Thanks. I own a C5060wz for which, I would assume, the sweet spot is pretty much the same. I'll have to take a few shots to see if the sweet spot is noticeable or largely theoretical. If you have any ideas of what types of shots (e.g., close v far, low vs bright light, etc.) would be most likely to bring out this effect, let me know.

Thanks again