Why do people mistakenly believe FF is better than cropped

[lukaswerth]

I still use 8x10" (or intend to)...

Of course, it's the camera, it's the purpose. It's detail, it's dynamic range.

Lukas

[benm]

Just as there are many instances a crop sensor is better than FF

Quite right. It all depends on the situation. I do woodworking as another hobby and I own about 10 different hammers. Some hammers are only good for a single task, others work for multiple tasks. But no one hammer works for all tasks. Same with cameras.

[Manfred M]

Again, mostly opinions of people who do not have or shoot the three different formats. I've shot with a crop frame for around 5 years, a full frame for around 2 years and just got a decent mFT this week and have a couple of days of shooting under my belt, so I do feel somewhat qualified to comment.

I by far prefer the full frame, if for no other reason that it has a larger viewfinder, better laid out controls, has some speciality lenses that effectively work best for this size of sensor. Of the cameras i have, it has the best dynamic range, lowest noise in high ISO shooting and the best colour depth. The downsides are of course cost and size. Great for a ultra-wide angle shooting as well.

The mFT is of course the smallest and lightest. The price of the lenses is pretty well in line with similar ones offered in the crop sensor range. The mirrorless viewfinder has both advantages (a better representation of what the final image will look like verus a reflex mirror design, but suffers in brightly lit situations. Low ISO performance is its weakness. I tend to be a shallow DoF shooter, so the smaller sensor is not the best for my shooting style. The camera is burdened with amateur features (nicely said, people who believe that they can get better pictures just by upgrading to a better camera, but really don't understand photographic principles well enough, so I would have to describe its operation as a bit schizophrenic. I primarily bought it to get decent quality in a small body for use when I am out biking, hiking, taking snapshots and traveling when I don't want to take my larger gear along. I expect I will like it better as I become more familiar with it, but it clearly has some performance downsides versus the full frame and crop frame designs.

I don't have particularly large hands, but i find using the mFT body a bit cramped. I've been in the market for one for about the past 2 years (I own to mFT lenses that I use on my mFT video camera), and final got one this week. I is great from a size standpoint, but from a price standpoint, it competes squarely against the crop sensor lines.

My crop-sensor camera is the oldest and is showing its age a bit; performance is really "last generation" and being aimed at the enthusiast market has good features and decent performance. It wil continue to be my secondary camera because performance is pretty decent, gives better shallow DoF performance than the mFT and in spite of its age, has comparable low ISO performance to the mFT. When it reaches end of life, I expect i will replace it with a second full-frame body.

[ajohnw]

The depth of field aspect of m 4/3 is exactly one stop higher than full frame for the same effect. A problem in some cases but not really with prime lenses - unless the shooter is one of those people who like pure white out of focus backgrounds. Some distance may be needed for that. One interesting aspect of this on ordinary lenses zooms etc is that peak resolution has a greater dof. Given the right subjects on some cameras diffraction effects might be seen at F16 but unlikely at F11.

Can't see why you have problems with the viewfinder in brightly lit situations. When I use it it's all my eye can see and way way better than the rear screen. I think eye cups are available for most of them but I certainly don't need one. Some cameras also have a live view boost setting. I find that can see in the dark far better than I can. The standard mode reflects the shot and some use it to set exposure but I feel that is a bit risky.

I do have large hands, they match my 6ft3. Can't say that I have had any button problems only getting used to where they are, Pen's and E-M5. In some ways they are tactile like movie button which I use for something else is flat and low. The other button on the top plate fn2 I'm not sure what the wavy line on it represents is higher and smaller. The other function button is just above a thumb grip and a different shape - easy to find. The info and menu button just below the thumb grip, Again height is different. One silly - why have preview shot delete button that does nothing else when not in preview. One thing I find which is odd on the E-M5 is that the rear thumb wheel doesn't seem to be where I expect it to be. I don't reach across enough. If I take several shots I have no problem finding it at all - just the 1st time. It must be a left over from other cameras.

Can't comment on the rest as I don't know which camera you have bought. On mirrorless some features my have some specific use. Must admit I can't get excited about art filters but they do appeal to some - good luck to them as I see it and why not.

John
-

[Manfred M]

Sorry John - I'll call them as I see them, rather than the way I would hope things work out. Based on everything I have read the DoF loss is closer to two stops versus full frame. If I lose one stop at 1.5 crop factor, it's hard to see how a 2x crop loses the same amount. This has been a very significant point of discussion point on a lot of video sites, and Cosina / Vogtländer has pushed out severaly f/0.95 lenses to give the equivilant of around f/2 FF.

I don't know if you were part of the discussions when I was looking for mFT suggestions when I was looking at cameras last year. I can only relate to what I saw then and now. I know you are a fan of Olympus and I did look at the Pens and E-M5; let's agree to disagree regarding them; I found them to be rather underwhelming for the price and ended up opting for the Panasonic GX7 instead. I find that image quality is better than the Olympus, and I like the fact that it has both in lens and in camera stabilization. I'm going to pick up the Leica R adaptor so that I can shoot my Leica glass on it.

As a shooter, I find that IQ is quite acceptable for mFT, especially at ISO 200, but all of the mFT cameras I tested started showing bothersome noise at ISO800 and above. The camera body and lenses are down right tiny, which is why I wanted it, but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking it is going to come up to what my D800 does, but when size and weight are important, the trade-off will be worth it.

[woof woof]

I find it interesting that there is a belief that FF is the way to go, or that it is in some way better or superior to cropped sensors, wrong.

FF is NOT the be all and end all in photography...

You do know that 35mm FF was the crop format of its day?

I think it's important to think about what we mean by The Best as if the aim is to get the highest possible image quality at any given output size then a larger format is very probably going to be The Best simply because it will need to be magnified, blown up, less. All else being equal, shutter speeds, ISO, lens quality etc. However, if you want to limit your output size to something less than the size of a barn door and shoot at lower ISO's it may be very difficult to tell one shot captured with a larger format camera from another shot captured with a smaller format camera.

Mostly I think that the argument that larger formats aren't The Best is pretty pointless when such loose terms as "the way to go" or "better" are used.

Personally I think that for hand held shooting to produce whole images and even heavy crops for screen viewing and for printing whole images for not too critical veiwing up to and perhaps a little beyond A3 the sweet spot or rather sweet zone exists somewhere with Micro Four Thirds at one end of the sweet zone and "FF" at the other. Personally I would feel a bit limited by anything much smaller in format than MFT and I frankly wouldn't be interested in shooting hand held with any format larger than what we now call FF.

At the moment I have a MFT camera and a Sony A7 and both have their uses

A quick view on the DoF question. This seems to come up time and time again as a critisism of MFT but there can be times when MFT seems to have an advantage. For example when shooting with a FF camera and a 50mm lens and struggling with shutter speed and ISO an aperture setting of f1.4 may not give enough DoF however with a MFT camera and a 25mm lens set to f1.4 you have the light gathering ability of a FF 50mm f1.4 lens but with f2.8 DoF. Of course with the FF camera you may well have better higher ISO performance so you could stop your lens down and up your ISO and still get the better ultimate image quality but it'll probably be a much closer call. Plus some MFT lenses are quite good at their widest apertures whilst some FF lenses really need to be stopped down a bit.

Mostly though I think that argument is pointless and that many cameras these days are good enough. It's a bit like asking who was best, Buddy Holly or Elvis. Actually scrap that because we all know Buddy was best

[Manfred M]

No, I use Metz 45 CL4-digital flashguns (2) and SB910, none are built just for FF, and why should FF be better built or associated with pros, as I said I know many pros who would not touch FF

Strangely enough, the pros that I know consider full-frame as the minimum that they use in their professional work and some have smaller cameras for "fun" use. This includes several wedding and portrait photographers, as well another who specializes in wildlife and one who is primarily a product photographer. Some of these folks actually use medium format gear for some of their work.

As for accessories; both my Nikkor f/2 105mm DC and Nikkor f/3.5 24mm PC-E lenses are designed for use on full frame cameras. I can confirm that the DC impact is virtually undetectable on my crop frame. I haven't tried the PC-E lens on the crop frame (not sure it will have the shift range on it); I was told it is FF only.

[ajohnw]

Sorry John - I'll call them as I see them, rather than the way I would hope things work out. Based on everything I have read the DoF loss is closer to two stops versus full frame. If I lose one stop at 1.5 crop factor, it's hard to see how a 2x crop loses the same amount. This has been a very significant point of discussion point on a lot of video sites, and Cosina / Vogtländer has pushed out severaly f/0.95 lenses to give the equivilant of around f/2 FF.

I don't know if you were part of the discussions when I was looking for mFT suggestions when I was looking at cameras last year. I can only relate to what I saw then and now. I know you are a fan of Olympus and I did look at the Pens and E-M5; let's agree to disagree regarding them; I found them to be rather underwhelming for the price and ended up opting for the Panasonic GX7 instead. I find that image quality is better than the Olympus, and I like the fact that it has both in lens and in camera stabilization. I'm going to pick up the Leica R adaptor so that I can shoot my Leica glass on it.

As a shooter, I find that IQ is quite acceptable for mFT, especially at ISO 200, but all of the mFT cameras I tested started showing bothersome noise at ISO800 and above. The camera body and lenses are down right tiny, which is why I wanted it, but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking it is going to come up to what my D800 does, but when size and weight are important, the trade-off will be worth it.

I'm always making that mistake but this is the actual DOF relationship.



It might pay to bear in mind that the DOF for the 10x8 that is now 12x8 is off the top of my head under 0.01% of sensor width. If I remember correctly the curves are for a head and shoulder shot and in my view would have too much blur on backgrounds in many situations. I don't think it pays to over blur backgrounds because they often get distracting. Just the right amount of blur can mimic the way the eye looks at things but really needs a calculator on hand.

Interesting that Panasonic now have both stabilisation systems. When I bought that was a main draw towards Olympus also the nature of the other company. Lens size too actually. In body stabilisation has proved a bit disappointing in some ways. I immediately thought mmmmm manual lenses but find that there are significant catches but the IS is capable of handling a 500mm lens when the shot is taken. Focusing that is another matter even on cameras which offer IS during manual focusing. I may get to grips with E-M5 style focus peaking and maybe the more recent one is better but distant web tom tom drums suggest there are still problems in that area. Depends what lens is on the camera.

I find max ISO depends on what is being shot. Not bottomed that out yet so have had some surprises and still wonder why I can shoot a flower at 1600 and have no significant problems yet can come to grief in other situations even with faster shutter speeds. I also posted some shots taken at 25600 a while ago. With a bit of work much better than expected. The shots even showed that Oly really do turn off noise reduction when it's turned off. One thing for sure getting to grips with decent noise reduction software is a good idea.

Looking at the review the GX7 it's similar to what I would like Olympus to do with the Pen's. The jpg tone curves in it are Canon like. That is a surprise. I feel all cameras should have one like that. Olympus go the same way as Nikon. Having used an E-P3 I can see why you commented on fingers and I think the GX7 may be smaller than that. Cost well the OMD's are so called water proof. Not that I feel this really costs that much to do. Hopeless compared with some compacts really. Can be dropped on concrete and even immersed in water on some models.

John
-

[Glenn NK]

I guess my question is, "why do we keep arguing about this FF vs crop nonsense?"

[ajohnw]

I guess my question is, "why do we keep arguing about this FF vs crop nonsense?"

'cause it's marginally better than watching paint dry.

John
-

[Mike Buckley]

'cause it's marginally better than watching paint dry.

I'm not sure that's true.

[Davey]

one thing I will add is appearance of things like sigma 18-35 1.8 closes the gap on shallow DoF needs on normal focal lengths. I have got sharp results from it wide open but need to use LV to get it dead on but that is same for ff 35mm. The wide angle needs most landscape people and maybe architecture and so something I see no replacement for and high iso performance with high res sensors is always going to favour bigger sensors although iso400 and below seems hard to spot difference in correctly exposed shots even pixel peeping. For ultrawide the only really wide we get is 8-16mm but 35mm have tons more choice and wider options plus FoV but with particular focal length distortions is hard to see 35mm being replaced.

[Polar01]

Not sure if it is marginally better than watching paint dry that would depend on the wavelength of the paint (colour).

Cheers: Allan

[pnodrog]

It is interesting that in my photographic club owners of FF cameras dominate the points table. I assume they must just be luckier cameras to use...

Now where is that nice coloured paint drying.



P.S. I suspect they would dominate the points table regardless of camera being used

[Manfred M]

Not sure if it is marginally better than watching paint dry that would depend on the wavelength of the paint (colour).

Cheers: Allan

One would assume that black paint will dry faster than white paint as it will absorb all wavelengths, heat up more quickly driving the drying and curing process, whereas white paint that reflects all wavelengths will remain cooler and hence dry more slowly...

[Adrian]

It's an odd topic this. My wife uses a 70D crop and she prefers it: except for some landscape and indoor shots (for example because our 16-35 delver true wide angle on FF). I prefer it too for travel because it is smaller. lighter and the crop is great when you are bobbing about on a boat trying to catch a bird or something hidden in a backside tree, with a 300mm lens.

But for portraiture and low light I like our 5DIII. I also quite like the fact that there is a lot of focussing flexibility as the FF cameras do tend to have higher specs. It's surely just horses for courses? Both work fine (as does my son's 7D and the FF 6D we use in the office). It's not really about the camera, it's about the eye of the photographer and then the glass I find. The FF versus crop debate will go on interminably, but really who cares?

Adrian

[jcuknz]

Back to a couple of years before digital entered my life I wanted 'quality images' for a particular event so I went out with my Rollei rather than my Pentax becuase it was easier to achieve a quality image with the bigger film size. Unlike every Tom Dick and Harriet these days with a proliferation of lenses I simply had a single 50mm lens for the Pentax so there was not too much difference in operating either. I think the same applies today ... within operational limits it is easier with a larger format.

I remember when I was using plates [ only quarter-plate as a poor student ] a fellow student using 35mm showed how it could be done with maintaining developer/wash/fixer to half a degree of each other ... you need to take more care with the smaller format.

[DanK]

I'm always making that mistake but this is the actual DOF relationship.

John, I think you are confusing different things. The size of the blur disk is not the same as the change in aperture needed to get the same DOF with a change in sensor size. Manfred's numbers are correct, I think. The precise numbers depend on more than sensor size, and if I recall correctly, it is nonlinear as aperture changes, but here is one example from DOFmaster, comparing the 7D crop to the 5DIII FF:

5D, 20m, 80mm focal length, f/5.6: near 13.1m, far 42.2m

7D: 20m, 50mm focal length, f/4.0: near 12.4m, far 51m.

So, a one stop difference is not quite sufficient in this case to offset a 1.6 crop factor.

[ajohnw]

John, I think you are confusing different things. The size of the blur disk is not the same as the change in aperture needed to get the same DOF with a change in sensor size. Manfred's numbers are correct, I think. The precise numbers depend on more than sensor size, and if I recall correctly, it is nonlinear as aperture changes, but here is one example from DOFmaster, comparing the 7D crop to the 5DIII FF:

5D, 20m, 80mm focal length, f/5.6: near 13.1m, far 42.2m

7D: 20m, 50mm focal length, f/4.0: near 12.4m, far 51m.

So, a one stop difference is not quite sufficient in this case to offset a 1.6 crop factor.

As I compensate using EV / meter marking I am inclined to get equal stop numbers incorrect. The graph I posted is correct though. Assuming the calculator used is of course which it does seem to be. I keep meaning to do my own - that style as the other isn't much use to me.

Amazing that I can go though life thinking I stop below 5.6 is X and get it wrong but I'm not really interested only that I need this or that to achieve what I want.

John
-

[NorthernFocus]

...The FF versus crop debate will go on interminably, but really who cares?

The evidence would suggest at least all of us who posted to this thread...

Maddening, isn't it