35mm lens vs digital lens---opinions please.

[Patrice]

I agree that we could go around in circles...but I still think there is a point where you are incorrect...


It doesn't matter if it's a film camera, a digital camera or a rhinoceros behind the lens...it's still 18mm.

Hey there Big Mike,

This question has been asked a thousand times and the answer has never changed. You have personally answered it a hundred times or more. There is no point in getting into an argument with someone who won't understand. Answer once, clearly and concisely, as you have done, and then just move on. Some threads just become a waste of energy.

Don't remember this being an issue when way more people were using 6x6, 4.5x6, 5x7, 6x8, 8x10 format film cameras. We all just knew and accepted that a 105mm lens would be a wide angle on some cameras and a short telephoto on others. (For many years 80mm was what I considered a normal lens.)

 

[blakjak8]

WOW!!! Amazing amount of info!! And the REALLY amazing part...All of you clarified it for me! I did have to read a couple of the replies a time or two, but I think (?)finally got it. And if I understand this correctly...The lens projects an image the size of 35mm film onto a smaller than 35mm sensor, causing the image to "fall off" the edges of the sensor? Thus the perceived "cropping" of the image? But the original DOF and other image factors remain the same? So no matter what lens I get, I need to realize that each focal length is going to be 1.5 times the published focal length when compared to a 35mm image? Feel free to correct me, please. Does a Di lens correct or compensate for the "crop factor"? Sorry if I am totally no getting it...

 

[LarryD]

Well, you've almost got it...

Here is a kicker... When you image on a crop sensor, you snip out the center of the lens original (designed) image by 60%. So, if you placed the lens images side-by-side, they would be identical images, but the FF would contain 60% more "background" around that crop-sensors snipped image..

This means, that when you have both images printed up to, say 8x12, the cropped sensor image needs to be enlarged more to get there as it is physically smaller...

So, the cropped sensor image will appear to have more "reach", as some photographers like to note.. but in order to see it at your print size, you had to digitally enlarge it more, rather than optically. A digital enlargement is not as clean as an optical enlargement is, generally.. You will get a better image if you get a longer (optically) lens than you will if you count on the crop-factor "reach" to get you there....

 

[enzodm]

I need to realize that each focal length is going to be 1.5 times the published focal length when compared to a 35mm image? Feel free to correct me, please. Does a Di lens correct or compensate for the "crop factor"? Sorry if I am totally no getting it...

No: focal length is always the same (focal length is related to, but is not, angle of view), you just see less of the picture like as focal is longer (but not with features of a longer lens), or, I prefer, like you cropped your image. And there are'nt corrections to crop factor, because there is nothing to correct (except the name, as suggest rpm, but others, including me, do not agree).

As far as I understood there are things that digital lenses have corrected specially for digital, like multicoating type. Due to this, sometimes old lenses have a different rendition of colors, or more or less flare, but is matter of habits and... on digital, of PP.
And some lenses are specially made for crop bodies in the sense that to be cheaper they are not good on lens borders, which on crop bodies are not used. So, if you use them on FF, you may have vignetting and so.

Main difficulty with crop bodies is to have really wide angle lenses.