Hi there...1st real tech question LOL.

I have 2 lenses that came with my camera, with a couple of addons as well.

The smaller lense is a

**Tamron AF Aspherical 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6 ø 58

**The larger one is a

**Tamron AF 75-300mm 1: 4-5.6 LD
Tele-Marcro(1:3.9) (infinity sign) - 1.5m (4.9ft) ø 62
**
What does this stuff mean in laymans terms?

Also I have a 0.45X wide angle with macro from Digital Concepts, which fits on the smaller one but is too small for the tele lense...is there some sort of attachment that I need or another wideangle lense needed

28-80mm is your "zoom"/range of focal length - low numbers = wide angle... high numbers = telephoto - generally speaking anything below 50mm (or 35mm some might say) is "wide" and anything above say 200mm is telephoto - in between is kinda "medium-telephoto", "portrait", or whatever else - kinda no mans land there...

1:3.5-5.6 is basically your minimum aperture size worked in "F-Stops" the 3.5 is at the short end of the zoom and it will gradually move to 5.6 at the longer focal length end of the zoom. Check all these words in wikipedia and have a read of the first part of this (it gets technical later in the article) to get what it does.

58 is the thread size of the filter screw mount so when buying filters you need to get 58mm filters to fit with that lens (UV is recommended if only to protect the lens itself from bumps - as a UV filter can be replaced cheaply, fixing a scratched lens is a little more expensive...;))

The "Macro" bit of your 75-300 is the reproduction ratio - which is basically your "magnification"... 1:1 is "true" macro in that all dedicated macro lenses reproduce at or around that magnification - which basically means that your 1:4 magnification is 25% of the magnification power of a proper macro lens - which isnt amazing sadly - some zooms can do a 1:2.

The infinity and distance marker is basically your focus range meaning you cant focus any closer than 1.5 metres away with that lens.

Hope that helps decipher all the technical mumbojumbo

The only thing that Rich didn't explain:

about your 0.45x wide angle with macro: yes, there are adapters available to go from a 58mm filter thread size to a 62mm lens thread size (and vice versa). Just take a look here. But I don't really see why you should use a wide angle converter on your telephoto lens... as wide angle converters are being used to make wide angle lenses wider. So I would just use the 0.45x with your smaller lens and not bother about using it with your telephoto lens.

Rich and girsempa summed it up nicely....
The only things I can add are that;

1. With the sub full frame sensors in these cams...the 28mm wide angle really isn't that wide anymore.  To get really WA shots you will need a 10 or 12mm wide angle lens.

2)Regarding the 3.5-5.6 numbers....generally, the smaller, the better for the same focal length lens....IE, a zoom of 70-200mm f2.8....is superior to a 70-200mm f3.5-5.6.  It has greater light transmission capacity ( which helps in focus aquisition, amongst other things) which also means bigger glass ...unfortunately it comes at an increased cost.

quote:

2)Regarding the 3.5-5.6 numbers....generally, the smaller, the better for the same focal length lens....IE, a zoom of 70-200mm f2.8....is superior to a 70-200mm f3.5-5.6.  It has greater light transmission capacity ( which helps in focus aquisition, amongst other things) which also means bigger glass ...unfortunately it comes at an increased cost.

...and often at the expense of quality.
Which is less of a problem if your camera's sensor is not full size, and, as such, does not use the lens up to the outer rim.
That's also the reason why that 28mm isn't "28" anymore. In fact: it still is, but only part of it is used.