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APS quality held back because of FF?

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bolt2014 said:
I have not done the research but I would guess that APS-C cameras outsell full frame cameras, especially when it comes to DSLRs. If that is true, why are there not more new APS-C lenses released?
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Have you read my post here https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62840343? The key point is that past certain relatively small apertures and focal lengths the lenses naturally cover the FF image circle of 43mm; so whether they are called APS-C or FF lenses is academic - they are by their nature FF anyway.
bolt2014 said:
It seems that the camera manufactures are trying to shove full frame down our throats!
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Not if you understand what I've just said.

Apart from anything else there are some manufacturers that don't even make FF cameras, so why would they be pushing FF.
 
I understand what you said, I just don't agree with what you said for the most part.
 
possibly but a poor performing lens will be just as poor performing on aps c and ff. In the old days and still it is for most companies possible to use their ff offerings on an apsc camera but it will not offer any better pefornance than then it will on ff camera the idea of the sweet spot is over rated Apc lenses whean designed independantly of ff lenses take advantage of the fram size rather than trying to fint it.
 
Canon doesn't really make fast high quality lenses for Aps-c cameras. There is the Ef-m 32mm f/1.4 and the 22mm f/2, but that's it and both are not stabilized. The 17-55mm f/2.8 is old and doesn't seem to be very good at 17mm f/2.8. Furthermore old lenses generally can have disadvantages, for example according to Canon, the glass itself of their new RF lenses is new. https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...g-in-2019-lens-strategy-future-of-ai-and-more

For full frame cameras Canon offers a 24 and 28mm f/2.8 IS, but there is no 15mm f/2.8 IS for Aps-c cameras. Lenses like the 35mm f/2 IS and 50mm f/1.8 STM seem to perform well on Aps-c cameras, but lenses that are designed for full frame cameras can be softer when used on an Aps-c camera. When a lens (designed for full frame) needs to be sharp enough for a 24 megapixel Canon Aps-c camera, it means that it must be able to achieve sharp results on a ≈ 62 megapixel full frame sensor in the center of the frame. Not every lens is able to achieve that in the center of the frame, especially wide open.

I think that Canon doesn't offer fast lenses for Aps-c cameras in order to make the difference to full frame cameras larger, but nowadays this is a bad decision as stabilized f/3.5 (or even f/4) Aps-c camera wide-angle lenses will really struggle to beat a good smartphone camera. 10 years ago I think there were not many cheap alternatives to an Aps-c DSLR with f/3.5 lens: no 1" sensor compact cameras and no high quality smartphone cameras
 
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Re: APS quality held back because of FF?

1. Have you look at the lens catalog from Canon and Nikon? I doubt you own either Canon or Nikon DSLR.

2. Please define or explain your understanding of the word quality in industrial and consumer product?

3. Have you ever work in Q/A of any product? What is your level of Certification?

4. What do you mean by "able to support a whole FF field"?

5. What is your experience on Product Costing?

6. Do you own a crop-lens and used it on a FF body? If so, what did you observed?

7. You stated 4/3rd lens are "smaller, in some cases" are you comparing lens of identical FL and similar max aperture? As for "less expensive" look at item 5.
LoneTree1 said:
If you think about it, it probably is, because of lenses. Most lenses produced by companies that offer FF and APS are FF lenses. Because of this and the cost of making FF lenses really good (able to support a whole FF field) they probably cut-corners and kind of "average" the quality so that the edge of the field isn't a complete disaster. In doing so, they take what could be an excellent APS-supporting lens and make just a "good" FF lens. In the process, people using such a lens on an APS camera are deprived of the quality they could be seeing for the same cost IF the lens were only made to support an APS sensor. Is there any proof of this? Look at m4/3rds. They have some zoom lenses that are basically sharp and well-corrected across the field wide-open. And the lenses are available reasonable cost-levels. Because they only have to support the m4/3rds field, the lenses can be excellent and less expensive (and smaller, in some cases).
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BrownieVet said:
Re: APS quality held back because of FF?

1. Have you look at the lens catalog from Canon and Nikon? I doubt you own either Canon or Nikon DSLR.

2. Please define or explain your understanding of the word quality in industrial and consumer product?

3. Have you ever work in Q/A of any product? What is your level of Certification?
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Yes, i QC'd a forum and prevented people from being D.B.'s and hijacking subject lines AND prevented TOP POSTING!!
 
LoneTree1 said:
BrownieVet said:
Re: APS quality held back because of FF?

1. Have you look at the lens catalog from Canon and Nikon? I doubt you own either Canon or Nikon DSLR.

2. Please define or explain your understanding of the word quality in industrial and consumer product?

3. Have you ever work in Q/A of any product? What is your level of Certification?
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Yes, i QC'd a forum and prevented people from being D.B.'s and hijacking subject lines AND prevented TOP POSTING!!
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LoneTree1 said:
FingerPainter said:
LoneTree1 said:
So, for your APS camera, instead of a "good" FF lens, you could have an excellent APS lens.
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Most MFT lenses are sharper than most FF lens, yet MFT images are not generally sharper than FF images.
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I still see terrible aberrations at the edge of FF fields with wide-open lenses. I don't see it with good m4/3rds lenses.
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Which f/0.7 m43 lenses have better edge performance at 50mp that those two terrible FF lenses?
 
LoneTree1 said:
For the same money. You can make a better, higher resolution and better-corrected APS lens for less money than an equivalently-good FF lens. So, for your APS camera, instead of a "good" FF lens, you could have an excellent APS lens.
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Other members have posted threads insisting that APS-C lenses cost more than equivalent full frame lenses because an equivalent APS-C lens would have to be one stop faster.

So, which is it? Does a 35mm f/2 full frame lens cost more than, less than, or the same as a 24mm f/1.4 APS-C lens? What about a 600/4 vs. a 400/2.8? What about other focal lengths? And what will you do (if anything) once you deduce the answers?
 
tbcass said:
I disagree. Lenses designed for FF are not compromised in any way and modern lenses are better than ever. That means they will also perform great on APS. The only downside is FF lenses are a bit larger and heavier.
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"The only downside is FF lenses are a bit larger and heavier"

I used to think the same thing but in fact when you put a FF lens on an APS-C camera you may 'gain' focal length (actually FOV) but your equivalent APS-C aperture value and ISO value must be converted to accomodate the different sensor size.

As Tony Northrup explains in great detail, while your perceived focal length does change you must also take into account the multiplier to determine the aperture and ISO required on the APS-C sensor to achieve an equivalent depth of field and ISO sensitivity:

FF aperture / crop factor = cropped sensor aperture required to match the depth of field of the FF aperture.

FF ISO / (crop factor) squared = ISO setting required to match the sensitivity of the FF ISO.

So for example, if you put a 100 mm full frame lens @ f4 using ISO 100 on a camera with a 1.5 crop factor your focal length, aperture, and ISO need to be recalculated as follows:

FF focal length (100) * crop factor (1.5) = cropped focal length (150)

FF aperture (4) / crop factor (1.5) = cropped sensor aperture (2.667) required to match the Depth of Field provided by the FF sensor with an aperture of 4.

FF ISO (100) / (crop factor (1.5)) squared = cropped sensor ISO (100/2.25) or an ISO value of 44.44 to provide the same ISO sensitivity of the FF sensor at ISO 100.

Furthermore, when you use a FF lens on a cropped sensor camera, you will actually lose resolution since over half of the light captured by the large FF lens is not even captured by the smaller sensor. This is why a highly rated FF lens always scores so much better when paired with a FF sensor than it does when tested on a camera with a cropped sensor.

See
for a more detailed explanation.

HTH
 
I've thought about this a lot, and it really comes down to 3 things:
  • Historically APS-C shooters just don't buy high end APS-C glass when they can move to FF in the same mount
  • When a mount has FF and APS-C sensors, it makes very little sense to make APS-C only glass longer than ~35mm, outside of certain zoom lenses
  • The incremental cost of going from APS-C to FF has never been lower
Fuji X shows what happens when an APS-C system is built to FF standards. You get the cost of FF but the performance of APS-C. Truthfully the difference is not that big until you get to the very high end of FF.... but if you're going to spend thousands on a system anyway, why not go all the way with it?

That said, it really would not take much to complete EF-S and F DX. Some 1.8 primes wider than 35mm and new 15-xx/16-xx 2-2.8 zooms would do it. But it's very possible that there aren't enough future EF-S/F DX lens customers to warrant that investment. I can't even suggest Canikon make some FF Rebels as refurbed 6Ds and D610s are basically that. FF has never been cheaper
 
LoneTree1 said:
Gerry Winterbourne said:
LoneTree1 said:
If you think about it, it probably is,
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But APS-C quality isn't held back; there are unavoidable physical benefits to having a larger sensor, but in many cases the gap between APS-C and FF is less than the physical limits would suggest.
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DXO speak. The sensor dictates how good the lens is? No..
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Yes it does so some extent. Regardless of the imaging medium a lens is can resolve light down to a specific resolution. Imagine an FF lens that can resolve 30mp on an FF camera body. A 24mp FF sensor (equivalent pixel pitch to a 10.8MP APS-C) will undersample the lens and produce images with excellent resolution and sharpness. A 24mp APS-C sensor (equivalent pixel pitch to a 54MP FF) will oversample the lens and result in a lower quality photo. To get the most out of this lens's weaker resolving power the FF sensor is needed.
LoneTree1 said:
LoneTree1 said:
So size for size one could argue that it's FF that is held back. But that's equally untrue; neither is "held back".
LoneTree1 said:
because of lenses. Most lenses produced by companies that offer FF and APS are FF lenses.
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That's because for many lenses (large maximum aperture and moderate to long focal length) they naturally cover the FF image circle; so there's no point trying to make dedicated APS-C lenses in those cases.
LoneTree1 said:
Because of this and the cost of making FF lenses really good (able to support a whole FF field) they probably cut-corners and kind of "average" the quality so that the edge of the field isn't a complete disaster.
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There are lenses of all qualities from mediocre to excellent. That's true of all formats; FF lenses aren't any different from other formats when it comes to the range of compromises.
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Then stick an expensive, large format lens on a FF sensor and see how it works. Not as well as a good FF lens.
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That's really going to be dependent on the lens itself. Is it able to resolve to FF sensor's pixel pitch? If so it will work as well.
LoneTree1 said:
LoneTree1 said:
Indeed, as (1) it needs finer engineering tolerances to make smaller things and (2) APS-C images need more enlargement, it's easier to make high quality FF lenses than smaller FORMATS.
LoneTree1 said:
In doing so, they take what could be an excellent APS-supporting lens and make just a "good" FF lens.
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How can they "take" a lens with 27mm image circle and make it into a lens covering 43mm image circle?
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For the same money. You can make a better, higher resolution and better-corrected APS lens for less money than an equivalently-good FF lens. So, for your APS camera, instead of a "good" FF lens, you could have an excellent APS lens.
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Reality is that virtually all good FF lenses are designed to resolve well on 42MP - 50MP sensors. Mounting those lenses on an APS-C body will result in IQ as good as a well designed APS-C lens. Potentially even better than FF in some cases as the APS-C will crop away soft edges and the worst of distortion. For example Sony's FF 28mm F/2 makes a better APS-C lens than FF lens as its severe distortion is a non-issue on APS-C but because it was designed with the a7R ii/iii in mind it resolves to a small pixel pitch meaning you don't see a big reduction in detail/sharpness vs FF.
 
sportyaccordy said:
I've thought about this a lot, and it really comes down to 3 things:
  • Historically APS-C shooters just don't buy high end APS-C glass when they can move to FF in the same mount
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What I find interesting is that m43 shooters will pay for high end glass though. Some higher end APS-C DSLR lenses used to sell well, particularly the standard f/2.8 zooms. Those sold well enough for several third party options to pop up as well.
 
Trace said:
As Tony Northrup explains in great detail, while your perceived focal length does change you must also take into account the multiplier to determine the aperture and ISO required on the APS-C sensor to achieve an equivalent depth of field and ISO sensitivity:
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TN jumped on the equivalence bandwagon as well?
 
I have also watched that video and found it very informative!
 
liopleurodon said:
sportyaccordy said:
I've thought about this a lot, and it really comes down to 3 things:
  • Historically APS-C shooters just don't buy high end APS-C glass when they can move to FF in the same mount
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What I find interesting is that m43 shooters will pay for high end glass though. Some higher end APS-C DSLR lenses used to sell well, particularly the standard f/2.8 zooms. Those sold well enough for several third party options to pop up as well.
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I've actually looked into Nikon lens sales, and what I saw was interesting. The 17-55 2.8 sold terribly, while the 24-70 2.8 sold phenomenally (at least going by serial number issuances- admittedly potentially unreliable)

One could say 3rd party lenses had an impact, but 3rd party 2.8 zooms were available for both formats around the same time. So if they only managed to kill the DX 2.8 zoom, that speaks further to my point.

Historically it seems Canon/Nikon/Sony APS-C shooters have a psychological price cap at $500. Once a crop lens goes above that price point there is discomfort and hand wringing. That severely limits the kinds of lenses 1st party manufacturers can make, as they can only make lenses for their mount. And 3rd party manufacturers have to go mount crazy to generate the volume necessary to warrant making a lens.

You combine collapsing imaging gear sales (particularly in the crop mount space) with the further mount bifurcation prompted by the move to MILCs... I don't know if we will even see new 3rd party glass for crop systems anymore. Too much risk for manufacturers and especially too much risk for retailers.
 
sportyaccordy said:
Historically it seems Canon/Nikon/Sony APS-C shooters have a psychological price cap at $500. Once a crop lens goes above that price point there is discomfort and hand wringing. That severely limits the kinds of lenses 1st party manufacturers can make, as they can only make lenses for their mount. And 3rd party manufacturers have to go mount crazy to generate the volume necessary to warrant making a lens.
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I don't think that it is a "psychological price cap", I believe (at least for me ) that it is more a "budget cap" that hinders anything over $500.00.


Shoot photos not camera brands!
 
J A C S said:
LoneTree1 said:
FingerPainter said:
LoneTree1 said:
So, for your APS camera, instead of a "good" FF lens, you could have an excellent APS lens.
Click to expand...
Most MFT lenses are sharper than most FF lens, yet MFT images are not generally sharper than FF images.
Click to expand...
I still see terrible aberrations at the edge of FF fields with wide-open lenses. I don't see it with good m4/3rds lenses.
Click to expand...
Which f/0.7 m43 lenses have better edge performance at 50mp thatthose two terrible FF lenses?
Click to expand...
Equivalence alert!!
 
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