RJM Loc: Cardiff, S Wales, UK

Sony full frame designation is FE for their full frame lenses.

The E mount crop sensor lenses (from APS-C cameras) will fit the full frame Sony camera and work well.

My question is that will, say for example, a 16mm E mount lens be 16mm on Full frame or will it be 24mm (in full frame equivalent) when fitted on full frame camera?

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

It will be 16mm on either. The question is whether it has a large enough image circle to cover full frame. I would guess not.

Ctrclckws

It would be 16mm on full frame, if the vignetting is not too bad. The field of view equivalent on the aps-c sensor is 24mm for that lens. Sony is like Nikon that way. They present the lens as if it were full frame focal length. It seems that most of the aps-c makers follow this convention. When comparing to an m4/3 camera, Olympus and Panasonic show the correct focal length for their sensor size, and to get to a full frame equivalent, multiply by 2.

Confusing, isn't it.

Mostly just look through the viewfinder and see if what you want is in tje picture.

Ctrclckws

It would be 16mm on full frame, if the vignetting is not too bad. The field of view equivalent on the aps-c sensor is 24mm for that lens. Sony is like Nikon that way. They present the lens as if it were full frame focal length. It seems that most of the aps-c makers follow this convention. When comparing to an m4/3 camera, Olympus and Panasonic show the correct focal length for their sensor size, and to get to a full frame equivalent, multiply by 2.

Confusing, isn't it.

Mostly just look through the viewfinder and see if what you want is in tje picture.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Nikon's interchangable lenses are marked with their a actual focal length.
If it says it's 16mm, that's what it is, whether it's for full frame or APS-C.
Same with Sony. ie: no dumbing down of the numbers.

RJM Loc: Cardiff, S Wales, UK

Thanks for the replies.

I guessed it would probably be the same as marked on the lens, eg 16mm.

I can't see any vignetting but then Sony advertise that their E mount lenses will fully work with full frame mount (FE).

It can be confusing when everything is compared with full frame (as though it's the be all and end all) when there is also MEDIUM FORMAT which is even bigger!

Why call it MEDIUM when FULL FRAME is smaller?????

They do make it hard for us!!!!!!!!!! :)

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

Yes, when I first started with a dSLR, it drove me nuts. While I now understand that the field of view of, say, a 35mm focal length lens on a full frame camera is different than a 35mm focal length lens on a crop frame camera, for practical use, I have thrown the comparisons out the window, and go by what I see in my viewfinder.
The designations "Medium format" and "Full frame" are arbitrary, and when I look at the negatives I've inherited from my in-laws, there are at least 6 different sizes - and 35mm film isn't even included.
I shoot with both the Olympus E-5 and the OM-D E-M1. I can use the lenses from the E-5 with the E-M1 + adapter.
But when I want to take a photo of a bird on top the flagpole in the schoolyard, I know not to grab the 12-40mm lens, I take one of the longer lenses (up to 200 or 300mm) instead.
And I certainly don't stop to think what that is compared to full frame, I just aim, and move the zoom ring till I have what to me is a pleasing composition - and if the other settings are to my liking I press the shutter release button.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

I believe that ALL lenses show the focal length for a full frame sensor - that is a sensor of the same size as a frame of a 35mm film. So, a 16mm lens is still a 16mm lens, whether it is used on a camera with a full frame sensor, a camera with a 4/3 (or micro 4/3 ) sensor, or a camera with an even smaller sensor.
It is the field of view that changes when looking through that lens, NOT the focal length.
To compare what a 4/3 sensor "sees" with what a full frame sensor "sees", you indeed multiply by 2.
With a 16mm focal length lens, your 4/3 sensor will see what a full frame sensor sees through a 32mm lens - but it is still a 16mm lens.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

As stated above, the "E" mount is used by Sony on it's former NEX series of cameras. With the development of the full frame A7/7R/7S series cameras, the lens mount stays the same, but to cover the larger sensor, "FE" (for Full Frame E mount) lenses have been created.

E mount lenses may be used on Full Frame E mounts, but with an image circle only big enough to cover the APS-C sized sensor found in regular E mount.

Fortunately, Sony anticipated this issue and included in their Full Frame cameras the ability to use only that portion of the sensor that will be covered by an image from an E mount lens. Just a push of a button and that FF image is cropped to an APS-C image. You lose a few megapixels, but you get an image that fills the screen. :thumbup:

And, as already stated multiple times above, the focal length of the lens remains the same; a 16mm lens on an E mount camera is STILL 16mm on a FE mount camera.

amehta Loc: Boston

With all interchangeable lenses, the focal length is the focal length, it does not matter what camera they are mounted on. With digital photography, this includes
1. 1"/CX (Nikon 1), 2.7x
2. micro 4/3, 2x
3. APS-C, 1.5x/1.6x
4. full frame, 1x
5. medium format, 0.7x
The focal length is a physical characteristic of the lens alone.

The thing which does depend on the sensor is the field of view. While we should talk about this in terms of angles, that seems to be more difficult, so we talk about "equivalent focal length".

As far as why we scale everything to the "full frame" sensor, that's easy: when digital interchangeable lens cameras were being developed, they are part of existing 35mm systems, the lenses were simply taken from the 35mm film cameras. Even today, a Nikon FX lens can be used on three different size sensors, FX (full frame), DX (APS-C), and CX, so it still makes sense for one of those to be the baseline.

Medium format lenses are generally not used on smaller sensor cameras, so they do not get used as baseline. There are also three "common" medium format sizes, 645, 6x6, and 6x7, so the medium format world doesn't have an internal standard to offer anyway. I think that 35mm is as close to a standard as the film world has ever had, best exemplified by the disaster that was APS. Maybe not "the be all and end all", but the closest thing to a king. :-)

Finally, to the question of why bother: yes, you can simply put a lens on and decide if you like how it looks. But if you actually want to plan your shot, then having a way to know what to expect can help. If someone is only using one sensor size, then it makes sense for them to simply get used to what focal lengths mean what for that size. But if they are going between several sensor sizes (including 1/1.7" and 1/2.3" for compact or bridge cameras), it helps to have a common language. That has become the "effective focal length".

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

Thank you professor Anand. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

dfharper1961

Also keep in mind that with many of the Sony FF cameras if you mount a APS-C lens the camera will default to APS-C. This is the insure the sweet spot of the lens is being used. To my knowledge if your Sony auto defaults to an ASP-C when that mount is used you can't over ride it. (Well, if you can I haven't figured out how to do it on my A850. FYI, I shoot with the A850, The A200, and the NEX-6 and I love being to share the glass between them even if I sometimes have to factor in the crop factor. Happy Shooting!
Dave

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

DITTO with the my a-200, a-550, and a-850.

sentin Loc: SOA, England

The A7R has an APS-C setting of 'on, off, auto.' I leavemine 'off'.
All E mount lenses will vignette to a greater or lesser degree on the A7 series. The same is true of Alpha 'DT' lenses.
Paul

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

^^^Yep.

One push of a button and you can use ANY lens in the Sony/Carl Zeiss Sony/Minolta AF range. ANY.... LENS. (with an adaptor for the A mounts that is.) :thumbup: