Newbie question about L lenses

john starkey

john starkey

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Hi all,as a complete novice can someone explain to me the effect of useing L lenses on none full frame canon slrs ,aslo is it worth useing L lenses on cameras like the 450d,500d,50d,and so on,
sorry if this has been covered before,
regards john.
 
It's been talked about before - and quite recently I think.... have a search for L glass on a 450D.


Your first question is an odd one - there's no difference in using an L series lens to using any other lens on a crop-sensor camera. The L designation is about build quality, optical quality and weather sealing. They're EF mounts just like most of the other lenses Canon produce and will all happily fit a crop body.
It's the EF-S lenses that can't be used on full-frame, not the other way around.

The things to remember with crop sensors is that they do alter how a lens behaves....
The field of view will be as though you are using a longer lens so a 50mm prime on a Canon 400D (a 1.6x crop) will behave like an 80mm on a full frame sensor.
You also gain around 1-stop of depth-of-field so that f1.8 aperture won't be as shallow on a crop sensor as it would be on a full-frame.
You also avoid any potential vignetting since the sensor is only capturing the central area.

Because of those factors the the crop sensors are popular for wildlife and motorsport where the extra reach the sensor gives the lens is beneficial. You'll see plenty of people using L series lenses in these sectors!


The second question is generally a big yes... it's pretty common to upgrade your glass before you upgrade your camera body and since the lenses are interchangable you're not going to lose out either. I use a 400D and have a 70-200 L f4 on it... I'd love the f2.8 version though because of the dof issue I mentioned above.
 
john starkey said:
Thanks for the indepth reply incapete,I was looking at L lenses as if they are meant for ff cameras only,sorry for being such an idiot,
regards john.
Click to expand...

No such thing as being such an idiot mate.
I've made a huge idiot out of myself for asking silly questions, and I was always told that it's the only way to learn!

L lenses are as good as it gets.
Pure class, solid build quality, and sharp as.
 
john starkey said:
Thanks for the indepth reply incapete,I was looking at L lenses as if they are meant for ff cameras only,sorry for being such an idiot,
regards john.
Click to expand...

No worries mate - it's not being an idiot anyway... you just weren't familiar with them!

A lot of people think that full frame is the best (not necessarily) and that L lenses are the best (pretty true!) so they must be made for each other. You can get great results with L glass on nearly any body - you just don't get the extra features like low-noise high-ISO processing or weather-sealing.
 
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