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Made for full frame?

stevet1
Authority
Authority

Earlier, I ran across a lens and in it's description, it said, "made for full frame cameras".

Can I use that lens on a crop sensor camera?

It was not a Canon lens. It was a third party lens.

Steve Thomas

3 REPLIES 3

p4pictures
Authority
Authority

The "made for full frame" label indicates that the lens was designed to be used on a full-frame camera. A camera with a smaller APS-C sized sensor would be able to work with a full-frame lens. 

For example in the Canon line up for mirrorless cameras there is an RF 50mm F1.8 STM lens it fits/works on both full-frame and crop cameras. Equally for DSLR, and EF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens will fit/work on both full frame and crop cameras.

Since this is a third party lens, they often made lenses for crop cameras that would physically fit on a full-frame DSLR camera, but would only cover the central APS-C sized area of the image sensor resulting in significant vignetting. 


Brian
EOS specialist trainer, photographer and author
-- Note: my spell checker is set for EN-GB, not EN-US --

ebiggs1
Legend
Legend

"Can I use that lens on a crop sensor camera?"

The answer is, yes, but even that answer has some caveats. The nice thing about owning a cropper is it can use either or, or both types, of lenses so it really doesn't mean anything to you. You see most of the naming used on lenses comes from the advertising department. They tend to get a bit lose and carried away with the words and their meaning. All lenses are full frame meaning they will show you exactly what you will get in your VF or LCD and the frame will be full.  And all lenses will always be exactly what they are no matter what camera from large format, medium format, 35mm or crop sensor they are used on.

On the other hand if you own a so-called FF camera some lenses may not offer a full frame view. Most of the time they won't mount but sometimes they will. However, that doesn't mean the lens is anything different than what it says in its name. It is not. In this case since the lens can't change so what does? The focus distance that the lens offers is what is different and why it can not fill a FF sensor.

 

Remember a lens is a lens and will always be that lens.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

stevet1
Authority
Authority

Okay.

Thanks guys.

Steve

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