So Who Believes that Full Frame Camera's Gather More Light Then APSC

john.margetts · Jun 12, 2018

480sparky said:
So a rock band is louder when they play to 100,000 people as opposed to just 1,00 pairs of ears?

Yes! Louder measured in decibels at the loudspeakers. If they were not, either the 1000 people would have their eardrums turned to jelly or the 100,000 people would be unable to hear them. But the user experience is likely to be much the same.

Sent from my 8070 using Tapatalk

ClickAddict · Jun 12, 2018

Given all other identical settings, imagine your small sensor produces an image the same size as the larger one but with black border all around it (where it missed the light captured by the larger sensor.) End result you have the same image but more light on the larger one as the small one is full of black border. (Over simplification but simply trying to give another way for people who are confusion RATES vs QUANTITY)

Braineack · Jun 12, 2018

480sparky said:
So a rock band is louder when they play to 100,000 people as opposed to just 1,00 pairs of ears?

The question here isn't "are they louder?" the question is: was more sound collected?

if sound is a unit of 1. the same exposure of sound to both audiences got a total collection of 1,000 sound units vs 100,000 sound units. but both audiences heard the same thing.

again, is a pretty useless thing here...

smoke665 · Jun 12, 2018

So far in this thread I've learned that

DO NOT EAT THE COOKIES @Ysarex and @Braineack house, because you never know where the cookie pans have been.
Europeans have a different abbreviation of mathematics, and @BananRepublic is Irish.
Not everything you read on the internet is true (I'll admit I kind of already believed that one)
Supposedly @Braineack has two really red patches of sunburn somewhere on his body.
And lastly don't go to a rock concert and sit up front (might be why I have hearing problems today).

As to the OP I still haven't learned anything that I didn't already know.

Braineack · Jun 12, 2018

I learned that all solar panels are equal, but dime-sized ones are more equal than others.

Fujidave · Jun 12, 2018

I have had great fun reading through this post a laugh through some of it. A camera is a tool for folk to use whether its a crop or not, I have seen some fantastic shots taken with just a point and shoot so to me I think it is the person behind the camera that does all the work.

jcdeboever · Jun 12, 2018

It's not the size of the sensor but how you use it.

smoke665 · Jun 12, 2018

jcdeboever said:
It's not the size of the sensor but how you use it.

Even small clowns can work the big top.

TCampbell · Jun 12, 2018

Wow... that was a LONG thread.

Put simply... if I use a hand-held light meter... it doesn’t ask me which lens I’m using or what sensor size my camera has before it can display exposure settings. ...and there’s a good reason for that. ;-)

Ysarex · Jun 13, 2018

TCampbell said:
Wow... that was a LONG thread.

Put simply... if I use a hand-held light meter... it doesn’t ask me which lens I’m using or what sensor size my camera has before it can display exposure settings. ...and there’s a good reason for that. ;-)

But the original topic of the thread is total light gathered by the sensor. Why bring up photographic exposure? You're not actually getting the two confused are you?

Joe

BananaRepublic · Jun 13, 2018

Braineack said:
480sparky said:

Silly me, but here's my take on it:

If larger sensors 'gather more light', why is it they produce the same exposure as smaller sensors when the three settings of aperture, shutter speed and ISO are the same on both cameras? If there's a 'crop factor' for focal length equivalences, then there would be a corresponding 'exposure factor' between the two formats.

Full-frame: ISO 200, 1/60 sec, f/8 would require ISO 250, 1/30 sec f/5.6 for a crop. But since any triad produces identical exposures for both (given the same scene), then I guess 'full-frame gathers more light' doesn't stand up.

Click to expand...

which is correct.

but..................

cover your entire body with SPF50 suntan lotion except for a micro 4/3 sensor sized patch and a 35mm patch.

expose them for the same amount of time in direct sunlight. Which patch is going to piss you off more the next day?

Think about it you've exposed two different sized areas with the same amount of light, so it's kinda hard for the larger sensor not to gather more -- there's more area of coverage, so more light is captured.

Or I liked the sheet pan analogy before.

let's say it takes 1 cup of water to fill an 8x8" baking dish with 1/4" of water.

if you pour 1 cup of water in a 13x9" baking dish, can you still measure 1/4" of water?

If 1/4" of water is the equal exposure, then the larger pan/sensor needs more water/light in order to achieve the same exposure.

I'm still in the "who cares" crowd however.

Logic has no place in this arena and I have to ask you to leave

Tim Tucker 2 · Jun 13, 2018

I think @Ysarex summed it up well here:

Ysarex said:
It's an "equivalence" measurement of shot noise between digital sensors of different size. And frankly most of us shouldn't care very much if at all. It can be used as a technical way to explain the fact that larger sensor cameras perform better in low light than smaller sensor cameras

But cameras aren't equivalent so I don't see the point of trying to take the same photos with all of them. ;-)

Also, what's not clear is that if you use two different sized sensors to take the same photo, (i.e. same FOV) then to achieve the same exposure ISO, shutter speed and f-stop are the same. But in the smaller sensor with the wider angle lens the actual aperture diameter in mm is smaller letting in less light. It has to be this way because if you concentrate the same point light, such as the sun, and focus it on a smaller area the light intensity increases. If you use the same lens at the same f-stop then the sensor captures less of the image, (FOV) and again less of the light. To maintain exposure on a smaller sensor you must decrease the total amount of light to maintain intensity per sq mm, hence the increased noise.

All *equivalence* does is dictate that certain parameters should be held constant so that the total amount of light is always the same, but then you find that exposure must vary between sensor size to maintain this condition.

I did the experiment with the dishes in the rain, but I could only find the dog's dishes and it hasn't rained, so I used and inch of dog food. The results were inconclusive other than the dogs went to sleep after. ;-)