Cropped sensor Dslr's, the future.

Galaxy66

Galaxy66

Jeremy Beadle
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Now that I know all about the difference between cropped and full sensors I am wondering what the future is.
I would imagine all Dslr's will eventually be produced with full frame sensors when the production costs come down and s/h cropped dslr prices will tumble. Possibly at some time even point and shoot will have full frame sensors.
 
I suspect that crop sensor cameras are here to stay and it's almost certain that P and S cameras will never aspire to FF.

The cost of the sensor is only a small part of the equation especially for P and S.....can you imagine how much of the body would be consumed by a lens capable of projecting a full frame image onto the sensor.

The big benefit of producing smaller sensors on DSLR's is that lenses can be produced much more cheaply...EF-S lenses are optically very good for the price....much smaller corrections are required for the smaller image circle they produce.

I would suggest that the format/formats are here for the long term.

Bob
 
Galaxy66 said:
I would imagine all Dslr's will eventually be produced with full frame sensors when the production costs come down and s/h cropped dslr prices will tumble.
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Maybe. But 1.5x or 1.6x crops have the advantage that the camera is smaller, lighter, cheaper... it would be a brave manufacturer to be the first one to discontinue the line....
Galaxy66 said:
Possibly at some time even point and shoot will have full frame sensors.
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No way. You need a big bit of glass to capture an image on a full-frame sensor. Have a look at the sizes of sensor in P&S cameras and you'll see that they're miles smaller.

Full-frame: 36x24 mm
1.6x crop: 22.5x15 mm
Typical P&S: 5.8x4.3 mm or 7.2x5.3mm
 
Unlikely in the foreseeable future I'd say. Canon and Nikon especially have invested mega bucks in the development of lenses that will only work on cameras with a crop sensor, as have the likes of you and I of course. Personally I think there will always be a place for the crop sensor unit. That's not to say that the FF camera won't become much more prolific as technology improves and production cost drop but I don't think it the FF will ever totally replace the CS...... but who knows what's around the corner.
 
StewartR said:
No way. You need a big bit of glass to capture an image on a full-frame sensor. Have a look at the sizes of sensor in P&S cameras and you'll see that they're miles smaller.

Full-frame: 36x24 mm
1.6x crop: 22.5x15 mm
Typical P&S: 5.8x4.3 mm or 7.2x5.3mm
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Never say never (or no way):)
 
Just to confuse matters a little.

Olympus considers the 4/3rd sensor to be full frame, and the system is digital from the ground up, with no legacy parts (The originator of the 'crop' sensors as the smaller sensor can only utilise a portion of the image received by the glass).

In 4/3rds lenses the whole image is used and seen by the sensor.


Or something like that anyway!!
 
Full frame sensors have an advantage, in that the pixel sites are larger, which means they can capture more photons, hence improved noise performance. There are other advantages too, which involve the design of the chip. Also you get more smaller chips per wafer than larger ones..

But lets not lose site of where we are digital photography. The first digital camera didn't come onto the market until 1991, so we've only seen this technology for 15 years. Look haw far it's come since then. I remember holding the Kodak DC-1 camera, a Nikon based model with a 1.3 Megapixel chip and a electronics package that weighed, maybe not a ton but several kilo's.

Look where we are today: Who can say what will happen in the future.
 
Chillimonster said:
Just to confuse matters a little.

Olympus considers the 4/3rd sensor to be full frame, and the system is digital from the ground up, with no legacy parts (The originator of the 'crop' sensors as the smaller sensor can only utilise a portion of the image received by the glass).

In 4/3rds lenses the whole image is used and seen by the sensor.


Or something like that anyway!!
Click to expand...
if olympus considered the 4/3rds system to be "full frame" then surely they would not continue noting that a lens is 14-42mm when infact when you consider the crop factor its actually a focal length of 28-84mm, surely because the lenses only fit 4/3rds cameras (as oly, panasonic, leica etc have invested in the technology) then that lens can only ever have the 'cropped' focal length. just seems a bit weird to me that while canon and nikon need to use the existing focal length due to different crop factors of various cameras surely olympus and the 4/3rds partners can just do away with that system and say "this lens has a focal length of 28-84mm" rather than sticking with a existing length system when they've built an entirely new ground up system (4/3rds). seems a bit confusing really.


does that make sense?
 
its focal length is 14-42mm. However the 35mm equiv field of view is the same as a 28-84mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera

The two terms (Focal length and Field of veiw) are used interchangeably, when in fact they are totally different and go back to the original 35mm Film frame.
 
Chillimonster said:
its focal length is 14-42mm. However the 35mm equiv field of view is the same as a 28-84mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera

The two terms (Focal length and Field of veiw) are used interchangeably, when in fact they are totally different and go back to the original 35mm Film frame.
Click to expand...

It seems that the manufacturers are responsible for this continued confusion by constantly quoting "equivalent" focal lengths....which they are not. The same thing occurs with the term "macro". If I had a penny for every post that tries to explode these myths then I'd be a rich man.

Bob
 
Chillimonster said:
Just to confuse matters a little.

Olympus considers the 4/3rd sensor to be full frame, and the system is digital from the ground up......
Click to expand...


As much as I love my E410 and wouldn't be without it I'm having difficulty in accepting that the Oly 4/3rd system can be considered 'full frame' when the catch phrase is directly related to the physical size of a 35mm film - which the Oly sensor most certainly isn't.
 
StewartR said:
You need a big bit of glass to capture an image on a full-frame sensor. Have a look at the sizes of sensor in P&S cameras and you'll see that they're miles smaller.
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Maybe I misunderstood where you were coming from with this post, but all (Canon) non EF-S lenses do work with FF sensors.

Did I miss something?

Alan.
 
I think if we consider how technology inevitably moves on, FF sensors will become the norm, with perhaps some other format coming in at the top (cheaper medium or large format CCD based systems?)

Also, for all those EF-S users, no reason why a camera, with a full frame sensor couldn't be designed to accomodate both lens types, you would just have a black border around your images (that might be handy actually, i use black borders a lot lol)

But as prices of FF drop, the FF sensor will creep in to more cameras. The Point and Shoot variety Im not sure about, manufacturers surely don't want FF sensors showing up the optical inadiquacies of their cameras?
 
Yeah blatently they'll get smaller, but that won't mean large sensor formats will dissapear as they have strengths that cropped sensors do not (like lovely creamy bokeh-tastic blur and super wide angle shots imo).

Hopefully the decent cameras will have large sensors that allow us to switch from full to various cropped modes, or better yet cameras where you can actually switch the sensors around for sensor specific effects like we would with film - imagine a tiny sensor with 20mp compared with a full frame sensor with the same number of pixels and then think of the speed and focal equivalence. There are advantages to be had with small sensors :)
 
StewartR said:
You need a big bit of glass to capture an image on a full-frame sensor. Have a look at the sizes of sensor in P&S cameras and you'll see that they're miles smaller.
Click to expand...
WildWalker said:
Maybe I misunderstood where you were coming from with this post, but all (Canon) non EF-S lenses do work with FF sensors.

Did I miss something?

Alan.
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I think you did miss something, but maybe that's because I didn't explain myself very clearly.

The point I was trying to make was that if you want to project an image circle that fills a full-frame sensor, you need a big lens. The reason P&S cameras can be so small is that they have such tiny sensors, so they only need small lenses. If you were to put a FF sensor into a P&S, you'd need a big lens fill the sensor. You'd also need to have much longer focal lengths.

Example: the Casio EX-V8 is an 8-megapixel P&S with a "7x zoom". The lens has a field of view equivalent to 38-266mm on a full frame camera, but because the sensor is so tiny it has a "crop factor" of about 6.2 and the lens is actually something like 6-43mm. The lens is f/3.4-5.3, so even fully zoomed, the aperture is only about 8mm. But if you were to put a FF sensor in there somehow, the lens would actually have to be 38-266mm f/3.4-5.3. Can you imagine how big that would be? You certainly wouldn't fit the camera in your shirt pocket!

Anyone still think P&S cameras will go FF?
 
Gofer said:
As much as I love my E410 and wouldn't be without it I'm having difficulty in accepting that the Oly 4/3rd system can be considered 'full frame' when the catch phrase is directly related to the physical size of a 35mm film - which the Oly sensor most certainly isn't.
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thats kind of what i was getting at, they relate everything back to the 35mm 'full frame' so how can they consider it as 'full frame'
 
Canon Bob said:
It seems that the manufacturers are responsible for this continued confusion by constantly quoting "equivalent" focal lengths....which they are not. The same thing occurs with the term "macro". If I had a penny for every post that tries to explode these myths then I'd be a rich man.

Bob
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This description had me thinking.
http://www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/18200_diII.asp
 
StewartR said:
I think you did miss something, but maybe that's because I didn't explain myself very clearly.QUOTE]

Actually, it was because someone quoted you, and I only read that one line :)

My first comment would be to never say never. I was looking at a Medium Format pop up camera today, the negative on that is 60mm x 60mm in a box that is smaller than most moder DSLRs.

Who knows what they will cram in to a small box eventually :)

While sensors are expensive, its still the precision glass that costs the real money, so all the time they use crappy lenses there is no point in upping sensor size. I can't think why anyone would want 10mpix images taken though a shoddy plastic lens :)

But in the camera wars its MegaPixels that sell cameras (to the ignorant)
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