Full v Crop

:)
 
As I understand it, outright detail resolution is a 'Megapixel war'. But with resolution comes noise, and with increased noise comes reduced available detail. Noise is a 'Pixel Pitch war', but with increased pixel pitch comes decreased available resolution.

So, pick your weapon. Eventually technology will advance such that you won't actually need to take a picture at all and the camera will create the stunning image for you. Until then, you can go for stunning total-pixel resolution [D3X, 5DII, A900] or incredible low ISO noise [D3, D700]. And all those cameras can take a better image than I can, so in truth for me the finer points of wide format prints don't bear relevance.

Of the two, for me the higher ISO's would be a greater weapon for sharp shots than the outright image detail in them.
 
Apples and Oranges. I'm so baffled by this thread I've created a random reply in the hope it will make some sense so I can look like I know more than I really do.
 
Interesting post Dan :)

Yes, pick your weapon indeed. There's a trade off in all these things, and different strokes for different folks.

Most people seem to be seduced by the more pixels thing, which doesn't do it for me. That's why I'm keeping my 40D for a while as Canon got it wrong IMHO with the 50D, shoving in more pixels but actually increasing the noise. Bad trade off.

Nikon appears to be hitting all the right notes with the D3 and D700. Plenty of pixels for any sane person, plus amazing high ISO performance and/or lovely deep dynamic range into the shadows. The latter is clearly visible, even in 6x4in prints!

For me, crop format seems to deliver up the best set of compromises, although if I was starting again I'd go straight for a Nikon D700. High ISO/low noise, plus incredible AF. But I'm confident that in the next generation of cameras or two, the noise/ISO thing will be improved significantly, not to mention the whole raft of digital image enhancements we've seen in this camera or that - mainly compacts.

One of which really does interest me, and that is the pixel-twinning that Fuji has in its new compact. It pairs its 12m pixels to give 6m effective pixels (still plenty) but in each pair one records the low end, and one does the highlight end. The pics I've seen look really good, and not like artificial HDR at all :)
 
HoppyUK said:
One of which really does interest me, and that is the pixel-twinning that Fuji has in its new compact. It pairs its 12m pixels to give 6m effective pixels (still plenty) but in each pair one records the low end, and one does the highlight end. The pics I've seen look really good, and not like artificial HDR at all :)
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Fuji have been doing this in the Nikon based bodies since the S3 Pro.

Its excellent, and still the reference for dynamic range - and this from a 6 year old 1.5x cropped sensor.

You might think the (full frame) D700 is good for DR, but the Fuji sensor still provides more DR, although the DR is in the highlights vs shadows for the D3 / D700.
 
RichardtheSane said:
Now, however, I'm going to go and break the OP's leg for posting the topic in the first place.
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Curiosity didn't just kill the cat, did it? :(

I was only curious, though the "healthy debate" in this thread has convinced me this isn't a simple question!

Richardthe(notso)Sane has given me a list of topics I must avoid posting on.... :bonk:
 
I would only ever shoot full frame, aps film is just lousy :P :P :P
 
Cermno1981 said:
Curiosity didn't just kill the cat, did it? :(

I was only curious, though the "healthy debate" in this thread has convinced me this isn't a simple question!

Richardthe(notso)Sane has given me a list of topics I must avoid posting on.... :bonk:
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I think he was being sarcastic there :D
 
I know him, he was DEADLY serious... :D

He's a big girl really, I'm not afraid.... *flex*

Back to topic though, as anything with a full frame sensor is clearly out of my budget I am not going to worry my limited little noggin with it for the time being, there's barely enough space up there to cope with what I have learnt so far. :thinking:

Thanks for all the answers though, I'm a little more baffled... :D
 
Digital camera run a test this month, full frame vs aps-c on both Nikon and Canon, and states

"the D700 has little advantage over the D300, except at higher ISOs"

"the D700 only makes sense if you routinely use super high ISOs ......"

The canons were more split

Interesting read, will go through it in full with a bottle of wine!
 
Radiohead said:
Let them live with a D300 and D700 for 6 months and see if they say the same....
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Interesting comment.
I bumped into a pro who said his D3 has totally changed the way he shoots, opened up all sorts of possibilities that he wouldn't have considered previously.

Best camera he's ever had, bar none. He's been shooting for about 30 years.
 
Radiohead said:
Let them live with a D300 and D700 for 6 months and see if they say the same....
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it will go on forever though, in 3 years we will all be telling people the D700 performace is poor and they should opt straight for the D900.

as for FX vs DX........... FX is substandard to medium format, like i said it will go on forever
 
Dave Pickett said:
"the D700 has little advantage over the D300, except at higher ISOs"

"the D700 only makes sense if you routinely use super high ISOs ......"
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I think knowing that your camera (D700/D3) can deliver fabulous results at higher ISO's opens up many more 'keeper' opportunities. Whilst the D90 is pretty good at everyday ISO''s there are loads of situations where I wish I could push it more...hence my pining for a D700. :)
 
HoppyUK said:
But that isn't how we use crop format cameras. You wouldn't use a 50mm lens for the same image with a crop camera, but more likely a 30mm to retain field of view. This will give you a substanially smaller final image, and a smaller image on the sensor has more depth of field.
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Ahh, that makes sense to me. I was struggling to understand why DoF would be different with the same lens :)

dave
 
fyonn said:
Ahh, that makes sense to me. I was struggling to understand why DoF would be different with the same lens :)

dave
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It certainly does not make sense to me. The calculations for hyperfocal and near and far distances has naff all to do with the sensor. On the contrary the smaller sensor having to be enlarged to equal the size of the full frame shot will also raise the C of C size, giving the impression of less DOF. When you calculate the near and far distances, it says this is the max DOF for the optimum C of C. Outside of this the C of C starts to fall off.
 
oldfella said:
It certainly does not make sense to me. The calculations for hyperfocal and near and far distances has naff all to do with the sensor. On the contrary the smaller sensor having to be enlarged to equal the size of the full frame shot will also raise the C of C size, giving the impression of less DOF. When you calculate the near and far distances, it says this is the max DOF for the optimum C of C. Outside of this the C of C starts to fall off.
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No

Opposite. This is why P&S camera with tiny sensors have large depth of field, making it very hard to create creative blur objects even with an f/2.8 lens.

On the flip side, it gives a lot of DoF for macro.
 
I recently had a picture enlarged to 18 x 12" from my D90 and am very happy with the result. For me I see no need for full frame at the moment, but I think that will be the way forward eventually as full frame sensors fall in price.

I wonder if the manufacturers have thought about a sensor in between the 2 sizes giving maybe a 1.25 factor?
 
Dave Pickett said:
I wonder if the manufacturers have thought about a sensor in between the 2 sizes giving maybe a 1.25 factor?
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Fujifilm were supposed to have been looking at a concept known as "DX II" which did just that.

Think it got canned a while ago when they exited DSLR development - I don't think we'll ever see it.
 
oldfella said:
It certainly does not make sense to me. The calculations for hyperfocal and near and far distances has naff all to do with the sensor. On the contrary the smaller sensor having to be enlarged to equal the size of the full frame shot will also raise the C of C size, giving the impression of less DOF. When you calculate the near and far distances, it says this is the max DOF for the optimum C of C. Outside of this the C of C starts to fall off.
Click to expand...

I don't know about anyone else, but I can usually spot a photo taken on a compact, if only because it has massive depth of field, as if everything was always shot at f/16. Actually, it was probably shot at f/5.6.

Not getting at you particularly OF, but as a general comment I wish folks would look more at photographs, and observe what is happening. Then is the time to apply the science to understand why it is so. The finished photograph cannot be wrong and if the science is correct and complete, whatever is observed can be explained.

If you do it the other way round, and draw a conclusion from the physics and then try to apply it in reverse, unless you have complete knowledge of all the relevant factors, you often end up with the wrong result, a misunderstanding, or an exaggerated idea of a problem that is actually very minor. And usually disappointment.

One of the incorrect assumptions in OF's science is that the extra degree of enlargement required when final outputting to print is that this makes a big difference to perceived depth of field. It makes a difference of course, but very little.
 
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