So we often get asked is it okay to use a full frame lens on a crop sensor and
heard many people wondering which one they should buy for their sony aps-c
mirrorless camera body so there's a lot of confusion out there about what the
difference is between full-frame lenses and aps-c lenses now in this video we're
going to show you the difference between these two types of lenses how it affects
the field of view and how it may affect image quality stay tuned as you may know
Sony makes mirrorless cameras with aps-c sensors and full-frame cameras now the
a6000 series has an aps-c size sensor so that would be the a6000 6300
6400 hundred and 6500 hundred the full-frame series are
the a7 a7r a7s as well as the flagship a9. Sony has a full lineup of lenses
that are designed to be used with either the aps-c sensor bodies or the
full-frame sensor bodies what happens when you switched up you're about to
find out so for this we'll be using the a 6400
and the a7 III to illustrate the difference between these types of lenses
on the lens itself you'll see that it says amount in white lettering near the
barrel the lens now all lenses for the Sony mirrorless cameras say Emount on
them referring to the physical amount of a lens lenses that are specifically
designed for a full-frame are gonna say FE in front of the focal length and
this can be found on the barrel of the lens in front of the focal length of the
lens itself now it can also be found on the front of the lens inscribed in a
circle around the glass helmet an important thing to understand when
comparing a full frame lens and a lens designed for aps-c sensors is that the
focal length does not change so this 35 millimeter lens this 35 millimeter F 2.8
FE lens and the 35 millimeter F 1.8 E mount share the same focal
length but their apparent field of view will be different when comparing them
side by side the 35 f1.8 on the a6400 will have a narrower field of view than
the FE version on the a7 mark 3 now when you hear people talking about the crop
factor it's actually going to refer to when you mount an
FE lens or full frame lens onto a camera like the a 6400 that doesn't have
a full-frame sensor as I mentioned the focal length isn't changing the field of
view will be like that of an E mount lens but what's happening inside is a
bit different all the lenses project an image circle and the size of the image
circle depends on the format of the lens so Fe lenses are gonna project a larger
image circle then that of the e-mount lenses and when you attach an Fe lens to
an a6400 the additional information that the lens projects onto the sensor
will be cropped out hence the crop factor everybody is talking about now
lenses designed for the aps-c size sensor will project a smaller circle or
just enough to fill the smaller sensor which tends to make the lens is smaller
and more affordable this is great for people who want to carry around a
smaller camera kit now once again a 35 millimeter is always a 35 millimeters
the focal length doesn't change what changes is the field of view if you want
to figure out the equivalent field of view when comparing the two cameras
multiply the focal length by 1.5 times now when you do this the apparent field
of view of the 35 millimeter lens on and a 6400 will be equivalent to that of a
52.5 millimeter on the a7 mark 3 some say that using a full frame lens on an
aps-c body has its benefits because you're only using the center portion of
the image projected onto the sensor hence you discard our crop out the edges
of the image circle which tend to be the weakest portions of the lens now the
edges are typically where you would see the lens distortion lens flare and
chromatic aberration this point is debatable and we have not done serious
tests yet to prove this but I'd like to hear your responses now perhaps this is
something you should decide by looking at the lens itself overall the size
price maximum aperture and optical quality that being said Sony allows you
to mount aps-c lenses on full frame bodies but that comes at a loss of
resolution on something like the a7 mark 3 which is a 24 megapixel camera when
you shoot in a super 35mm Crom bowed you're only gonna yield about
10 megapixels. So should you stick the lenses that are designed for your camera
sensor I would say not necessarily when you need extreme telephoto Sony only
offers a 55 to 210 so that's where I would recommend using either the FE 70
to 300 100 of 400 or even the new Fe 200 to 600 millimeter lens now if you're
shooting 4k on the a7r Mark 3 that would be a terrific opportunity to use the
crop sensor lenses because the camera performs best in the super 35 millimeter
crop mode now one of the advantages of having smaller lenses is that they
balance better on a handheld gimbal when recording video also a lot of
photographers I talked to will purchase full-frame lenses for their aps-c sensor
bodies because you know what they know they are gonna want to switch the
full-frame in the future and there are more lenses to choose from Sony is
currently offering 17 lenses designed for aps-c and thirty lenses designed for
full frame so what lenses do you tend to use on
your Sony camera full frame or aps-c I'd love to hear your experiences using
different Sony lenses so please leave your feedback comments and questions in
the description box below if this video helped you understand give us a thumbs
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video