These days, camera lenses are high-tech pieces of kit. Each manufacturer uses many abbreviations and acronyms to refer to the various technologies and it can get confusing to compare lenses – especially when different manufacturers use different names to refer to the same technology.
You can look up the abbreviations on each manufacturer’s website (see below), but it’s a pain and it takes ages. So I compiled a table to compare the most common lens designations. This table is not exhaustive – I have only included terms that are used by more than one manufacturer.
| Technology | Canon | Nikon | Sigma | Tamron | Tokina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full frame sensor | EF | FX | DG | Di | FX |
| Crop sensor | EF-S | DX | DC | Di II | DX |
| Ultrasonic focus motor | USM | SWM / AF-S | HSM | USD | |
| Optical image stabilisation | IS | VR | OS | VC | |
| Professional grade | L | EX | SP | AT-X Pro | |
| Inner or rear focusing | I/R | IF / RF | RF / IF / HF | IF | IF |
| Aspherical lens elements | AL / L* | APS | AS / F&R | ||
| Macro lens | Macro | Micro | Macro | ||
| Apochromatic lens | UD | ED | APO | LD | SD |
| Floating element | Float | CRC | FE | ||
| Perspective control | TS-E | PC-E |
* All Canon L lenses make use of aspherical lens elements. Many of their other lenses use one or more aspherical lenses too but are not labelled as such.
Jonathan Gazeley 