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Thread: Crop vs FF sensor

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    Default Crop vs FF sensor

    Just saw this interesting and amusing video regarding sensor sizes.

    -U

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    That was great! Will be sending it to a FF (DSLR) snob that I know

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    I just went from a 5D to a 70D so I've been fighting my own stigma on the subject. But after shooting with the 70D I'm blown away by how good it is.
    -U

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    Originally posted by Unknown303
    I just went from a 5D to a 70D so I've been fighting my own stigma on the subject. But after shooting with the 70D I'm blown away by how good it is.
    Yep, I'm really liking my 70D. My 40D was fine at lower ISO, but the 70D is great, and faster focusing too.

    I've been crop sensor since I switched from film.
    Canon D30, 10D 40D, now 70D. Interestingly some of my best images are from the D30, seems I shoot less and less but still upgrade every 3rd iteration or so.

    Yes, if you pixel-peep the full frames have an edge, but there's nothing wrong with APS-C. Glass matters way more than sensor.

    Now if you choose full frame for field of view (landscape and architecture vs. sports and wildlife) that's a more valid argument than image quality.

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    I haz 70D + 6D so win win lol

    but yah the 70D has like almost every feature Canon came out with except FF.

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    Been telling people this for ages. For some reason, photo nerds cannot fathom the fact that I shoot all my portraiture with my 40D when I have a 1Ds mark III in my bag too. FF has very distinct advantages, and I use it when I want that specific advantage. Otherwise, I have no need or desire for it. When I did a guest lecture at my studio for the second year NAIT Photo Technology class, you should have seen the eyebrows raise when they saw I was holding a 40D. I had the worst camera in the class by far LOL.

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    It's funny when people say FF is better than crop but they can't say why or they have the terminology all mixed up because they don't understand something they read on the internet. It's true what the guy in the video says: FF did have the ISO noise advantage but that's all negligible now especially in the last few years.

    I don't care what size the sensor is and I especially don't need the additional megapixels that typically come with the larger sensor (I find 8-12MP more than sufficient for my needs and some people still think more megapixels means better photos). What I do care about is 35mm equivalent focal length and aperture, specifically on the wide end where I like to shoot. Unfortunately with crop sensors my wides become standards and my super-wides become wides and if I want to correct that, my focal lengths have to step down a bit and just cause of lens design and physics that usually comes with the smaller aperture or a bigger price tag so it's easier just to address that by eliminating the crop factor.

    But with that said, it's nice to see companies like Metabones coming out with focal reducers to remedy that. I'll gladly take the smaller sensor, smaller camera, smaller files, and smaller price tag if I can have my desired focal lengths.

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    Originally posted by D'z Nutz
    It's funny when people say FF is better than crop but they can't say why or they have the terminology all mixed up because they don't understand something they read on the internet. It's true what the guy in the video says: FF did have the ISO noise advantage but that's all negligible now especially in the last few years.

    I don't care what size the sensor is and I especially don't need the additional megapixels that typically come with the larger sensor (I find 8-12MP more than sufficient for my needs and some people still think more megapixels means better photos). What I do care about is 35mm equivalent focal length and aperture, specifically on the wide end where I like to shoot. Unfortunately with crop sensors my wides become standards and my super-wides become wides and if I want to correct that, my focal lengths have to step down a bit and just cause of lens design and physics that usually comes with the smaller aperture or a bigger price tag so it's easier just to address that by eliminating the crop factor.

    But with that said, it's nice to see companies like Metabones coming out with focal reducers to remedy that. I'll gladly take the smaller sensor, smaller camera, smaller files, and smaller price tag if I can have my desired focal lengths.
    pretty much how i feel.
    which is why i wanted to stay with fuji but having legacy lenses, i also wanted to shoot them on their 35mm equivalent FL
    and 16MP is more than enough for my need

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    I've shot car shows with APS-C, m4/3 and FF. I find that with FF raws I'm able to extract more detail when manually lighting the shot in post processing. I'm also able to maintain the quality when framing/cropping down the photo since it's impossible to frame the shot live while fighting 150 other photographers.

    Am I FF snob or am I actually using FF for its advantages?
    Originally posted by SEANBANERJEE
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    Sensors in the last couple of years are leaps and bounds from what they used to be so pulling detail from the RAW has more to do with the sensor technology and the camera's processor than the actual size of it.

    Cropping is definitely a full-frame advantage.

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    So did FF sensors not progress while crop did? Kinda odd that the gap closed up. If I could get away with shooting a show purely with m4/3 that would be awesome. Still not there yet in quality.
    Originally posted by SEANBANERJEE
    I have gone above and beyond what I should rightfully have to do to protect my good name

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    i never liked m43 sensors, the images always looked meh to me.
    apsc like sony, fuji are really good though

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    Originally posted by rage2
    So did FF sensors not progress while crop did? Kinda odd that the gap closed up. If I could get away with shooting a show purely with m4/3 that would be awesome. Still not there yet in quality.
    I think it has more to do with companies having more crop bodies than FF ones so there's more turnover on crop models and the latest cameras generally get the newest technology. I haven't looked back on release dates, but if I'm not mistaken the FF models typically have a longer retail lifecycle than the crop bodies before the updates are released with the latest technology too.

    Remember that a few years ago megapixels were the big marketing hype and you knew it would only be a matter of time before it'd taper off because there's a point where you can only push it so far. Now it's sensitivity/ISO/noise and it won't be long until it reaches a certain point where sensors can't do too much more. I mean, freaking Christ, there's cameras that do ISO 12800, 25600, 51200, etc now! After that, I bet the focus will be on video.

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    Yeah the usable ISO performance of a D4S is incredible.

    And shooting 4K video in a handheld compact system is ridiculous.

    For me, FF has great cropping ability and usually the bodies that get the best AF and guts first, and that's just when I was looking at upgrading. After having 36MP to crop from, it's really allowed me to be get creative in post or save some images when things weren't great. Fortunately shooting a bit of film has made me put more thought into choosing framing/lighting etc and when zero cropping is required, a 24 x 36 print is pretty darn impressive.

    I think DR is still higher in the FF sensors as well which is super handy for landscape and wildlife stuff if you can keep your ISO down.

    Really at the end of the day I don't care what anyone shoots with. If it gets you shooting more and making better photos, that's really all that matters.
    Last edited by msommers; 09-12-2014 at 01:27 PM.
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    I am loving the advantages of FF personally, for my usage.

    I don't really need more than ISO 6400 too often but if you do, there are cameras like the A7S, Df and D4S that have pretty amazing high ISO performance, especially without losing as much color accuracy as the higher MP FF bodies. The ISO 51,200 to 204,800 stuff is just crazy haha. I imagine the people actually using that are few and far between, and the uses would start to be limited to small prints or web-only pretty quick. I am more excited about the other end of the range, where ISO 64 and nearly 15 stops of DR are available.

    Base ISO DR is surprisingly close between the best APS-C and FF sensors, which is of course a big help especially if you shoot a lot of landscapes, dynamic scenes, or need to rescue a shot you screwed up and can't repeat. These days you can get a usable image from an almost black frame, which is just ridiculous.

    I've started to really enjoy printing huge, and the high MP FF bodies let you go almost as big as you want within reason. It's pretty awesome when you can crop a shot, and still have 20 MP left or whatever, which is good enough for quite a large print.

    Another big selling point (for me) is some cameras allowing various crop modes. With a high MP body, you get 2-3 cameras in one. Of course you can always just apply the crop in post, but sometimes it's easier to avoid that extra step if the subject material allows for it, or maybe you just want the extra FPS. I am more of the opinion that if you have a high end FF body, a APS-C body is sort of included, so there is less of a reason to have one of those as well.

    All that being said, the crop sensors these days are getting pretty awesome. Resolution and ISO performance are where they lag behind, but the gap isn't enormous. I can't see myself ever going back to APS-C as long as I have enough MP to crop pretty much any aspect I want and still maintain a decent amount of resolution.

    The next logical step is a 54MP FF sensor, which would theoretically perform roughly as well as current 24MP APS-C sensor cameras. I could see something like this being put in a $8-9K flagship body, something like a Nikon D5X or Canon 1DXS/1DS MKIV.

    Honestly I don't think we will get much beyond 24MP APS-C and 54MP FF. Without new technology, or possibly better lossless compression algorithms, the improvements are likely going to come from other areas like DR, ISO, etc. until we get entirely new sensor technology. A high MP sensor with well-implemented pixel binning options would be cool, however the most common Bayer array does not lend itself to binning.

    22-36MP is definitely overkill for some people, but many find it very useful and would take advantage of even more MP if they could. Higher MP doesn't do much to make anyone a better photographer, but it certainly adds an element of flexibility with regard to post processing and print size, if your shooting style or end use can take advantage of that. The other point that Matt already touched on is one I agree with also, which is the best bodies, AF systems, and lenses are all designed for FF cameras these days. The viewfinders are quite a bit nicer as well, and the larger camera bodies fit my hands much better in addition to balancing more nicely with standard lenses. DOF control is better, and is something that is pretty much impossible to duplicate on an APS-C camera with the really fast lenses. I've definitely been enjoying the FF advantages so far, but APS-C cameras are still VERY good currently. There are as many objective, measurable differences as there are subjective ones IMO. Something for everyone these days, which is great.

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    I have and have had so many different formats(p&s/m43/aps-c/FF/35mm/MF) and they all have advantages. I love m43 for size, speed and being able to get deeper dof with larger apertures for faster shutter speeds. Full frame is awesome when I have to shoot weddings, etc, because I have the flexibility of 2.8 zooms. APS-C cameras are so close to FF in IQ, but the selection of glass at their native focal length is definitely better.

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    I've have about dozen prints hanging up in my studio ranging anywhere from 42-64 inches. Almost all of them taken at 10MP APS-C with non-L lenses, except a couple at 21MP FF + L lenses. The detail and print quality is superb. I had a phase one user come in and he thought they were Phase prints LOL.

    I feel anything from 2007 and newer will give you all the print quality you will ever want. Unless you look at 60" prints 5 inches away, with a magnifying glass. But the real point is, if you are doing this as a pro, the size of your sensor is not going to earn you any more or any less clients, sales, or revenue. (high end commercial photography excluded) So stating the sensor size of a particular DSLR or mirrorless camera to be a "deal breaker" makes me roll my eyes. YMMV, but that's my take.

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