Hmm

I've given my view on why I have an EF-S Lens (chose it with my 40D) but went onto say that I'd stick with EF if buying 'expensive' lenses as I like them to last if FF was my next body.

Somewhere down the line 'L' lenses came into it.......?

EF and EF-S is a size thing as far as I'm concerned.

'L' (is a different topic) = a big step in quality - nothing to do with sensor size.

Should have perhaps added something I read the other day regarding FF

FF relates to a sensor = to 35mm.

Why spend money on lenses like EF-S designed for smaller sensors if the future is FF.

That's what this thread is all about up to know and it's something that I've been aware of but..........

Guess what.........

Full frame (don't get too hung up the 'full' part) as sensors will continue to go beyond 35mm.

Left me feeling like my L dream was clouded.

Getting FF lenses first entails spending thousands of pounds on a suitable camera . So lets start with that. NIKON D700 = £1800 - Canon 5D =£1800 plus spare batteries etc. That is just the entry level.

Ok now lets add FF lens which must start around the £800 (I am guessing here) making the total cost for the basic FF setup with just one lens £2800.

For a top of range pro kit around £25k and thats without a studio lighting setup.

To get a somewhat decent kit together you must be looking at around £5k at very least.

Either you are a professional photographer or have inherited a fortune, this is not for the average keen hobbiest/amature photographer at least in the UK.

Bazza

Sorry, I read through the post again but do not see that I am taking anything out of context. I normally only quote the relevant parts of the post I am referring to, else you get posts which contain inordinately long quotes and only a small amount of actual content

This is fair enough. it is your opinion and you are entitled to it.

As we have discussed before, no EF-S lens is ever given the designation L even though some of the photo's they produce are of comparable quality to the L series lenses. I am not talking about weather sealing or build quality, simply the actual quality of the photo's they produce. If people are careful with their lenses and don't take them out in wet weather then you need to weigh up how much the last two points matter to you.

Ah sorry, in your original post you didn't mention cheaper EF-S lor EF lenses. That would make more sense to the second part I quoted, it just seemed odd to me that you would state in one line that EF-S lenses are comparable in price to L lenses then immediately follow it by talking about people on budgets. I can only respond to what I read in the post, not what you are possibly infering I completely agree, I personally wouldn't buy the cheaper EF-S or EF lenses either. However there are some very good mid range EF lenses that are worthy of consideration

Yes and I can see this, however how many people that consider going FF actually do? For some it takes years before they actually go FF, so I wouldn't expect them to discount EF-S lenses simply because they might go FF 'at some point'. Obviously I would not recommend people only buy EF-S lenses, but the odd one or two speciality lenses (Macro, Wide Angle), well I can't see a problem with that

It was simply because some EF-S lenses are comparable in price to some L lenses, however you are correct - an EF-S/EF discussion should be about the size, not the quality of L lenses (as the vast majority of EF lenses do not compare to L lenses either!).

Well even some of the Canon 1 series cameras use a cropped sensor (and yes I am fully aware that the 1 series can not use EF-S lenses before anyone decides to pick up on that point ).

I completely agree with you Bazza, for the vast majority of amateur photographers, FF camera are out of their budget.

Not quite, any EF lens will fit on a FF camera (even ones like the cheap 50mm f1.8 which you can pick up for £60). I personally wouldn't buy a FF camera then put cheap lenses on the front of it but that option is still there

GH

I was only talking about lenses which are made for full frame cameras. Agree you could fit other lenses, but there would be no point, as it would defeat the object of buying such a camera in the first place.

it would be like buying a Rolls Royce and putting BMW mini wheels on it.

Bazza

In Canon they don't make lenses that only fit (or are solely made for) FF cameras per se. It might be different for Nikon - this is where we are talking from different perspectives . Canon make EF lenses which fit all cameras (no matter what the sensor size) and EF-S lenses which will only fit cameras with an APS-C size cropped sensor.

I'm a complete newbie to the DSLR world so please correct me if I'm talking rubbish, but I haven't seen anybody mention what to me is the most obvious point: the change in effective focal length when you take your full-frame compatible lens off a crop body and put it on an FF body.

Even if you buy FF-compatible lenses to give you a good "working set" in the crop sensor world, you may find that when you go FF you're still going to have to buy replacements or complementary lenses to give you the same effective working set.

Or am I missing something?

The crop factor means you only use the centre of the lenses (effectively)

Lets use a 100mm lens as an example (to make the maths easy for me lol)

On any Canon body that is not FF you will get a crop factor of 1.6. So the image will look like an image taken on a FF body with a 160mm lens.

However, If you upgrade to a FF body, you get the whole image, so it will look wider. But you don't have to replace your lenses, if you want the same effect, just crop the image in PS (or whatever software you use) and it will look the same.

Alan.

No you aren't and this is a very valid point you have raised

For example my 300mm lens gives me an effective length of 480mm on my cropped sensor - if I got used to having that much range and then went FF, I would need to purchase a 500mm lens to get the same distance (which would certainly cost a rather significant sum of money!).