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2

I recently bought a Nikon D90 camera body, which has a "DX" APS-C-sized sensor..

Within the same budget, should I go with DX lenses or should I get full frame lenses in case I upgrade to a full frame body in the future, when they become more prevalent?

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3  
The D90 is a great body. That's what I have and I love it. :) – Reid Jul 19 '10 at 1:53

4 Answers

up vote 41 down vote accepted

The price you pay for using FX lenses on DX is bigger and heavier lenses and less appropriate focal lengths.

The core question you should be asking is: Why do you want to upgrade to full frame? Image quality in DX is superb and getting better. FX bodies have better low-light ability, but DX will be just as good; it just lags a few years. The higher resolution is a factor only if you have both great lenses and great tripod support - i.e., very few people. FX bodies will always be larger and heavier, and DX will be with us as long as F-mount is. Unless you can articulate a specific, good reason for an eventual FX upgrade path, stick with DX.

Finally, keep in mind that lenses retain their value very well. If you can sell a lens for 70-80% of what it cost you, why not just buy the most appropriate lenses and sell them if they become inappropriate?

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Yeah, that last paragraph is the best advice. For example, don't hesitate on a 10-24 just because you might have a full-frame camera in 2 years. – Bobby Ketchum Jul 19 '10 at 2:55
Seems like a possibility that DX cameras/lenses might go by the way side eventually. (3? 5? 7? 10? years). So that tride and true 80% lens resale value might not be as rock solid. Still, I'd go for the DX unless you're oozing money. – Jody Aug 11 '10 at 1:48
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@Jody, I think that's unlikely; DX cameras will always be smaller and cheaper to make than FX ones. And there's even a growing body of smaller sensors (4/3). Thus, IMO it's highly unlikely that DX will disappear. – Reid Aug 11 '10 at 2:20
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Indeed, according to Wikipedia, a full frame sensor is 864 mm^2, while my D5000 has an area of 371.3 mm^2. Since the probability a defect is proportional to sensor area, that means a full frame sensor is more than twice as likely to be a reject as my D5000's DX sensor (assuming rejects are by total dead pixel count). Also, the manufacturing process should be able to put more than twice as many DX sensors on a single wafer. Both of these points are physical reasons why DX will always be cheaper than FX. – Benjamin Cutler Jan 27 '11 at 17:47
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The point there assumes that there are fields of view which are more desirable than others, and FX lenses are designed to deliver those fields of view on FX; on DX, the same lenses will give narrower fields of view. For an extreme example, you'd never put a 200mm lens on a compact camera: it would be far too long. The same effect happens with an FX lens on DX; it's just not so extreme. – Reid Jan 19 '12 at 15:44
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up vote 7 down vote

That depends on how likely it is that you will get a full frame camera, but also on what lens you buy. If you buy a cheap lens, it's likely that you want to upgrade the lens anyway if you get a better camera.

Another aspect is how the lenses work with the camera you have now. With a full frame lens you will get much less vignetting, and also better edge sharpness. Lenses are worst at the edges, so with a smaller sensor you use the best part of the lens.

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The right question isn't "are you using the best part of the lens" but "is the lens good enough in relevant parts of the frame" - similar, but it's an important subtlety IMO. A little vignetting (which can be eliminated by stopping down) and edge softness are usually not a problem. – Reid Jul 19 '10 at 1:55
@Reid: I didn't write it so exactly that it can be taken out of it's context like that. The meaning is of course "you are avoiding the worst part of the lens", which should be obvious from the context. – Guffa Jul 19 '10 at 2:14
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The point I was trying to make is: there's no reason to avoid the "worst" part of the lens if the worst parts are good enough. No reason to maximize - satisfice. I don't think I misinterpreted the context. – Reid Jul 19 '10 at 2:21
up vote 2 down vote

With Nikon at least, recently I've been disappointed with the range of DX-specific lenses available. It seems Nikon are treating DX more as a second class citizen. When you look at the range of lenses available in DX and compare it to their FX range, the DX ones tend to be slower, more plasticky, and more zooms than primes - in other words, more targeted at amateurs. There are of course exceptions like the good (and expensive) 17-55, but there are no fast normal primes or wide primes in DX-only, apart from one 35mm which is not a particularly good performer for a prime.

It's fine if you only want kit lenses or inexpensive superzooms but this got me thinking about how with Nikon, I'd have to move up at least to FX lenses, if not FX all together (since FX lenses don't have appropriate focal lengths on DX bodies) if I really wanted to go further with my photography. And I doubt that real photographers would want to pay good money for my DX lenses for that reason.

Which ended up in me switching to Olympus/Panasonic, who don't treat their cropped sensor size (4/3) as a second class citizen and already have a number of high quality normal/wide primes for their sensor size, but that's another story.

I guess my point is that the DX/FX issue is more an effect of who Nikon and Canon target these devices at rather than the techical merits of the sensor size. DX (indeed, any APS-C or even 4/3) sensors themselves are technically excellent, it's just that Nikon/Canon target them to a lesser-experienced audience.

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up vote 1 down vote

There's no "right" answer to this question. Other than the fact that DX only works on the APS-C (crop factor) bodies, there really aren't any global differences between the DX lenses and any other.

If you think you'll be getting a full-frame body in the future, I'd definitely skip the DX lenses. If you don't have that in your plans, get the DX lenses if they meet your needs.

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