Hi,
Pixel peeping vs. printing; always a subject to stoke the fires of opinion. I read your article and, by and large, agree with your conclusions but that does not invalidate hertz's observations, despite the obvious flaws it his test procedure. In short, on a screen the advantages of a FF sensor with a good lens compared to a Crop Sensor with a good lens are fairly obvious and on a print up to 16 x 12", not so obvious, in pure resolution terms.
In fact the whole FF vs. Crop Frame debate seems a little foolish as the advantages and disadvantages of both systems are well known and have been done to death. I use both. I use a Sony A900 (recently purchased) for work and a crop frame DSLR for my hobby. I use the Sony A900 not for the massive resolution but because it has amazing dynamic range and tonal separation, better than any other camera, up to 35mm format, that I have ever used. In fact I truly believe that the A900 would have benefited by using a slight lower resolution sensor, say 18mp. The viewfinder is a complete joy and I always feel a sense of disappointment when returning to a crop frame viewfinder. Not everything is rosy however; the A900's sensor is noisy and if you want to produce jpegs from the camera then you will find them disappointing. You will also need top notch glass to get the best out of the sensor. It is also slightly easier to throw the background out of focus with a FF vs. a Crop Frame camera at a given aperture.
I also use a Pentax K7 and I love its portability and the colour I get from the limited series lenses but if I am brutally honest the results from the A900 are marginally superior and contain more detail but K7 is no slouch. So, I think the idea of, "better" is misplaced and it simply comes down to which set of pros and cons is the best choice for the user.
Best regards, Howard
