Your Complete Guide To Canon's Full-Frame Cameras

Your complete guide to Canon’s full-frame cameras, from EOS DSLRs to mirrorless, plus go full-frame for less with our used camera buying advice

If you’ve been into photography for any amount of time you’ll likely be familiar with the term ‘full-frame, which refers to the size of the digital sensor being close to that of a piece of old 35mm film. So if you’re not shooting on a full-frame camera does that mean you’re not getting the ‘full’ picture? In short, yes!

In this guide we take a deep dive into what makes full-frame so special and why professionals love to shoot with this larger digital format. Full-frame chips are huge! Canon’s full-frame sensors are about 160 per cent larger than its more budget-friendly APS-C counterparts, and over 21 times larger than a 1/2.5inch chip, which is found in many smartphones and compact cameras.

Canon makes its own bespoke full-frame sensors for both DSLR and mirrorless cameras, varying in resolution and sensor design, some have different ways of layering or stacking the sensor, or reordering the wiring for better performance, but that’s not too important here. What they all have in common is the larger format size, which paves the way for producing ultimate image quality and beautifully defocused backgrounds called bokeh.

Read on to find out all the perks of a Canon full-frame EOS and our recommendations for upgrading, even on the strictest of budgets, and how to save money with second-hand bargains without buying a lemon. Here’s everything you need to know…

WHY FULL-FRAME?

Discover why you should upgrade to a full-frame Canon right now

The full picture