DSLR Geek

by Patrick Arseneau – I’m finally making the jump to a full frame DSLR. I just ordered the Canon 5D Mark II. Sure I’m pretty happy with the Canon 40D I have now, but I got a chance to play around with someone’s 5D not long ago and I probably shouldn’t have done that. It convinced me to take a chunk out of my budget to get one.

I knew there was a difference between a 1.6 crop (like the 40D) and a full frame sensor but I was still blown away by the margin. Especially with my 16-35mm wide lens. Simply put, cameras with a cropped sensor (most DSLR’s) don’t capture the full width of EF lenses. There are a few reasons for DSLR cameras to have a smaller sensor. Price and size are the two main factors why the market is mostly cropped sensor bodies. Cameras with a full frame sensor are usually bigger, heavier and MUCH more expensive.

The following picture shows the difference between crop and full frame. It also shows why a full frame camera would be useless with an EF-S lens. From that same picture you might also say that an EF lens would be useless with a crop camera but that’s debatable; EF lenses are generally higher quality and much sharper so you still benefit by using them on any camera.

So once I get my hands on the Canon 5D Mark II, I’ll be able to take full advantage of my 16-35mm and 70-200mm lense. Not to mention that it also has full HD video capability. Here’s a nice little review from people who use the 5D: