Full sensor vs not

[kat]

What do you use?

What is the difference, is there that much of one?

I haven't used any other camera but my own..hence the questioning.

[tirediron]

Both; for day-to-day work, there isn't a lot of difference except in the viewfinder; a full-frame viewfinder tends to be much brighter. One of the main benefits of a "full size" sensor is less noise, since the individual pixels can be larger. This translates into [generally] better low-light performance. The big plus to the APS-C (crop) format and the reason that there will always be one in my bag as long as they make them is the crop factor. A 400mm 2.8 with a 1.7TC becomes something in the arear of a 1000mm f4.

[Mad Aussie]

A 400mm 2.8 with a 1.7TC becomes something in the arear of a 1000mm f4.

Not sure Kat (and many others) will understand that.

Kat ... my camera is a crop factor sensor. It has a multiply factor of 1.6. Nikon is usually 1.5. A full frame camera is 0.

What this means to you is quite simple ... if you shoot with the 10mm lens on a 1.6 crop camera ... you are not getting a 10mm shot. Multiply that 10mm by 1.6 and you are shooting with 16mm. So with a full frame camera I'd be shooting with 10mm and getting 10mm. A disadvantage here having a crop factor.

On the other end of the scale though my 400mm zoom gives me 640mm zoom. With a full frame it's just 400mm.
What TI was saying above is with his crop factor camera and using his 400mm with a 1.7 teleconvertor attached he gets 1000mm (a little over actually) focal length.

[kat]

Not sure Kat (and many others) will understand that.

Kat ... my camera is a crop factor sensor. It has a multiply factor of 1.6. Nikon is usually 1.5. A full frame camera is 0.

What this means to you is quite simple ... if you shoot with the 10mm lens on a 1.6 crop camera ... you are not getting a 10mm shot. Multiply that 10mm by 1.6 and you are shooting with 16mm. So with a full frame camera I'd be shooting with 10mm and getting 10mm. A disadvantage here having a crop factor.

On the other end of the scale though my 400mm zoom gives me 640mm zoom. With a full frame it's just 400mm.
What TI was saying above is with his crop factor camera and using his 400mm with a 1.7 teleconvertor attached he gets 1000mm (a little over actually) focal length.

Kay..that makes total sense.

I hate trying to figure out what is best to get.. If I had all the money I'd for surely have three camera bases and a load of lenses....

[Mad Aussie]

Kay..that makes total sense.

I hate trying to figure out what is best to get.. If I had all the money I'd for surely have three camera bases and a load of lenses....

I intend to do what TI has done .... progress through the crop factor cameras but keep it when I get a full frame so I have the best of both worlds.

[zenon5940]

One thing to consider Kat is the lenses you own... if you go to a full sensor, they wil not be useful for full frame.

So if you buy a D700 from Nikon for instance you have to get new lenses.

[kat]

I only got the one usable lens so that I am not worried about.

[AntZ]

One thing to consider Kat is the lenses you own... if you go to a full sensor, they wil not be useful for full frame.

So if you buy a D700 from Nikon for instance you have to get new lenses.

I can't talk for Nikon, but for Canon it will depend on the lens. The EF-S lenses are crop sensors only and you do not need to multiply by the crop factor. EF lenses work on both but the focal length is multiplied by the crop factor.

I have 3 lenses, 2 of which will be fine if I were to upgrade to a Full Frame sensor.

[Mad Aussie]

The EF-S lenses are crop sensors only and you do not need to multiply by the crop factor.

I didn't know that!

[Mad Aussie]

Actually maybe not AntZ ...

How does this relate to EF and EF-S lenses? EF lenses were designed for film. They are built assuming that they are going to focus your image on an area the size of 35mm film. For Digital Rebel owners, this is great if you're trying to shoot telephoto images because you get all that extra artificial zoom for free. This is very bad, though, if you're trying to shoot wide angle. A 16mm lens suddenly acts like a 26mm lens.

Canon's solution to this problem was to design a new type of lens for the smaller digital sensor size and they've called these lenses EF-S lenses. EF-S lenses try to get rid of the major downside of the crop factor: reduced wideangle. They accomplish this by positioning the lens closer to the digital sensor.

Important things you need to know about EF-S lenses:

* You still use the 1.6x multiplier when evaluating the field of view for EF-S lenses. The 10-22mm EF-S lens gets zoomed up to a 16-35mm lens. You may think it's a bit confusing at first that a lens designed specifically for the crop factor still has to have the multiplier used, but it's consistent: always use the multipler.

And this is very good ...

Lenses designed for the smaller digital formats include Canon EF-S lenses, Nikon DX lenses, Olympus Four Thirds System lenses, Sigma DC lenses, Tamron Di-II lenses, Pentax DA lenses, and Sony Alpha (SAL) DT lenses. Such lenses usually project a smaller image circle than lenses that were designed for the full-frame 35 mm format. Nevertheless, the crop factor or FLM of a camera has the same effect on the relationship between field of view and focal length with these lenses as with any other lens, even though the projected image is not as severely "cropped". In this sense, the term crop factor sometimes has confusing implications; the alternative term "focal length multiplier" is sometimes used for this reason.