Cropped vs Full Frame Sensor

It is and isn't cropping the sensor. Imagine a 10"x10" piece of paper. Now cut a 2-3 inches off around all 4 corners and you have what you see with a crop sensor (with the same lens on each camera). Now throw a wider lens on it and you can now see the 10"x10" section with the crop sensor....however, the image doesn't have as much data because the uncropped image would be a 12x12.

Well my understanding was correct. Thank you.


Edit: I see I ended up doing my best of spoon feeding after all.

Excuse me but the sentence above is rather rude and is a waste of bandwidth. I was not asking for data. If you re-read my post it says, "I suppose I shall find out soon.", after my rhetorical question.

I want to truly thank you for making me feel so welcome after my first post.

I'm sorry that you thought that was directed toward you...it wasn't. It was meant to be directed at the person who blatantly admitted that they want it spoon fed and is not willing to do any research to find out answers. Comment wasn't directed toward you though I can see how you thought that it was since it was in my response to you.

And you are more than welcome here. It's okay to ask questions, but new members need to also be willing to search to find answers. It sounds like you are willing to do both and that's good...the creator of this thread seems like he doesn't want to research at all. If you are too tired to research your answers, then go to bed and get on the computer tomorrow. (again that's, not directed toward you specifically...just a generalization).
 
Did i mention anybody else having a tight schedule?

This forum is a source of information, where people do not understand certain things and want things clearing up.

Read my first post, i asked a simple question, i didn't ask people to go a research it for me.
 
Well I'm sorry for working a 14 hour shift, coming home, and not wanting to do research. You didn't have to answer the question did you.

Isn't this what a "beginners" forum is for.


:playball:
 
I did all the research for you. Just click the link to go to my page with technical vs easy to understand of crop vs ff. It even has images and diagrams to help you out


Let me google that for you
Let me google that for you
Let me google that for you

The below image also speaks volumes of this subject

full-frame-crop-factor.jpg
 
Crop sensor is a mis-nomer; it really doesn't crop anything.
Ummm, not exactly. It does crop the Field of View.

Cereal beat me to it, but I went out and took these two shots for a visual reference. Both shot with a 35mm lens on tripod in same spot. Only sized for web.


DX (cropped sensor)
DXat35mm.jpg


FX (full frame)
FXat35mm.jpg


The focal length does not change, but the FoV does.​


Hey, BTW..... I was out of town all last week and haven't had a chance to mow the lawn yet. :blushing:​
 
Ok... Let me take a crack at this.

First a cropped sensor is not really cropped. The DX sensor mentioned is due to the size given it from what was known as APS size. (Advanced Photo System)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Photo_System

This was a smaller size film than 35 mm available back in the late 1980’s. Read the full article to understand.

The image area of a DX sensor is the same size as the APS film.

FX, un-cropped, or Full Frame as it is known is the same size as standard 35mm film.

The easiest way to understand this is to watch an older DVD with Full Screen and Wide Screen. Full screen is the equivalent of APS or DX cameras, and Wide Screen is similar to 35mm.
If you notice, in the full screen version of a movie, some of the picture is cropped off on both sides. Whereas the Widescreen you see what was seen in the theater.
The term “cropped” came from the fact that the first true DSLRs had APS sized sensors, but used the standard 35mm Lenses. This lead to a situation where the image captured was less than or “cropped” from the standard 35mm size.
So for an example, lets say you put a standard 35mm film camera with a particular lens and then take a picture of a building. Take another picture of the same building with the same lens with a DX camera, in the exact same position as the first; with the exact same settings on the lens as the first shot. The DX image will not have the same amount of detail as would a 35mm film camera.

If you reverse this process where you mount a DX lens on a Full Frame camera, you will get vignetteing.
 
Oh and I forgot one other major point as mentioned above.
DX cameras and FX cameras share the same Focal length so as to allow the use of the same lenses on either one.
Ex: Nikon F3 (film) and D50(digital) uses the same lenses.
Translation: the distance from the end of the lens to the image area (sensor or film) is the same in both cameras.
Thus, the amount of coverage area is greater with the 35mm than with the APS.
 
Crop sensor is a mis-nomer; it really doesn't crop anything.
Ummm, not exactly. It does crop the Field of View.

Cereal beat me to it, but I went out and took these two shots for a visual reference. Both shot with a 35mm lens on tripod in same spot. Only sized for web.


DX (cropped sensor)


FX (full frame)


The focal length does not change, but the FoV does.​



Hey, BTW..... I was out of town all last week and haven't had a chance to mow the lawn yet. :blushing:​

No, it does not crop the FOV...........

It gives you a different (smaller) FOV, but it still gives it to you over the entire sensor; nothing is cropped from that specific sensor.

Using your logic, then a Full Frame 35mm is a crop camera because it "crops" the FOV from that of a medium format or 4x5 format wide angle equipped camera. Or, when zooming a 70-200, at 200mm you are getting a "cropped" image.

But we are just talking semantics here......... If you choose to view it as a "crop", then that's up to you.....:D
 
I did all the research for you. Just click the link to go to my page with technical vs easy to understand of crop vs ff. It even has images and diagrams to help you out


Let me google that for you
Let me google that for you
Let me google that for you
:biglaugh:

Ummm, not exactly. It does crop the Field of View.
The focal length does not change, but the FoV does.



No, it does not crop the FOV...........

Even with just a Wikipedia search.....​



Photography

In photography, the field of view is that part of the world that is visible through the camera at a particular position and orientation in space; objects outside the FOV when the picture is taken are not recorded in the photograph.


So with that, and evidenced with my two examples, I do believe that the Field of View is cropped using a DX sensor. Ooops, wait a minute......​



It gives you a different (smaller) FOV, but it still gives it to you over the entire sensor; nothing is cropped from that specific sensor.

Wouldn't a "smaller" FoV be tantamount to cropped? Again referring to my two examples. Those two examples used the entire sensor to capture the image. Now I could have used a DX lens on the FX body and the result WOULD be a crop of the sensor, utilizing only 5.1MP (2784x1848) instead of the available 4288x2848.​






Using your logic, then a Full Frame 35mm is a crop camera because it "crops" the FOV from that of a medium format or 4x5 format wide angle equipped camera. Or, when zooming a 70-200, at 200mm you are getting a "cropped" image.

Don't Bogart that joint my friend, pass it over to me........ :lol:





I thought we were all on dSLR format in the OPs original question and I completely missed the segue.

BTW, OP.... still out there?​



But we are just talking semantics here......... If you choose to view it as a "crop", then that's up to you.....:D

Either semantics or smack. :lol: It's not just apples and oranges we're talking about.... it's the entire fruit bowl. :biglaugh: It's all good to have discussions and debate.​





This is a prime example why the OP should conduct their own research from reliable sources in addition to opinions fostered on a forum.​
 
Well if i thought this thread was going to end up like then i would of thought twice :grumpy:
 
Well if i thought this thread was going to end up like then i would of thought twice :grumpy:
A good habit to develope, though doubleing that to thinking 4 times before you act is even better. Any more than that is usually counterproductive. :lol:
 
A good habit to develope, though doubleing that to thinking 4 times before you act is even better. Any more than that is usually counterproductive. :lol:
Well, I have half a mind to........ umfff, forgot what I was gonna say.


Jamie, it's all good. This is just conversation. But a word in your ear....... don't start off a thread with "I haven't researched this......"
 
Holy crap guys, don't get your nickers in a bunch. He asked a question about photography in a beginner's photography forum. Put your egos aside for a moment and try to do something constructive. Just telling someone to go do it themselves is not constructive, and counter-intuitive to the idea of a forum. Many on this forum already know about this subject, so when someone asks about it, wouldn't it be a good thing to share that knowledge? Sheesh.

Now, I'll use what knowledge I have about crop sensors to help you out (I hope). I own and use a Canon 450D, which is an APS-C (Advanced Photo System, Type C) format camera, so I'll use that as an example. The concepts are the same for other cropped sensor cameras.

The field of view will not be different to an equivalent full frame 35mm, or even medium format camera, as long as you use a lens that was designed for that sensor. In Canon's case, they manufacture an EF-S (EF Small) line of lenses for their APS-C format cameras. These lenses focus the image onto the sensor tighter than a standard EF lens would. Thus, an EF-S 50mm lens would produce the same field-of-view on an APS-C camera as an EF 50mm lens on a full frame, 35mm camera.

Now, the significant differences show up when you put an EF lens on an APS-C camera. The APS-C sensor is equivalent in size to a 35mm divided by 1.6; the "crop factor" thus being x1.6. (Sorry for all the numbers, but they're necessary to illustrate the point.) So, if I put a 50mm EF lens on a full frame camera, I will get an effective focal length (what the sensor "sees" as the focal length and thus the associated field-of-view) of 50mm. But, if I put that same EF 50mm on an APS-C format camera, such as a Canon 450D, I will have an effective focal length of 80mm, because the image projected onto the sensor is much larger than the sensor itself. (There are other considerations that I won't get into, such as compression of field and lens distortion, because you needn't know about them right away.)

Now, one of the main benefits of a full frame sensor is better noise and low-light performance. This is because the "pixels" on the sensor are larger on a full frame than a crop sensor, and again for reasons I won't go into, this reduces the amount of noise you get from the sensor, and since more light overall is hitting the sensor, will give you better low-light performance. They also provide slightly higher quality bokeh (bluriness in shallow depth of field), but that has a lot more to do with how many blades there are in the lens' aperture.

Benefits of the compact sensor is that lenses require far less glass than a normal lens made for a 35mm format, and FAR less glass than for medium-format lenses. This is mostly because the back-focus (the focus distance between the part of the lens closest to the sensor and the sensor itself) is smaller than on a normal 35mm lens. They are thus lighter, cheaper, and generally easier to carry around because of it. If you're after portability, this is a boon. Having that cropping can also help you work with normal lenses you may already have for longer range telephoto work. I know that Scott Bourne (he does lots of nature/wildlife photography, namely birds) sometimes uses a compact frame camera whenever he wants a lens to behave as if it were a much longer. For instance, if I owned Canons EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, and put that on my cropped, APS-C camera, it would effectively behave as if it were a 112-320mm lens. Super-telephoto lenses are expensive (thousands upon thousands of dollars for good ones, especially when you get past the 500mm mark), and having a cropped sensor can effectively make a good telephoto lens into a super-telephoto. So, when looking to save on glass, a cropped sensor can be a real boon.

I hope that helps. Cheers.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top