Wide angle is an expensive pain in the a.s with 1.6x  crop factor
bodies.

Unless you buy EF-S lenses.

Yeah, pretty much.

Full frame bodies suffer from vignetting, so it's not all roses their
either.    

I just dropped $1250 o nthe EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens.  Before doing so
I thought long and hard about perhaps a jump to full frame, but
ultimately decided against it.  

First, I also don't see full frame bodies ever getting cheaper.
Electronics historically get cheaper because more functionality can be
packed onto a chip that's smaller because every genreation of wafer
fabrication, transitors can get smaller.   In wafer fabrication, area
is money.  You can make the chip smaller, things get cheaper.

But here's the bitch of full frame imaging: by definition, a full
frame camera needs a 24x36mm sensor area, and that'll never change.
And the pressures of technology will keep putting more and more pixels
on that area, so wafer fabricaiton complexity goes up while the area
stays constant, so the cost of that sensor actually keeps increasing.
The peripheral electronics can get less expensive and more highly
integrated, but the sensor is the bulk of the cost because it remains
goddamned hard to fabricate anything as huge as 24x36mm in an advanced
IC fabrication process without having a defect.  

So unless you make a LOT of money shooting wide angle, it's really
tough to justify full frame digital.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.  
http://www.toddh.net/

And conversely, APS-sized cameras give you an edge in the telephoto
department.  Personally, I'm *much* more interested in that than in
doing better at the wide end of the range.  There has *never* been a
time when I looked through the viewfinder using an 18mm lens on my 1.5X
crop factor *istDS and said to myself, "gee, I wish I could get more
into this scene."  But it's almost a daily occurence that I'll stick a
50-200mm lens on, zoom all the way in on a subject, and say, "damn, I
wish I could get closer", stick on a 1.5 TC, and *still* wish I could
get closer.

Another two-sided coin here has to do with 50mm lenses.  These are
virtually always the cheapest high quality & *fast* lenses you can get.
For me personally, 50mm in "full frame" (~ 35mm for me) is not a focal
length I often find useful, especially in the situations where I'm most
interested in the wider aperture provided by the 50mm lens versus the
"kit" lens (portraits and low light shots - mostly concerts).  But 50mm
on an APS-sized camera like mine turns into a decent portrait lens - at
least, for "environmental" portraits - and one capable of isolating one
musician on a stage if I'm close enough.  Stick a 1.5 TC on, and it is
still a very fast lens, and still sharp enough to be useful for those
same purposes, only now I have something like a "real" portrait
perspective, and can isolate a muician on a stage that much better
(although a 135, 200, or 200+1.5TC might still be useful for facial
closeups).  Of course, someone whose shooting habits are different might
prefer the filed of view provided by the 50 on a full frame camera.

There is also a depth-of-field issue that cuts both ways.  A 50 on my
camera is equivalent to a 75 on a full frame camera in terms of
field-of-view, but not in terms of depth-of-field: mine is deeper at the
same aperture.  I consider this a slight advantage at some times (when
I'm not relying on shallow DOF effects and find the deeper field easier
to get into focus), but a slight disadvantage at others (when I would
like the shallow DOF for effect but would also like to stop down the
lens a bit for sharpness, and can't have it both ways).  Actually, this
is such a minor concern, I rarely even think about it, but it could be
significant for some, again, depending on shooting habits.

One other factor to consider: a larger sensor, all else being equal,
will tend to be less noisy than a smaller sensor.  This is a clear win
for full frame, of course.

---------------
Marc Sabatella
marc@outsideshore.com

Music, art,  & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/

Not quite.  The viewfinder of a full-frame camera will typically be
larger and brighter than that of a cropped-frame alternative.  This is a
definite advantage.

Also, the depth-of-field given will be different, with a full frame
camera giving shorter depths of field for the similar framing.  This can
be an advantage (better background blurring) or disadvantage (less DOF
in macro shots) depending upon individual circumstances.

e.g. EOS 30D (cropped frame) with 50mm lens, f/2.8, 3 metres to subject
gives a total depth of field of 0.38m

An EOS 5D with 80mm lens, the same f/2.8 and 3 metre subject distance
will give a total depth of field of 0.23m

(above data from http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html)

Ian

Here's the rude bit:  If you have to ask the question, then the 1.6x is
probably fine for you.

Others will answer questions about wide angle issues (dimming towards
edges/corners) and cost.

Also consider the superior noise performance of the larger sensor for a
given pixel count.

In the end the 1.5 / 1.6 X sensors @ 8 Mpix and up do very well for
prints ranging to 15 x 10 inches.  With skill, fine lenses, tripod and
good photoshop technique, this is pushed to beyond 24 x 16 inches (and
larger still if you don't stand too close to the print.

Cheers,
Alan

Not only wide angle, but also other lenses, especially zoom range.
E.g., 70-200/2.8 IS works for indoor portrait on full frame, but on
1.6x it is too long. EF 45-135/2.8 would work better, or maybe even a
shorter EF-S but not retrofocus wide angle.

http://digitcamera.tripod.com/#slr

Pretty much but narrower DOF with FF.     But the price of FF is the deal
killer. If I really need FF,  I will just shoot with my 35mm SLR.

Patrick