FF vs Crop question

[belial]

I seriously dislike the terms crop factor and crop body and full format. To someone who shoots only medium format digital a so called full frame user would be using a crop body. I much prefer the terms 35mm format and aps-c censors. Much more descriptive and not as misleading.

 

[KmH]

Yep. In fact there are many so called crop sensor sizes, APS-C being just one of them. There is also APS-H, the 4/3rd variants, and all the even smaller P&S image sensors.

Nikon's APS-C size is bigger than Canon's APS-C size. FWIW, that size difference is part of the difference in the cost of equivelent Nikon and Canon cameras. Canon can make more image sensors on a wafer of silicon, which somewhat reduces the cost of each image sensor.

 

[manaheim]

That's a slippery slope, though... 4/3 doesn't make a lick of sense either.

35mm was nice and specific.

 

[usayit]

35mm as it describes only one dimension.... I think most people are referring to the 135 format.

4/3's describes the tube diameter of image circle (i think?). So technically it describes the format quite accurately.


Then there is 645, 6x7 etc... for medium format.

 

[amolitor]

Yeah, my point "rebutting" skieur was to underline the fact that there aren't any pat answers. There's a bunch of factors that change all at once when you're talking about a different sensor format. Some are pluses, some are minuses, and it depends on what's important to you which ones matter. What are you trying to accomplish, and what's your budget? It's not as simple as 'FF is better' or 'crop is better'.

 

[Derrel]

I thought the 4/3 format was the aspect ratio of the capture?? Right?

I dunno...I really like the ability to have 24x36 as well as an in-camera 4:5 aspect ratio with the press of a button...I also like being able to shift to a 2x FOV crop at around 14 megapixels...it makes my small 45mm P-series Nikkor a semi-wide on "full frame", as well as a 90mm equivalent field of view "telephoto" lens. Nikon has been implementing multi-format capture options since way back in 2005 on its higher-end cameras...it's quite useful at times to be able to switch the capture's actual SIZE, or its proportional ratio (as in the 4:5 aspect ratio AKA 8x10 enlargement proportion!) with the press of a button and one, or two, clicks of the main control wheel. As MP counts go higher and higher, the heavier crop settings are actually becoming VERY capable. The D2x's 2.0x FOV setting was only 6.7 megapixels, and 12.2 was the full-field...now, with 36MP on the D800, I believe the crop is 16.7 megapixels in size...that's plenty of MP count for many,many uses!

 

[skieur]

You can get the same effect by cropping the image from the full-frame sensor. You lose some pixels along the way, but depending on what you're comparing you may have more of them to start with.

No you don't, because cropping the image to blow up the centre enlarges the pixels in that area and pixels are not square either causing a loss that brings it below the crop body pixel count and image quality.

skieur

 

[usayit]

I thought the 4/3 format was the aspect ratio of the capture?? Right?

I wasn't sure so I had to look it up:

Micro Four Thirds system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The image sensor of Four Thirds and MFT is commonly referred to as a 4/3" type or 4/3 type sensor (inch-based sizing system is derived from now obsolete video camera tubes). "

..

"The Four Thirds system used a 4:3 image aspect ratio, in common with other compact digital cameras but unlike APS-C or full-frame DSLRs which usually adhere to the 3:2 aspect ratio of the traditional 35 mm format. Thus "The Four Thirds refers to both the size of the imager and the aspect ratio of the sensor".[4] Note that actual size of the chip is considerably less than 4/3 of an inch, the length of the diagonal being only 22.5 mm. The 4/3 inch designation for this size of sensor dates back to the 1950s and vidicon tubes, when the external diameter of the camera tube was measured, not the active area."


Learn something new each day. I never really paid much attention to it...