Crop sensor vs frame sensor ficu11/22/2023 Many professional sports photographers use the Canon 1D X paired with a 300mm or 400mm low light lens. Here’s an example of the money difference: There are plenty of lenses made just for crop sensor cameras that are far more affordable than their full frame cousins, yet perform quite well. This goes for lenses as well as the camera body itself. That’s definitely reflected in the retail prices!Ĭonsidering the fact that many high-end crop sensor cameras can provide photo quality similar to that of full-frame cameras – at least in good light – it might be well worth saving the money. Perhaps one of the biggest benefits to using a crop sensor DSLR/mirrorless camera is that they’re not nearly as expensive as full frame DSLRs/mirrorless cameras.īelieve it or not, manufacturing a full frame sensor can cost almost twenty times what it takes to make a crop sensor. Think about it – on a Canon crop frame camera such as the Canon 7D, your Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens basically becomes a whopping 112-320mm. (On a Nikon, the multiplication factor is 1.5x.) That means that a 50mm lens effectively acts like 80mm when used with that camera body. On an APS-C Canon, the crop factor is 1.6x. What actually changes is the field of view that your sensor sees.) (Note: the actual focal length of the lens doesn’t change – just the apparent focal reach. To figure out what the equivalent focal length, you’ll need to figure out your camera’s crop factor and then multiply it by the focal length of the lens. On a crop sensor camera, however, the field of view will look bit more on the telephoto side of things. There’s a crop factor when using cameras with an APS-C sensor, and this difference increases your effective focal reach.įor example, on a full frame camera, a 50mm lens will be simply that – 50mm. Sensor size doesn’t always work against you. Left: Crop Sensor Sony a6400 | Right: Full Frame Sony a7II 1. It’s also easier to use tilt/shift lenses with larger sensors. For those who primarily shoot landscapes, architecture, or interiors, a full frame camera may well be the better choice. The innate wider angle of full-frame sensors makes for less distortion when using wide-angle lenses. The bokeh that comes from a full frame sensor + fast lens will be more visually appealing than the equivalent with a crop sensor. If you’re a portrait photographer, this can make a bit of a difference. That additional focal length creates a shallower depth of field. This is because a larger sensor requires a longer focal length to create the same field of view you’d get with a crop sensor camera. Shallower Depth of Fieldįull frame sensors also have a shallower depth of field than crop sensors. If you’re shooting in Raw, this gives you a whole lot more flexibility in post-processing, as it’s much easier to recover both highlights and shadows. Practically speaking, you’ll see this mostly within the tonal range of the shadows and highlights. (As you can see in the image above which was shot on a full-frame DLSR, there’s a tremendous amount of shadow recovery possible in post-production.)Įven when a full-frame camera and crop sensor camera have the same resolution, the full-frame camera’s overall image quality will beat out a crop sensor camera’s every time. Depending on the quality of your lens, it will also bring out more detail in your images. Higher resolution means better image quality, both in terms of dynamic range and color depth. The greater size and larger amount of pixels in full frame sensors create a higher resolution in your images. If you’re used to shooting on an even smaller sensor (like a smartphone), you might be quite impressed with the low light performance of some of the higher-end crop sensor cameras. They also have very aggressive noise reduction, which helps produce less gritty images from the camera in low light. That being said, many of the newer models of APS-C cameras have a much improved ISO performance. In most cases, you’ll see a 1- or 2-stop improvement in high ISO performance when comparing a full frame sensor with a crop sensor. Full frame images will have a much higher dynamic range but far less digital noise. This can especially be seen at higher ISOs. the autofocus doesn’t have to hunt), it also helps capture higher quality images in general. This not only helps your camera’s overall performance in low light (i.e. The sensor in a full frame camera is larger and captures more light. The biggest difference between full frame sensors and crop sensors is size, and that makes all the difference when it comes to dim lighting.
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