Full Frame Vs Cropped Sensors

vishaljo · Sun Jun 14, 2009 3:47 pm

Have been spending quite a bit of time browsing on FM for a while now, i love this particular thread, explains one of the great arguements of recent times.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/781852
More than the photos, its whats written which is fascinating.

Have to admit though, having used a FF for just about 40 mins a few months ago & it was difficult to backtrack to a 1.6x, just the sheer feel of the Camera, its raw power, the huge viewfinder & the sound of the shutter - i'm hooked cloudnine

timdegroot · Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:34 pm

Quoting Vishaljo (Thread starter):
just the sheer feel of the Camera, its raw power, the huge viewfinder & the sound of the shutter - i'm hooked

That has little to do with the fullframe aspect I think as you will find that on all the high-end cameras

Tim

gmonney · Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:55 pm

To be honest, the Full Frame Sensor suck the big one for aviation photography, unless you can get right up to the aircrafts.... I find myself having the put my 1.4x converter on my 70-200 2.8 IS when using my 5D. BUT.... taking shots around the house, weddings and such, its amazing.... the 24-104 f4 IS that came as a kit is a nice lens, nothing too fancy, but nice. When mounting my 17-40 its REALLY wide, not fish eye wide, but wide.

Unless you have a long lens, like a 100-400 or a 400 prime... stick with a 1.6x crop factor...

my $0.02

jwenting · Sun Jun 14, 2009 8:17 pm

Larger sensors have serious drawbacks.
Lower pixel density for example, more distortion and abberations on the frame edges, higher cost, larger size and weight, higher power consumption, etc.

It's not a question of bigger=better, just as with MPs. More MPs doesn't automatically mean a superior camera.
In fact more sensor elements on a sensor of a given size might cause problems if the density gets high enough that they start to interfere with each other.
At that point you have to go to a larger sensor size.
At the moment though the larger sensors have roughly the same MP count as their smaller brethren in the same market sector, which leads to lower element density.

That means grainier looking pictures.

cpd · Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:30 am

Quoting Vishaljo (Thread starter):
just the sheer feel of the Camera, its raw power, the huge viewfinder & the sound of the shutter - i'm hooked cloudnine

I think this is the much better build quality that any professional level camera has. They don't have the plastic cheap feel of lesser cameras. The D700 is so much more solid feeling - probably the D300 is also the same (although it is 24x16mm format).

The best thing about the FX format Nikon cameras is the high ISO performance. It gives you such a huge advantage in low light. You can get the photo sharp, where your next-door photographer with APS-C type DSLR camera doesn't get the photo, despite their best efforts. Combine a D700 with a fast F/2.8 lens, or even a high quality F/4.0 one with VR - and the possibilities are superb.

Quoting Jwenting (Reply 3):
Larger sensors have serious drawbacks.
Lower pixel density for example, more distortion and abberations on the frame edges, higher cost, larger size and weight, higher power consumption, etc.

I run the D700 on the same EN-EL3 batteries as I did with the D80 - I haven't noticed any problems with higher power consumption. It works quite perfectly. Yes, the camera is bigger, but it also feels better as well. I have no problem with distortion/abberation.

Quoting Jwenting (Reply 3):
At the moment though the larger sensors have roughly the same MP count as their smaller brethren in the same market sector, which leads to lower element density.

That means grainier looking pictures.

Not in my experience - the 35mm sensors tend to provide much cleaner, higher quality images, and have better performance at high ISO settings - they are less prone to delivering grainy images. At ISO320, the 35mm Nikon D700 has the same clean image quality as the D80 at ISO100. If they are both at the same ISO setting, the D700 is so much better yet again.

Yes, the 35mm ones experience some vignetting near the corners - even on very good lenses, but this is corrected with vignette control on the camera, and what little vignetting is left can be easily corrected with Photoshop.

I wonder, which 35mm DSLR camera did you use that made you come to these conclusions?

[Edited 2009-06-14 19:36:45]

cvervais · Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:01 am

At this point you could not pull my EOS 5D MK1 from my cold dead hands. But, vignetting becomes a lot more of a issue on full frame cameras as well. Even the high quality glass can introduce vignetting on full frame bodies.

You learn to live with it though and how to avoid it.

viv · Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:32 am

Quoting Gmonney (Reply 2):
o be honest, the Full Frame Sensor suck the big one for aviation photography, unless you can get right up to the aircrafts.

This is nonsense, sorry.

I would elaborate, but I don't want to explain what crop factor REALLY means, for the umpteenth time ...

[Edited 2009-06-14 23:36:49]

cpd · Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:58 am

Let me explain then.

Crop factor I'd exactly that - a crop from a larger size that the 24x16mm doesn't capture.. All you are getting is a narrower view angle, not more range.

INNflight · Mon Jun 15, 2009 7:21 am

Lets face it, it all depends on where you shoot, because that determines how close you can get.

If I can scramble around the ramp all day a FF works magic, if I have to shoot from a mile away to get a landing shot, maybe not so much.

Also, apart from the picture quality, good results also depend on what you like to shoot.

The 5D autofocus does not stand a chance against the one in the 1DmkIII for example, so if you shoot a lot of fast jets one or another camera may give you a disadvantage.

SNATH · Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:10 am

Quoting Jwenting (Reply 3):
In fact more sensor elements on a sensor of a given size might cause problems if the density gets high enough that they start to interfere with each other.

Exactly. And, this is why having a larger sensor allows you to have more pixels and still maintain good sharpness per pixel. So, I'm not quite sure what you mean by:

Quoting Jwenting (Reply 3):
Lower pixel density for example,

Quoting Jwenting (Reply 3):
That means grainier looking pictures.

I doubt that larger sensors have grainer pictures. If anything else, because the pixels are also larger, high ISO performance is much better on larger sensors than smaller ones.

Tony

cpd · Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:53 am

Quoting SNATH (Reply 9):

I doubt that larger sensors have grainer pictures. If anything else, because the pixels are also larger, high ISO performance is much better on larger sensors than smaller ones.

They don't make grainier images - unless something is very wrong with the sensor / processing in camera - which is very rare.

I remember one afternoon taking photos alongside someone with a Canon 40D. The Canon had some quality glass on it, while my D700 had just the old AF Nikkor 300mm IF-ED lens (F/4).

As the conditions got dark, I had such a big advantage and my images appeared much brighter and sharper, simply because I could use higher ISO without worrying much about noise. If I were using my old D80, I'd have simply packed up and gone home. Anything more than ISO200 on the D80 produced noisy images.

And do excuse my reply above - it was typed out on the iPhone, so it is marred by dreadful typos from its horrible auto correct feature.

viv · Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:11 am

Quoting Cpd (Reply 7):
Crop factor I'd exactly that - a crop from a larger size that the 24x16mm doesn't capture.. All you are getting is a narrower view angle, not more range.

Bingo!

To put it another way, if your shoe size is 7 and you wear size 8, your feet do not get smaller, they just do not fill the bigger shoes.

Amazing how so many people fail to understand this ...

[Edited 2009-06-15 04:12:58]

Psych · Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:13 pm

Quoting Viv (Reply 11):
To put it another way, if your shoe size is 7 and you wear size 8, your feet do not get smaller, they just do not fill the bigger shoes.

Amazing how so many people fail to understand this ...

That is probably one of the most concise - and clear - explanations on this issue wink

. Nice one Viv.

Paul

Silver1SWA · Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:58 pm

Quoting Viv (Reply 11):
Amazing how so many people fail to understand this ...

Seriously. It works no different than cropping an image from an original. Something everyone does here from time to time. When you crop an image, you don't magically increase the zoom on the subject.

gmonney · Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:03 am

Quoting Viv (Reply 6):
This is nonsense, sorry

So you are saying that there is no difference when i use my 10D or my 5D with the same lens from the same spot at the airport?

G

Silver1SWA · Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:14 am

Quoting Gmonney (Reply 14):

The difference is if you took two identical shots, one from each camera, the result from the 10D would be a cropped version of the image from the 5D. It's a simple concept.

viv · Thu Jun 18, 2009 9:09 am

Quoting Gmonney (Reply 14):
So you are saying that there is no difference when i use my 10D or my 5D with the same lens from the same spot at the airport?

The only difference is that, if the aircraft fills the smaller frame, it will not fill the larger frame; if you crop the larger frame, you will end up with exactly the same image.

You cannot change the power of a lens by putting it on a camera with a smaller sensor.

See reply 11 for a scientific explanation...

Kukkudrill · Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:42 pm

Quoting Viv (Reply 16):
The only difference is that, if the aircraft fills the smaller frame, it will not fill the larger frame; if you crop the larger frame, you will end up with exactly the same image.

Only if you assume that the larger sensor has more megapixels. Which is not necessarily the case.

aero145 · Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:55 pm

Quoting Silver1SWA (Reply 15):
The difference is if you took two identical shots, one from each camera, the result from the 10D would be a cropped version of the image from the 5D. It's a simple concept.

Well, no. The 10D has around 6 megapixels and the 5D almost 13, so what you said does not make sense.

viv · Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:27 pm

Quoting Aero145 (Reply 18):
The 10D has around 6 megapixels and the 5D almost 13

Unless you make huge enlargements you will NOT see a difference. Pixels don't matter.

For big enlargements I shoot 35mm film with an old-fashioned rangefinder camera, which is equivalent to about 25 MP.

For REALLY big enlargements I use my Bronica medium-format camera.

[Edited 2009-06-18 11:35:23]

champfence · Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:28 pm

For most people, myself included, the main deciding factor is price! The FF sensor bodies are prohobitively expensive for most casual users. Typically only those who are actually making money with their photos, or have sufficient disposable income will opt for the FF body.

Technically speaking, it would take a 37% crop from a 13.2MP FF to equal the 8.2MP image produced by my old 20D.

Sure there are technical features and capabilities that go with the Pro series bodies that the "pro-sumer" versions don't have, but again - it's all about the $$$$$. I'd rather have a $900 body with a $1000 lense than a $2500 body with whatever I could afford to stick on it. Any size sensor only records what it sees through the lense!

viv · Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:30 pm

Quoting Champfence (Reply 20):
I'd rather have a $900 body with a $1000 lense than a $2500 body with whatever I could afford to stick on it. Any size sensor only records what it sees through the lense!

Absolutely right!

Full Frame Vs Cropped Sensors

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