Full frame

[Dwig]

In addition, the reason that Canon EF-S lenses can't be mounted onto Canon's 35mm bodies is because the lens extends into the body and would interfere with the mirror. Cookies to whomever can explain why they did this, other than forcing users to not muddle-up the works and use crop lenses on full-frame bodies.

It's simple - aside from the fact that the image circle of the lens would not cover the full sensor ( and thus give massive vignetting) and the fact that most canon FF cameras that I know of don't have a "crop sensor mode" as such - its also forcing people wanting to go fullframe to upgrade to the fullframe glass. Thus ensuring that people do upgrade their glass as well as camera body

Which is a marketing ploy. Still haven't seen any reasoning for the engineering of it....

There is some advantage to being able to design a lens with elements closer to the sensor. How much advantage Canon's optical engineers have made of this is rather questionable. Canon doesn't seem to have pulled of any optical speed or performance advantages over Nikon, which stuck with the old mirror clearance spec.

Since Canon's APS-c bodies use a shorter mirror, something made possible by the smaller focusing screen, its quite possible to do this. Canon chose to tweak the mounting flange to create a slightly different EF-S mount specific to APS-c bodies. The tweak prevents EF-S lenses from fitting EF mount bodies (film and "full frame" digital) but allows EF lenses to fit EF-s bodies.

Canon's major competitor, Nikon, took a different tack. They chose to keep the classic F-mount mirror clearance spec for both their standard lenses and their new DX lenses allowing any mix of lens and body. They choose to leave film users to their own devices for cropping images taken with DX lenses. With their FX digital bodies they automated a crop function where the body senses a DX lens electronically and automatically crops the image to the DX sensor area. There is, of course, a loss of detail (fewer megapixels in the cropped image) but it makes DX lenses usable.

 

[chip]

Lets see. Someone may buy a full frame camera, and have a collection of APS lenses. Someone may be on holiday and like to take the tiny 18-200 lens with them on their D700 to save on carrying weight, or maybe someone really just bought the D700 for lowISO photography and couldn't care less about the 12mpx. Actually what about highspeed crop, does the D3 or the D3s do that? People's priorities may not always be subject to a 12megapixel restraint.

Full frame sensor have low yields. It's a basic question of how many sensor can you fit onto a silicon wafer and how many will get damaged due to manufacturing imperfections end up with wasted silicon. If full frame gets cheaper, then aps gets cheaper. If company A decides it'll just release P&S cameras and full frame cameras, guess what happens? Yeah all people who want to enter photography and may not have the $3000 ($1500 maybe by then?) to spend will go to Company B. Shortly after Company A's CEO gets fired for the worst decision in manufacturing history. APS is here to stay, as are the tiny tiny little sensors in P&S cameras that actually permit them to create lenses the size of a 10c piece.

Good day Garbz. Time will tell if crop frame DSLRs will go away. The electronic world is changing so rapidly that full frame yield should not be an issue for long. Every 3 years we see a whole new generation of DSLRs with twice the features of the outgoing models and at half the selling prices. It is indeed amazing how competitive the market is and how fast the camera companies are able to crank out new products. So my bet is all DSLRs will be full frame eventually. If I were to buy a full frame camera I would definitely not put a crop frame lens on it. I want to maximize my investment by taking full advantage of the full frame sensor. So I guess I agree with Canon's engineers for making their FF DSLRs incompatible with their EF-S lenses.

 

[The_Traveler]

One of the downsides of FX is that the good new FX Nikon lenses are very, very costly (although superb).

The upside of Nikon bodies is that you can mount any Nikon lens made in the last ~60 years. Many of these lenses can be chipped to make them very functional.

 

[EOS_JD]

Canon also have 1.3x crop cameras (APS-H I think) - So forget the reference to just FF 35mm cameras.

There are EF lenses for ALL Canon cameras and

EF-S lenses for the APS-C (1.6x crop) cameras

 

[Joves]

Good day Garbz. Time will tell if crop frame DSLRs will go away. The electronic world is changing so rapidly that full frame yield should not be an issue for long. Every 3 years we see a whole new generation of DSLRs with twice the features of the outgoing models and at half the selling prices. It is indeed amazing how competitive the market is and how fast the camera companies are able to crank out new products. So my bet is all DSLRs will be full frame eventually. If I were to buy a full frame camera I would definitely not put a crop frame lens on it. I want to maximize my investment by taking full advantage of the full frame sensor. So I guess I agree with Canon's engineers for making their FF DSLRs incompatible with their EF-S lenses.

I have to disagree. There is a niche that loves and, uses cropped sensors and, it is a large one. Wildlife shooter to name just one. Also the smaller sensors mean more units per wafer so more money. That will never change, no matter what the technology does.

 

[Village Idiot]

Canon also have 1.3x crop cameras (APS-H I think) - So forget the reference to just FF 35mm cameras.

There are EF lenses for ALL Canon cameras and

EF-S lenses for the APS-C (1.6x crop) cameras

10D has an APS-C sensor and doesn't take EF-S lenses.

 

[ErectedGryphon]

Canon also have 1.3x crop cameras (APS-H I think) - So forget the reference to just FF 35mm cameras.

There are EF lenses for ALL Canon cameras and

EF-S lenses for the APS-C (1.6x crop) cameras

10D has an APS-C sensor and doesn't take EF-S lenses.

The 10D was designed around the lens tecnology of its day, APS-C lenses,the EF-S mounts, weren't even a consideration back then.