In a magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus and an operating method wherein the MR apparatus has a scanner with a patient table that can be moved into a patient receiving region of the scanner, the patient table is held in an extended loading position, and three-dimensional scanning data describing the surface of a patient positioned in the loading position on the patient table are recorded with a 3D camera, which has a field of view that covers the patient table in the loading position. For the determination of at least one patient-related recording parameter, the scanning data are evaluated for the subsequent recording MR data.
