Question about cropping full frame to zoom.

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I was just wondering would there be a big difference in detail if I was to shoot full frame at 300mm and cropped the shot to get a similar size subject if I shot the same with m43 300mm (600mm FF equivalent)

It's just that I will be shooting a lot of animals this year and could cope with a 300mm size lens on FF but don't want lenses any bigger in size. This is why I like my m43 75-300.

If anybody had any actual examples that would be great.
Thanks.
 
Depends very much on which body and which lens. A D800 with a 300mm f/2.8 would give excellent results while a D700 with a Sigma 70-300 zoom would be rather less good.
 
Quite a lot of people upgrade the equipment to FF therefore cropping in gives better results than the crop camera photo.. certainly in my case...
 
Nod said:
Depends very much on which body and which lens. A D800 with a 300mm f/2.8 would give excellent results while a D700 with a Sigma 70-300 zoom would be rather less good.
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I guess I should have been more detailed.

My 2 options are 6d or d610/750 so both 20-24mp both with 70-300 lenses.

Cropping in to show animal same size in image as a 16mp em5 with 75-300 (150-600 ff equivalent).

I am wondering if there would be a huge difference in detail. Or if after the cropping of the ff image it would be similar to the m43 image.

As before..The 70-300 ff lenses would be the biggest size physically I would go upto.
 
Personally, if reach is your ultimate aim the M4/3 is the way to go.

Any of the 70-300 lenses (except maybe the Canon L version) start to become the limiting factor on high res bodies so you will be lens limited rather than sensor limited which means cropping doesn't work so well. For that reason, again, I'd go M4/3.

If you want cropability from FF you need GOOD lenses.
 
For massive reach from my 70-300 VR (relatively pedestrian in terms of IQ compared to good primes), I stick it on a 1 series body with the FT-1 adaptor. Results are plenty good enough for A3+ prints. To crop into a shot from my D750 and get the same reach, I would end up with a file too small to go that big (although a D800 might allow such heavy cropping.) For most web uses, you'd be fine with cropping into a D750 image IMO.
 
Nod said:
For massive reach from my 70-300 VR (relatively pedestrian in terms of IQ compared to good primes), I stick it on a 1 series body with the FT-1 adaptor. Results are plenty good enough for A3+ prints. To crop into a shot from my D750 and get the same reach, I would end up with a file too small to go that big (although a D800 might allow such heavy cropping.) For most web uses, you'd be fine with cropping into a D750 image IMO.
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I found that on the V1 my 70-300VR was the limit and ultimately (unless I needed a few more pixels to print BIG) cropping from a D3200 gave results just as good form a body that was easier to control.

On my M4/3 with the 40-150 pro (so an effective 300 f/2.8) I can crop to pixel levels and it is still sharp which goes to illustrate that it is all about the lens.

I like to think of it in terms of magnification - each given lens can only magnify to a certain level before images get too degraded (that level varies on your personal preference). One way of magnifying is to use a smaller sensor and another is to crop but with modern high res sensors the limiting factor when cropping is often the lens anyway - you have reached the maximum magnification that lens will give you to a satisfactory quality.

If I wanted to use a high res Nikon FF to crop I would be looking at the 300mm f/4 prime at the very least.
 
I can't see why anyone would choose to crop in camera, there's always the chance something will be cropped off if you're shooting any sort of action so you'd be better off just cropping afterwards in post, memory cards are pretty cheap these days so I wouldn't risk it
 
Hairyduck said:
I can't see why anyone would choose to crop in camera, there's always the chance something will be cropped off if you're shooting any sort of action so you'd be better off just cropping afterwards in post, memory cards are pretty cheap these days so I wouldn't risk it
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Some cameras have higher frame rate and a deeper buffer in crop mode.
 
Using a crop body means that shooting looser isn't always an option. Older bodies with lower pixel counts allow less cropping before resolution drops too far. When using the D750, I do tend to shoot a bit loose then crop if necessary in PP but with the 1 series, the 2.7x crop factor often means that I'm over lensed for a situation and it's far harder to make a shot wider in PP than to crop for extra apparent reach!
 
Please excuse me if I sound dumb, but say you had a FF and a crop camera, both with the same megapixel count. If you were to crop the FF down to the exact same size as the original crop photo capture would the crop camera photo be of a higher quality due the cropping which has taken place on the FF. I am aware of other variables etc but in the simplest terms please (I know its sort of been asked but still not totally clear).

Paul
 
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Depends very much on the final use. If the end result is purely for use on screen, you'll be hard pushed to see any difference but if you're aiming for large (A3 or bigger) prints, cropping an FF image down COULD lower the pixel count far enough to reduce quality visibly in the prints. If you take a 24MP sensor, in pixel terms it's 6000pixels x 4000 pixels. The usual number quoted for top quality prints is 300 dots per inch, so the full image should be OK up to 20 inches x 13 1/3 inches. Crop the FF image down to the same field of view as the crop sensor's image (I'll use Nikon's 1.5x crop factor because that's what I have handy to see what the pixel image dimensions are!) and you'll have a 3936 pixel x 2624 pixel image which will print to 13.12" x 8.75" at the same quality. (For the record, the D750 actually gives 6015 pixels x 4015 pixels in Fx format but the extra 15 pixels make precious little difference to the final print size!)
 
And of course acceptable print quality depends on viewing distance.

Not a subject with hard and fast answers I'm afraid...
 
Indeed, hence my use of the 300dpi figure generally recommended. In real life, 200 is often enough and for a canvas you can drop even further.
 
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