What is the meaning of W and T on a camera's zoom buttons?

Question

On every conventional digital camera (excluding the models with detachable lenses), there are buttons to zoom in and out with W side and T side.

When you press W, the lens zooms out. The lens zooms in when you press T

I want to know what do these letters, W and T mean.

I'd vote to close as a too-basic/look-in-the-manual question, except when I did a quick search, it looks like there's a lot of people asking it, so I don't think it hurts for us to have an answer. — mattdm, Dec 19 '12 at 18:57

score 34 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:43

34

These letters refers to zooming depth as follows,

W = Wide angle

T = Telephoto

Read more about wideangle and telephoto in the tags.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:43

Community

answered Dec 19 '12 at 09:13

Sid

1

The name "telephoto" includes "tele", which means "far off" or "over a distance" so it literally means "long distance photography" – thomasrutter Dec 01 '15 at 02:46

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 19 '12 at 10:40

15

The W stands for Wide angle. The T stands for Telephoto.

This has been asked around the web, for example here:

answered Dec 19 '12 at 10:40

Guffa

score -4 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 04 '24 at 14:09

-4

W = Withdraw

T = Towards

These are one way to remember.

edited Apr 04 '24 at 14:09

Rafael

answered Mar 31 '24 at 23:28

yarns

3 Answers3