Nelson Minar posted the answer to a question I had planned on researching recently, explaining how the smaller CCDs relate to lens size on SLRs. I have an old school Nikon SLR and have been interested in purchasing a digital SLR, and was wondering whether my lenses would work as I expect. Here’s the answer:
But inexpensive digital SLRs don’t shoot a full 35mm frame. Instead they have smaller sensors. The 350D has a “1.6x crop factor”, which basically means your pictures look OK but your lenses are more telephoto than you’d think. A 35mm lens acts like a 56mm lens. If you want a wide angle 28mm shot you have to buy a 17mm lens. Really wide angle lenses for these small sensor cameras are very dear. This makes me much less enthusiastic about potentially buying a digital SLR anytime soon.