Why Full-Frame?

I think for the D40 type market, cropped sensors will be with us a long time. I believe all D# cameras will be FF from the D3 on. And I believe the D400 or what ever will be FF. It may take a few years for the D80/40D price-point cameras to move up to FF as I think the pressures of consumerism will keep them clipped for some time. That point in each manufacturers lineup will be so competitive with advanced hobbyists that the price may fall, and features added, but the sensor most likely stay the same size. JMO.
 
I think in a few years all DSLRs will be FF and hopefully, for telephoto fans, there will be a X1.3 X1.6 and X2 mode of in camera cropping (I. E. digital zoom) A crop sensor is essentially a digital zoom of 160% with a section of a FF sensor. I agree with Iron Flatline (although I didn't rerally think of it this way but it seems so obvious) cropping can be done on your own............ now I can no longer justify an "advantage" of having a X1.6 FOVC sensor. OH well, I still love my 20D, and until the "xxD" series of Canon's lineup gets FF (when the price of manufacturing overlaps this market segment) I'll probably get one. Who knows, 3 years? more? less?
 
If we were to just crop on our own to get the 1.6x factor, wouldn't that significantly reduce the megapixels? Like... a lot? I mean, take a 5D. Crop it to 1.6x equiv. How many megapixels are you left with?

Is it safe to assume that noise (at least some) is caused by the pixels being located so close together on the sensor, and that's why on larger sensors, there is less noise? What about an 8MP Crop sensor compared to a 21MP FF sensor? Would they be about the same closeness? I figure there are other things involved here...

Then, what about the D3 that has a cropping option so it can be either FF or Crop? That sounds nice... but dealing with light in that aspect sounds weird. For instance.. if a D3 owner used crop for 20,000 surfing pictures at the beach, and then changed it to FF mode using the whole sensor... would the picture have a defect, where it was evident that the sensor had been used in crop mode for so long?

Example... apparently you're not supposed to leave the shutter open for too long, or point right at the sun and shoot, because the sensor pixels can get burned in (something like that). I would assume this same thing would happen simply over time with general use of a camera. So, if the crop area is getting just barely burned in over time, what effect will that have on using the camera in Full Frame mode?
 
Burnin is once off for CCDs and CMOS sensors. If the pixel isn't damaged after the shutter closes then the pixels is reset during readout and effectively the element has a new lease on life.

At least I believe this is how it works. It's like plasma screens. Those with XBoxes would see their menu burnt into the plasma for a specified duration after which the elements are electronically reset and volah all the ghosted images disappear.

I think in a few years all DSLRs will be FF and hopefully, for telephoto fans, there will be a X1.3 X1.6 and X2 mode of in camera cropping (I. E. digital zoom) A crop sensor is essentially a digital zoom of 160% with a section of a FF sensor. I agree with Iron Flatline (although I didn't rerally think of it this way but it seems so obvious) cropping can be done on your own............ now I can no longer justify an "advantage" of having a X1.6 FOVC sensor. OH well, I still love my 20D, and until the "xxD" series of Canon's lineup gets FF (when the price of manufacturing overlaps this market segment) I'll probably get one. Who knows, 3 years? more? less?

That's wishful thinking to say the least. It's not technology holding back FF sensors it's purely a game of economics. APS sensors are significantly cheaper to manufacture (definitely more than 1.6x by a very long shot), and that is not going to change.

You did fail to see the obvious advantage. If I had a D3 and cropped the 1.5x centre out of it I'd end up around 6-7mpx. Whereas the D300 still has 12mpx Now if I resized the D3 image then to be the size of the D300 there's no prizes for guessing which will be sharper.
 
I believe you have a few misconceptions:

Is it safe to assume that noise (at least some) is caused by the pixels being located so close together on the sensor, and that's why on larger sensors, there is less noise? What about an 8MP Crop sensor compared to a 21MP FF sensor? Would they be about the same closeness? I figure there are other things involved here...

Not really. The spacing between pixels doesn't contribute as much to the noise as the size of the pixels. To get 8 Mpx on a small sensor requires smaller pixels than 8 Mpx on a full-frame sensor, and so they are more prone to noise due to the electronics. I don't think the physical spacing between the pixels actually changes much, if at all.


For instance.. if a D3 owner used crop for 20,000 surfing pictures at the beach, and then changed it to FF mode using the whole sensor... would the picture have a defect, where it was evident that the sensor had been used in crop mode for so long?

No. As the above poster said, each time the sensor is read out, it effectively starts over. It's not as if the image gets "burned into" the sensor. To a point ...


Example... apparently you're not supposed to leave the shutter open for too long, or point right at the sun and shoot, because the sensor pixels can get burned in (something like that). I would assume this same thing would happen simply over time with general use of a camera. So, if the crop area is getting just barely burned in over time, what effect will that have on using the camera in Full Frame mode?

Sensors degrade over time, and individual pixels are prone to failure. Just like an LCD screen will often come with a few "hot" pixels (pixels that are always on) and a few dead pixels (pixels that are always off), digital sensors (CCD, CMOS) are affected similarly where some pixels are dead and some are hot, and most will have slightly different sensitivity compared to others. On-camera software corrects this most of the time so you don't notice it. But try taking a long exposure with the lens cap on and the hot pixels become quite apparent.

Exposure to very high intensity light will damage the CCD more quickly than normal use, but regardless of how careful you are, your sensor will get worse as it ages. Just not due to the reason you describe in your second-to-last paragraph.
 
thanks for answering those questions.

Definitely, I didn't mean them as a statement of fact, but inquisitive assumptions (based on the fact that I don't know much about the tech side) trying to get a response saying whether the assumptions were right/wrong.

Thanks again for responding, that's neat the technology they can cram into a black box these days.
 
Yep I think there's more engineers and physicists on this forum than professional photographers. You get to meet all sorts with this hobby :)

Just defended my MS thesis (astronomy) on Thursday. Passed with conditions, so don't quite have the degree, but yeah ... I do a lot of CCD imaging outside of Earth-bound objects as a secondary hobby.
 

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