How can Sigma make sure the FFF is the best success it can be? Locked

Scottelly wrote:

DMillier wrote:

Scottelly wrote:

DMillier wrote:

Iain G Foulds wrote:

… Thinking that it is important to remember that “full frame” is a false label. It is not an objective measure of completeness- as if anything smaller is incomplete.

… It is simply an arbitrary dimension and ratio left-over from film days.

Kodak had something to say about that full frame label (which is just a marketing term that came into general use for no identifiable reason)

I hope you're joking here.

Why? I don't understand?

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/types-of-ccd-image-sensors-interline-transfer-frame-transfer-full-frame-ccd/

I remember engaging with a Kodak 14n engineer called Martin Wood on the Kodak forum and he got quite irritated by the use of the term "full frame" used to indicate a sensor size.

back in the CCD era. CCDs were made in two readout styles. The expensive ones which did full frame readout and the cheaper ones that did interline readout. They used to get quite irked about the "full frame" term being repurposed to mean "35mm format" rather than full frame readout.

I hate it because formats such as m4/3 and 44x33mm which have their own dedicated lens mounts and lens ranges get wrongly called "crop" sensors, which they are not,

Yes they are. The Pentax 645 D, for example, with its 44mm x 33mm sensor, is not even close to 6 cm x 4.5 cm. The originak 645 film cameras though shot a frame of film that measured approximately 55mm x 45mm, right? That makes the digital camera a crop sensor camera. Some day we'll see a full-frame 645 camera. In fact, isn't the latest medium format camera from Phase One a full-frame 645 camera?

as if they were meant to be used with lenses intended for a larger format. It is intended to make the smaller formats seem inferior which I guess is the point if you are a vendor of 36x24mm sensors.

The only useful use of the term (or the "cropped" term) is for aps-c DSLRs when using 35mm "full frame" format lenses. m4/3 has never been sold to be used with 35mm format lenses (even though you can just about adapt anything these days) and has never been a crop of full frame. Calling is a 2x crop is an insult.

LOL, but compared to full-frame the m4/3 sensors ARE approximately 2x crop sensors.

I think the point you are missing is that 36x24mm format is not any kind of of official reference size to which all other sensor sizes must be compared.

In the film era 135 format was not called "full frame" it was called "miniature format" by users of medium format and large format (Indeed, the medium format forum here often refer to full frame as "small format"). 135 format had taken over from instamatic formats by the end of the consumer film era as the most commonly used and that is its only claim to be a reference: familiarity.

The reason terms like FX, DX, APS-C, full frame, crop-sensor came into use is because 20 years ago interchangeable lens digital cameras borrowed legacy film era form factor SLRs as their base for shifting to digital and used them with smaller sensors. These used the same mounts as 35mm film cameras and the same lenses. Hence the sensor was "cropped" compared to the standard size film formats these systems were based on. Kind of made sense.

But as soon as dedicated camera systems came on the market with their own bodies and lenses and mounts that owed nothing to legacy film cameras, they could use any sensor size they wanted. The 4/3 system for example never used legacy 35mm mounts or lenses, it was built from the ground up a dedicated system around the 4/3" sensor size. It was and never has been a "crop" of anything. Calling 4/3 a crop sensor system is just marketing BS.

If you are going to insist that any sensor size that is smaller than another be considered a crop of another larger system, where do you stop? "Full frame" is clearly a crop of 44x33 which is a crop of the Phase One sensor etc etc etc.

It's a ridiculous nomenclature that isn't very helpful, but we are stuck with it because of history - manufacturers, journalists and consumers have just got used to using it. It presumably came into wide use originally in an attempt to be helpful: there were a plethora of different digital formats, very confusing to consumers who were familiar mainly with 35mm film format, so it kind of made sense to try and relate everything to the familiar format (focal lengths in particular) so was born the "equivalency" idea ) ie equivalent to 35mm format. But there was nothing behind this other than keeping consumers in their comfort zone.

Really, these days, we should go back to calling "full frame" sensors "35mm sensors" or "135 format", and abandon the misleading "full frame" term.

At the same time we should stop using the even more ridiculous archaic Vidicon tube sensor sizes as well. m4/3 uses 4/3" sensors which are 17x13mm - which happens to be the same as a 110 instamatic film frame. It has nothing that is 1 and 1/3 inches.

It seems you do indeed know why the term "full-frame" exists, so why did you say it came into existence "for no identifiable reason" David?

Wrong descriptive word. I should have said for no meaningful, sensible or useful reason. I know what I meant by "identifiable", it wasn't an accident, but my usage possibly not so clear to others and I can see why you found it odd.

I suspect "full frame" was either a marketing term coined by vendors of 35mm format sensor to try and make smaller formats seem inferior; or possibly it just came into use accidentally as a result of a large body of 35mm users wrongly thinking 36x24mm format was special because that was what they were used to, rather than it just being an arbitrary size that became popular.

No serious photographers in the film era thought 35mm was superior, it was just recognised as a convenient jack of all trades that was just good enough to be acceptable. Michael Langford's classic college text book "Basic Photography" explains the usage of different formats properly if you want to look up the history of film.