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Why FF?

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Stick with 1.6x if it suits you but maybe you need to educate yourself before you say people don;t need it. Until there are many fast and wide primes or a TS_e for 1.6x then the market for FF exists. The look and feel is different, the shallower depth of field matters.
Henry Porter said:
I honestly don't understand why so many people want to go FF. OK,
the 5D is a great camera but so is the 30D. What are the true
advantages of FF? WA is of course one factor but WA lenses are
cheap compared to the long tele. And remember that on a 1.6x camera
we only use the BEST part of the lenses, the center. Of all the
comparisons I have seen I find it difficult to see any difference
in IQ between the 5D and the 20/30D. Bigger pixels on the sensor
should mean higher S/N ratio. But it s signifiant for most amateurs?
And by the way, why stop at 24x36, why not bigger format? (who
startet calling medium-format FF? Canon?)

Bottom line: I think I'll stick to the 1.6X bodies.

( I don't know the reason for this rant, maybe I just have to
convince myself ) :)

--
The only thing we know for sure about Henry Porter is that his
name wasn't Henry Porter ( Bob Dylan, Brownsville girl)
Click to expand...
 
None of the photographs were posted until after the flowers were pretty much done. In most of these cases, you only have a few days to get down (or up) to the location the bloom is happening. Reading past issues of AZ HW is a good starting point to possible locations. Then watch the monsoons (or winter rains). After about 3 weeks of steady storms every day, wild-flowers are a serious option.

These locations will move from year to year and most years, the rains simply do not support it.

Steven

--
---
2006 Southern Arizona Monsoon Wildflowers
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/images_summer_2006_ii

Summer 2006:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/gallery/images_summer_2006

 
Al_10D said:
severoon said:
Whether you like it or not, you better get used to the idea of FF.
Canon reps have already said they're planning on taking every model
in the line to FF except the Rebel.
Click to expand...
Now I got it: Canon planning to kill sales of their newly
developed $700 10-22 and $1000 17-55IS, right? I don't think so.
Click to expand...
Yup. That's according to a Canon rep. I can't cite the source, but I recently read a thread just a couple of weeks back on this very forum that did, and the press release on Canon's site had a Canon rep announcing that they'd be moving all their lines to FF except the Rebel.

If you think about it, it does make sense. Pros that buy the more expensive bodies use L lenses anyway, they're not messing around with the EF-S lenses...those are for the folks that own in the Rebel line.

Also, as you say in another post, IQ in APS-C sized sensors in a few years will indeed surpass IQ in FF sensors today. So what? The FF sensors they're installing at that time will have the same IQ as the APS-C sized sensors in the latest of the Rebel line plus the extra resolution.

As the sensors get cheaper and cheaper to make, they can grow in size and maintain IQ while keeping costs low. No big deal.

The next phase of digital photography is moving towards medium and large format. Someday you'll be able to buy a large format 8"x10" sensor digital camera. Think gigapixel.

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm
http://www.gigapxl.org/
 
If 24 x 36 intersects the edge of the image circle, then the largest rectangular sensor that fits within it is a square of 936 square mm. or about 30.6 by 30.6. That's the same area as 26 x 36 (which would extend beyond teh circle). You could get even more area with a circular sensor.
T3 said:
Henry Porter said:
And by the way, why stop at 24x36, why not bigger format? (who
startet calling medium-format FF? Canon?)
Click to expand...
24x36 is the maximum frame size that will fit within the image
circle projected by Canon EF (35mm full frame) lenses, that's why.
Using a larger format would entail designing an entirely new lens
system, and would render all of Canon's existing EF lenses unusable
because the sensor frame would extend beyond the image circle
projected by Canon EF (as well as all 35mm) lenses.

Luminous Landscape illustrates this concept nicely with this
illustration:



http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/dslr-mag.shtml

And by the way, Canon doesn't call medium format FF. Canon calls
the 35mm format FF. And they call it FF because it uses the "full
frame" of 35mm lenses. And Canon isn't the only one that uses the
term "full frame" in this manner either. It's a standard term used
by publications and other manufacturers.

Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 
Perspective is governed by the relationship of the camera position to the subject position. Using a longer lens merely results in a cropped version of the picture taken with the shorter lens. If you compose so that the same subject is visible in each picture at the same image size (technically possible only with a flat subject), then you had to move either the subject or the camera in order to do so. That moving the subject or camera is what changes the perspective.
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 
FF digital cameras can vignette quite badly because the angle of the light hitting the corners does not work well with the microlenses. When this happens, stopping down does not reduce the vignetting nearly as much as it would as from vignetting from traditional optical reasons. Canon QA is not perfect in this area which adds another factor to the equation. Some of the more recent cameras are building the edge microlenses differently to try to address this issue.
1.6x cameras are not as vulnerable to this issue.

--len
 
One of the best Canon or Nikon WA zooms I've used. Way better than the Canon FF zooms, especially the 16-35, IMHO. Course if you are into PPing each image individuallly I doubt the difference matters.

--len
 
Al_10D said:
17-40 MTF you shown does not have sharpness (thin) lines, but only
contrast ones. On consumer zoom look at blue thin line beyond 13mm
(corners on 1.6x), it falls below 0.4. Put this lens on 1.6x camera
and MTF on extreme corners at F8 is still above 0.7.
Click to expand...
This is the 24-105L IS at 24mm:



This is the 16-35L at 16mm:



If you put the 24-105 on a 5D and the 16-35 on a 20D, you'll have about the same FOV.

Now, look at the 16-35 just out to about 13.5mm to find the corners on a 1.6 crop camera. Looks like the stopped-down sharpness lines are at 0.55 or 0.75, give or take. The 24-105 at the corners is at 0.2-0.3 or so.

Now here comes the tricky part. We should really be comparing the 24-105 at 30lp/mm to the 16-35 at 1.6*30=48lp/mm because of the difference in enlargement ratio. We don't have those numbers. We can guess since the 10lp/mm numbers were at 0.8 and0.95 and they dropped to 0.55-0.7 by 30lp/mm. So we know 48lp/mm will be much lower, probably in the 0.3-0.5 range.

But that's still a bit better than the 24-105L (if our guesses are anywhere close). So how far do we have to move in on the 24-105L do get to that range? We have to go to about 20mm. That's a crop factor of about 1.08.

A 5D at a crop factor of 1.08 will have about 11MP - still way more than the 20D.

So, in practice, a 24-105 on a 5D will beat the 16-35 on a 20D, even if you need to crop the corners just a bit. And it will beat it very handily at the center (most of the image).

And that's probably why owners of both cameras (like me) consistently report that they get better sharpness on their full-frame cameras than on their crop cameras, even including the corners.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
The shift can be imitated in software, but not the tilt of the plane of focus. You can make things blurry in software, but you can't make an angled plane sharp.

-v
 
..got around high cost of the sensor for a FF which is why sensors have been smaller - cost not desire.
 
UnderWater said:
FF digital cameras can vignette quite badly because the angle of
the light hitting the corners does not work well with the
microlenses.
Click to expand...
And yet, the same lenses that vignette on my 5D also vignette on film, and by about the same amount.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
(in my opinion :-) .. .. I believe you cannot tell the difference between images posted at 800x600. You can post process to make it show differences . I believe if you make a photo with cameras 6,8,10,12 mp and then reduce them to 800x600 pixels then you cannot tell the difference.

Obviously with more pixels you can crop more and maybe print larger but a monitor shows only about a 1mp image....

The object of making a photo is to print that photo otherwise we would all be using 2mp cameras and sending email photos around.

IMHO use crop cameras with telephoto lens in the field and with less than ideal conditions ie poor light high ISo etc.

The full frame shines with wide angle and controllable conditions . IE studio shots where lighting and weather are not inhibiting factors ie tripod and low iso (of course under those conditions many of the P&S at low iso will also work)
My preference is crop cameras with long telephotos.
Ludvig said:
If you have never used film SLR's, I can understand you view. The
24x36mm format just became a standard, and the camera manufactorers
made the the most used lenses around this format. I remember when I
had a 28mm prime as a wide angle and bought a 24mm. Wow, that was
really wide angel (on film). On my 5D, the 24-70mm or the 24-105mm
are great walk-around lenses and wide enough. On the 30D, I have to
use the 16-35mm to get (almost) the same view, but the 16-35mm is
not the same quality as the 24-xx lenses. Also, if you have been
working with the FF format for many years, you got used to what to
expect from the different lenses. With the crop factor cameras, you
will not feel confident with this "screwed up" format. For
telephoto and extreme macro, the crop factor cameras are nice
because of the higher pixel density, but the large photosites in
the 5D makes a better surface. If you see a difference in the two
images below, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't see a
difference, you shouldn't waste you money on a FF.



What's best? I do not know that answer. But until I know, I like to
take photos with the 5D, and in some situations, use the benefit of
the crop factor with the 30D. Of course you can use the excellent
10-22mm as a wide angle, but why change something you got used to
and have the feeling for?

If anybody have any comments or corrections to my thoughts on this
subject, I would appreciate very much to hear you view.

Ludvig
Click to expand...
 
Unfortunately, f/2.8 lenses behave like f/4.4 on 1.6x for FF-equivalent framing with the same perspective. This applies both to depth of field as well as to light-gathering ability. For the depth-of-field part, just go to one of several DOF calculators out there and see for yourself. See this thread for more details:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=18777493

In that thread, I didn't explain well enough the light-gathering ability part. It is true that f/2.8, no matter what focal length or sensor size, provides the same exposure. Exposure is amount of light per unit area. However, 1.6x and FF have different total areas: at the same f/ratio, FF gathers 2.56 times more total light than a 1.6x crop sensor. A 2.56x reduction in light is the same as reducing the aperture by 1.6 stops. 2.8 + 1.6 = 4.4. Now, I'll give you that, because exposure is the same, shutter speeds are the same, and thus subject motion is the same as well as camera shake.

I don't know about you, but light-gathering ability is very important to me. More total light means a bigger signal-to-noise ratio, even with exactly the same pixel sizes and sensor technology. If you only shoot in very good light, no problem; but I like to shoot with available light whenever possible, and I often shoot indoors or at night. And since I do a good amount of portrait photography, shallow DOF is important to me. So for all those reasons, FF is the way to go for me. I hope this helps.

Victor
 
It seems logical to me that the amount of light that falls on the "SAME" area of a sensor is the same. In other words a 1/2 inch square in the centre of the sensor receives the same amount of light in both crop and full size sensors.
.
vor said:
Unfortunately, f/2.8 lenses behave like f/4.4 on 1.6x for
FF-equivalent framing with the same perspective. This applies both
to depth of field as well as to light-gathering ability. For the
depth-of-field part, just go to one of several DOF calculators out
there and see for yourself. See this thread for more details:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=18777493

In that thread, I didn't explain well enough the light-gathering
ability part. It is true that f/2.8, no matter what focal length
or sensor size, provides the same exposure. Exposure is amount of
light per unit area. However, 1.6x and FF have different total
areas: at the same f/ratio, FF gathers 2.56 times more total light
than a 1.6x crop sensor. A 2.56x reduction in light is the same as
reducing the aperture by 1.6 stops. 2.8 + 1.6 = 4.4. Now, I'll
give you that, because exposure is the same, shutter speeds are the
same, and thus subject motion is the same as well as camera shake.

I don't know about you, but light-gathering ability is very
important to me. More total light means a bigger signal-to-noise
ratio, even with exactly the same pixel sizes and sensor
technology. If you only shoot in very good light, no problem; but
I like to shoot with available light whenever possible, and I often
shoot indoors or at night. And since I do a good amount of
portrait photography, shallow DOF is important to me. So for all
those reasons, FF is the way to go for me. I hope this helps.

Victor
Click to expand...
 
G. Gray said:
It seems logical to me that the amount of light that falls on the
"SAME" area of a sensor is the same. In other words a 1/2 inch
square in the centre of the sensor receives the same amount of
light in both crop and full size sensors.
Click to expand...
Right. And because there's 2.56 times more area, an f4.5 lens projects the same amount of total light onto a full-frame sensor as does an f2.8 lens on a 1.6-crop sensor.

Total light is what matters because, if you make the sensor have the same number of pixels in each case, each pixel ends up with the same number of photons striking it in each case, and thus the same image.

If, on the other hand, you give the larger sensor more pixels, you end up with more noise but more detail too. You can, if you want to, use software noise reduction to reduce noise, and detail along with it to get you back to where you would have been if you had had the same number of pixels on each sensor.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
Al_10D said:
F2.8 is F2.8 anywhere. Except on 1.6x camera it provides 1.6x
amount of DOF. All the rest of this BS is just that - BS.
Click to expand...
Hmmm...my 5D performs way better at f2.8 and any given shutter speed, than does my S3 at f2.8 and the same shutter speed.

I know why that is, do you?

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
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