Can you use a Nikon DX lens on an FX body without cropping?
Asked 10/25/2015
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I use a Nikon D3100 with the AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G and know my current camera has a 1.5x crop factor. If I upgrade to a full-frame Nikon FX body, can I disable DX crop mode and use the full sensor with a DX lens? If so, what happens to the image, and is there any way to get a wider field of view from a DX lens on an FX camera for landscape photography?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
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On a full-frame (FX) Nikon camera, you can turn the Auto DX crop setting to Off and this will keep the camera from cropping the image. It's not a pseudo-crop, btw, it's actually cropping--that is, all the pixels on the FX sensor that are outside the area of a DX sensor are ignored. But. What you'll get is severe vignetting.
The reason the DX auto crop mode exists is that DX lenses are designed to project an image circle that's smaller than that of an FX lens. It's large enough to cover a DX sensor, but it's too small to cover an FX sensor. You'll get black corners and edges. You'll see the edges of the image circle inside your sensor's rectangle, rather than getting a rectangular image.
See: https://photographylife.com/using-nikon-dx-lenses-on-fx-cameras for example images of what the 35/1.8 looks like on a D600.
Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user27440
10y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—on many Nikon FX bodies you can turn Auto DX crop off, so the camera will use the full sensor even with a DX lens attached. But DX lenses are designed for a smaller image circle, so they usually do not cover the full FX sensor.
What happens is not a fake crop: in DX mode the camera really uses only the central DX-sized area of the sensor. If you disable that crop, you’ll typically get heavy vignetting or black corners because the lens cannot illuminate the whole frame.
So a DX lens on an FX body does not magically become wider while still covering the full frame cleanly. In most cases, to get the true wider full-frame view, you need an FX lens.
One exception: some DX zooms can cover most or all of the FX sensor at certain longer focal lengths, so results vary by lens and zoom setting. But this is lens-specific and not something to rely on generally.
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