Paul J Gans wrote:

Again, that's probably right. But when you walk into a
store to buy one of those Canon lenses, would it not help
to call it what the manufacturer calls it?

----- Paul J. Gans

Of course you do. I think you may somehow be confounding me with
Neil H. I ain't him. I've got nothing against using slang, or
whatever you want to call improper terminology if it gets the
job done. I do think it is important to make a distinction between
proper technical terminology and slang so that when you have
a technical discussion you can communicate efficiently and with
precision.

For instance, the statement:

"In macro work the depth of focus is as large or larger than the
depth of field."

is a rather concise statement of an important fact. If we did not
have precise technical language, it would take considerably longer
to say the same thing and it still might not be as clear.

Another example:

"When doing closeups with a telephoto lens you need to include
pupil magnification in your bellows-factor calculations"

This is something worth knowing. If you have ever used a
retrofocus lens reverse mounted on a bellows on a camera
without a built-in light meter (I have) you might think
it a vital piece of information.

Try to say the same thing without using technical terms with
well defined meanings. There is good reason why telephoto
is not a synonym for long-focus lens, macro starts when the
image size is at least equal to object size, and close-up
photography starts at 1/10th life size when bellows factor
starts to be significant. The reason is that the terms are
defined as they are for the convenience of people discussing
photography in a technical way. The idea that the meanings
should change with fashion makes nonsense of the reasons for
having technical vocabulary in the first place.

Peter.
--