# Hello my first post with a stupid question



## killallthattry (Oct 7, 2012)

Ok so hello and thank you for hearing me out.  I have a question about the Canon EOS60D and the L lenses.  I know that the 60D is not a full frame camera.  Will a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens make my camera take full frame photos?  This interests me because I talked about it with a photographer today at a party but he couldn't fully explain.  I noticed that when I take photos with my kit lens and put them on the TV they do not cover the whole screen. Someone please explain.....


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## ronlane (Oct 7, 2012)

I can't answer to the second part but no the 24-105 will not take ff pictures unless it is on a ff camera.


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## enzodm (Oct 8, 2012)

It's the camera that takes full frame or APS-C pictures. 
However such lens can be put also on a full frame camera (some other not, e.g., the 18-55 kit lens).

Your last problem has nothing to do with full frame/cropped. Full frame refers to the sensor size. Most likely your TV is 16:9, while pictures are 3:2 so they will never fill the TV frame in the horizontal sense, exactly like old 4:3 Tv shows.


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## Dao (Oct 8, 2012)

Full frame, in general it is referring to the size of the recording medium, such as your camera sensor, is equal to the size of the 35mm film.  So when a camera equip with a sensor that is as big as the 35mm film, we call it full frame sensor.   The size of the sensor of your 60D camera is smaller when compare with the 35mm film. Therefore it can only capture the smaller area of the image cast by the lens.   In other words, the field of view is narrower.

As a result, it does not matter what lens you mount on your camera, the area of the image being capture is going to be the same.  In your case, it is always smaller than the 35mm film size or full frame.


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## bratkinson (Oct 8, 2012)

My 24-105 f4 L is my 'main lens' on my 60D. It works perfectly. 

The only 'difference' between mounting the 'full frame' 24-105 on my 60D vs mounting the lens on a full frame body such as a 5D iii is that the outer 'border' of the image produced by the 24-105 does not get 'sensed' as the sensor is smaller than the image. This would be no different than taking the same picture with a full frame camera, printing it, and then cropping (cutting off) roughly 15% away from each of the 4 sides of the printed picture. Another way to think of it is to take a picture of a house at a specific focal length on the lens, say 24mm, you would have to be further back from the house with the 60D than with a 5D iii to get the entire house into the picture.

In my estimation, crop bodied cameras are needlessly 'looked down upon' and derided by those with full body cameras. All without justification, in my book. Crop body cameras produce quality pictures no different than full body cameras. Except at online at forums like this one, I have no thoughts whatsoever about my using a crop body camera. I don't fret that 'oh, this would be better if I had a full body camera' or anything like that. When I have the image I want to capture in the viewfinder, I take the picture.


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## TCampbell (Oct 8, 2012)

A camera lens collects light, focuses it, and projects an image into the camera body.  The lens is round so the image that it projects into the camera body is also round.  BUT... the camera sensor is rectangular.  The sensor is located smack in the middle of the image circle being projected into the camera body by the lens.

If you had a "full frame" camera body, then the sensor measures 24x36mm or about 43mm diagonally.  So the image circle being project in by the lens needs to be at least 43mm in diameter to cover the size of the sensor.

On a "crop frame" camera body, the sensor measures about 15x22mm (the original APS-C was slightly larger) or about 27mm diagonally.  

When an "EF" lens is projecting an image into your camera body and that image is 43mm across, but YOUR camera records the central area of it which is 27mm across, that just means that some of the image is "spilling off" the sides of the sensor and not being recorded.  Your camera does not actually know this, however... it has no idea that there is any part of the image that was spilling off the sides.  The area that it records on the sensor is the whole image as far as your camera is concerned.

Canon makes another series called the "EF-S" series.  These lenses take advantage of the fact that the camera sensor only needs an image circle with a 27mm diameter.  The lenses are a bit smaller, lighter, and less expensive and yet they can STILL deliver quality just as good as the larger lenses.  They simply don't bother to use lens elements large enough to create a 43mm image circle... why bother when the sensor couldn't record that part of the image anyway.

Canon makes an EF 50mm f/1.4 lens.  Now suppose Canon _also_ made an EF-S 50mm f/1.4 lens (they don't... but suppose they did.)  The "EF-S" version would be more compact.  But when you switch between the two lenses on your 60D camera body, you would not notice ANY difference at all with respect to the size of the image or the angle of view.  It's just that the "EF" lens is also capable of working on a full-frame body and if you used a full-frame body you'd see that the lens sees a larger area than you were previously aware.

Your TV screen is a different story and this has to do with aspect ratios.  

The camera sensor has a 2 X 3 aspect ratio.  That means for every 1mm tall, it's 1.5mm wide.  When I gave you the 15x22 dimensions, I rounded the numbers.  The actual numbers are 14.9 x 22.3.

A TV, on the other hand, used to be 3 X 4.  That means that for every 1mm tall, it's only 1.33mm wide.   Modern TV's may be 16 X 9.

Unless the dimensions of the TV screen are an exact ratio for the dimensions of the camera image, then one of two things must happen:  (1) to fit the "whole" image on the screen, it has to leave black space either above & below the image OR left & right of the image (depending on the aspect ratio of the TV) , or (2) it has to "crop off" some part of the camera image in order to completely fill the TV screen.

You will probably discover a similar issue when you want to have images printed.  If the dimensions of the print exactly match the 2x3 aspect ratio of the camera, then no problem.  But if the image does NOT exactly match the dimensions of the camera (say you want an 8x10 print... which works out to a 4x5 aspect ratio) you'll notice that part of the image has to be cropped to fit the frame.


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