Crop sensor dslr vs full frame?
I own a nikon d90. I hear that a crop sensor camera can maginfy images from lenses. Like a 300mm would be = to a 450mm on a crop sensor camera. Does that mean that the 1.5x is directly when you look through the lens or thats when you use a crop? And is a nikon d90 a crop sensor camera?
bonus question, what's a full frame camera?
It's "directly when you look through the lens" that you'll automatically see the 1.5x in effect.
If you take one lens, attach it to both a full frame camera and a crop sensored, at the same lens focal length, you'll notice a difference in that the crop sensor will seem to "zoom in more". That's the 1.5x in effect.
It has something to do with the size of the sensor in the camera. On small point and shoots, you might see they have a lens wide at 5mm, well, 5mm is SUPER WIDE on a DSLR, but for point and shoot, it's because of their really small sensor that it magnifies it by a lot. Thus, in actuality, that 5mm is maybe equivalent to 28mm on a full frame DSLR, and 18mm on a crop sensor DSLR.
A full frame sensor in the D700 will treat a 28mm lens as 28mm. A crop sensor in the D90 will treat a 28mm lens as a 44mm one. A full frame camera is a camera will a full frame sensor almost equivalent as size of the film in 35mm film cameras.
You have your first answer above.
Here is a sample of a full frame dSLR, a camera with a sensor that is the same size as a 35 mm SLR frame, 36x24 mm
http://www.nikonusa.com/...82/D4.html
And here is a link that shows you how different lens focal lengths "see" the subject on full frame and cropped frame cameras