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Sensor size table

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ccs_hello said:
Hopefully it's helpful.
Click to expand...
There are quite a bit of errors:
  • 4x5" is and has always been considered a large format
  • 6x6 is actually 56x56 mm; 645 is actually 56x42 mm and so on for medium format film
Not actually an error, but I would still like to note that calling the 28.7x18.7 mm sensor "APS-H" is highly misleading and I can't figure out why Canon started that practice. APS-H film was 16:9 aspect ratio (not 3:2 like Canon "APS-H" digital) and measured 30.2x16.7 mm. That was the native format of IX240 film. Many people would say that it does not matter, since APS film is for practical purposes dead, but I just can't stand twisting historical facts and terminology only because some people feel that it's convenient to do so.
 
Don't know where you're getting your info from and whether it's theoretical or as applied in actual cameras and I no longer know the source of my info, but my info is very different than yours:

APS-H as implemented by Canon: 28.1x18.7
APS-H as implemented by Leica: 27x18
APS-C Canon: 22.5x15
APS-C Sony: 23.5x15.6
APS as used by Mysterium Red One: 24.4x13.7

4/3: 17.3x13
2/3": 8.8x6.6 as used in Oly C8080
1/1.7": 7.5x5.7 (designed for 12MP digicams)
1/1.8": 7.18x 5.32
1/2.3": 5.49x4.12 as used in Panasonic Lumix TZ5
1/2.5": 5.76x4.29
 
I've already stated my caveat: all measurements are approximate.

A lot of sensor sizes are categorized based on the closet match to a type-"X" figure by sensor manufacturers themselves.

The actual data are obtained directly from sensor datasheets.

I use the "effective pixel" count then multiply with pixel pitch to get the actual H and V values. These should be closer to actual than market glossies and some website info.

ccs_hello
 
Since you list medium format film sizes, why did you not list medium format digital sizes as well? There are three MFD sizes that I know of, and possibly some I don't.

--

The greatest of mankind's criminals are those who delude themselves into thinking they have done 'the right thing.'
  • Rayna Butler
 
SLove said:
Not actually an error, but I would still like to note that calling
the 28.7x18.7 mm sensor "APS-H" is highly misleading and I can't
figure out why Canon started that practice.
Click to expand...
Their reasoning, however dubious, was based on frame diagonals. IX240 APS-H and Canon's digial APS-H share a roughly 34.5mm diagonal, so even if the aspect ratios are not the same, they share the same crop factor, diagonal field of view for a given lens, etc.

I am not suggesting I agree with it, but that is how it came about.
 
ccs_hello said:
Rayna,

Added 3 sensors as typical samples.
Click to expand...
The medium format film sizes are still a little incorrect. 67 should be 70x56 mm (5:4 aspect ratio) and 6x9 should be 84x56 mm (3:2 aspect ratio).

You might also want to include 8x10" large format, since it is still commonly used in fine arts circles. There are of course many other large format films, but most of them are rather obscure. 9x12 cm used to be quite common in Europe, but has been mostly replaced by the nearly identical 4x5" format.

For comparison purposes you might want to include APS-H film (30.2x16.7 mm), APS-C film (25.1x16.7 mm) and 110 film (17x13 mm). These formats are still technically alive (you can still buy even 110 film and have it developed) and they explain nicely where the APS sensor sizes come from (although the Canon "APS-H" sensor has a different aspect ratio than APS-H film). 110 film is also very close to the 4/3 sensor, which probably is not entirely coincidental.
 
Despite the fact that 5x4" film is cut significantly undersize (100mm x 125mm) 10 x 8" film is not. 10 x 8" REALLY IS ten inches by eight inches!! [254mm x 203mm]

FYI...

It is because 10x8" really is 10x8", that I found out that 5x4" is so undersize in nominal inch terms, that it is "5x4" in name only.

It happened that I ran out of a particular type of 5x4 colour film, but had some 10x8" stock of the appropriate kind, so took that into the darkroom with a Rotatrim to cut a few sheets into quarters, which seemed like a reasonable workaround at the time!!

But, having done so, they wouldn't fit the dark slides because they were just a little bit too large!!

So I came out of the dark and measured a legitimate 5x4 sheet to see what it actually WAS (in millimetres) which information I passed on previously..

(100mm x 125mm, or about 1/8" off the 4", and nearly 1/4" off the 5").

I did get to use my 1/4 sheets, but trimming a thin sliver off two sides of each one was not the easiest thing I ever did accurately in the dark. (no sniggering, please!)

PLEASE NOTE. I made a mistake in my earlier posting !!!!

I now see that there is a typo in my earlier millimetre measurements of 5x4 film. The long side is actually 125mm (one hundred and twenty-five millimetres) NOT 120.

I apologise for this error. Please be kind enough to correct your table for the 5x4" film, and for the 10x8" film. Thank you.
--
Regards,
Baz
 
Since when was the "Standard Lens" focal length for 35mm established at 43mm?

By convention and usage all the "Standard" lenses for 35mm I have known are 50mm focal length. This is established as the f/l which gives an angle of view (approx 46 degrees) similar to that of the human eye, thus rendering a scene in natural perspective.
--
ccs_hello said:
To Err is Human, To really foul things up you need a computer.
Click to expand...
 
MisterBG said:
Since when was the "Standard Lens" focal length for 35mm established
at 43mm?
Click to expand...
By common convention, the 'standard' f-length for any format is equal to the image diagonal measurement. However, this is often approximated, and lenses "around" the length of the corner-to-corner dimension supplied instead.

For instance, Hasselblads (6x6cm) were sold with 80mm Planars, but many Rolliecords, which shot to the same size of frame, were installed with 75mm Xenars, and my Mamiya C33 had a 105mm, which was sold alongside an 80mm as a "long standard" alternative.

So it is that there is nothing quite so standard about standard lenses. Indeed, many people who shot to FF35mm considered the 50mm a bit on the 'long' side, as it were, and would have preferred a 'classic' 43mm....

.... but 50mm did transcribe to 2 inches pretty exactly, which may have helped the f-length grow popular in the States at a time when American photographers were NOT using millimetres to describe their lens lengths.
BG454 said:
By convention and usage all the "Standard" lenses for 35mm I have
known are 50mm focal length.
Click to expand...
Actually there were quite a lot of lenses with quite a lot of different lengths around 50.. mostly longer. Along with the 50s, we saw 52s, 55s, and even 57s were supplied as standard with some cameras.

Furthermore, some of those f-lengths were underquoted for actual length. I read about a sample of the famous f/2 Helios from Russia (supposedly 55mm, IIRC) coming off the optical bench at a measured 62mm f-length... and I'm sure other makes and marques were not exactly what they had engraved on them, either!

It turns out it is easier to make high quality lenses of wide aperture for 35mm format when they are between between 60mm and 75mm, rather than when they are a more conventional 50mm or less.... so there may have been economic pressures on the makers to "stretch" their specifications just a little bit!!
BG454 said:
This is established as the f/l which
gives an angle of view (approx 46 degrees) similar to that of the
human eye, thus rendering a scene in natural perspective.
Click to expand...
No. Sorry. That is a hoary old wives tale!

Human vision is so utterly different in mode and manner to any ONE focal length in a camera, that any kind of comparison in viewing angle is completely misleading. Indeed, it would have been a good idea if this suggestion had never come up!

Neither is there any connection with perspective, which is dependant on viewing distance and nothing else.
--
Regards,
Baz
 
See here:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/MiriamJanove.shtml

Also, From Wikipedia:

"A lens with a focal length about equal to the diagonal size of the film or sensor format is known as a normal lens; its angle of view is similar to the angle subtended by a large-enough print viewed at a typical viewing distance of the print diagonal, which therefore yields a normal perspective when viewing the print;[2] this angle of view is about 53 degrees diagonally. For full-frame 35mm-format cameras, the diagonal is 43 mm and a typical "normal" lens has a 50 mm focal length. A lens with a focal length shorter than normal is often referred to as a wide-angle lens (typically 35 mm and less, for 35mm-format cameras), while a lens significantly longer than normal may be referred to as a telephoto lens (typically 85 mm and more, for 35mm-format cameras), though the use of the term is inaccurate as it implies specific optical design qualities that may or may not apply to a given lens."

Which I guess answers the question as to where the OP got the figure of 43mm, the diagonal dimension, not the focal length.
Don't blame me, I didn't write the rules.

--
Barrie Davis said:
To Err is Human, To really foul things up you need a computer.
Click to expand...
 
MisterBG said:
See here:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/MiriamJanove.shtml
Click to expand...
Yes. I agree that the "standard lenses emulate human vision" fallacy is very prevalent. We see it in many places, and have done so for many years.

It is, however, still quite wrong.

Human vision is much too different to photography to be ascribed a single focal length, even as a sort of working average, and the suggestion should be abandoned by anyone who has simply "looked" at how their own eyes worked in practise.

[I'd be happy to post a more detailed description of human vision and how like photography it is not -- I keep one prepared on the desktop!-- but it is too much off topic and I'm not keen to hijack this thread to such a degree, unless that's OK with the OP.]
BG454 said:
Also, From Wikipedia:
"A lens with a focal length about equal to the diagonal size of the
film or sensor format is known as a normal lens; its angle of view is
similar to the angle subtended by a large-enough print viewed at a
typical viewing distance of the print diagonal, which therefore
yields a normal perspective when viewing the print;
Click to expand...
Viewing a print from a normal lens in the manner described is just a red herring. As stated previously, perceived perspective is a function of viewing distance, and this is equally true of passive perspective in viewing the print as it is of active perspective in viewing the subject.

This means that.....

If a tele-shot print is viewed from far enough away, it TOO will appear normal in perspective. Similarly, a wide-angle print viewed closely enough will lose ALL (so called) wide-angle distortion. From this we can tell that if perspective doesn't look "right" to the eye when viewing, we are merely viewing from the "wrong" distance, nothing else. :-)

Believe or not, this ability to 'correct by viewing distance' also works for the massively distorted circular images from 180° fish-eye lenses!!

You do have to view with one eye over the dead centre of the print, whilst pressing that print tight up against your nose so the edges go out of view at the limits of vision..... and you also must squint like anything to get the image half-way sharp enough to examine...

.... but when you have done all these things...

... the fish-eye image looks perfectly normal and distortion free, with all the curved lines straightened out. Yup! It REALLY happens, I promise you. Perhaps some day you will be able to try this and see for yourself. It is quite a revelation, and gives you a whole new 'view' on how you view. :-)

snipped (no comment necessary)
BG454 said:
Which I guess answers the question as to where the OP got the figure
of 43mm, the diagonal dimension, not the focal length.
Click to expand...
That's right. It is the diagonal which gives us what would be the "classic" normal length lens, which serves as a gauge to use for comparing how closely the usual normal lens matches. The diagonal also gives an idea of what's a tele and what's a wide on the format in question.

Hmmm.... the DIAGONAL measurements of the respective sensors really should have been more emphasised at the transition between formats for film and formats for digital, I think. Indeed, I'm sure a good deal of confusion would have been saved, had that been the case.
--
Regards,
Baz

PS. In an earlier posting I cited the f/2 Helios lens as likely 55mm f-length. I have since discovered it was designed even longer... 58mm, apparently.
 
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