IS FULL FRAME BETTER THAN CROP SENSOR? The truth people often don’t believe

hey everybody welcome back to a new video are you befuddled by all the talk about full frame and crop sensor cameras and what they mean how do the different sensor sizes affect your photography do you need a full frame to do high quality and professional work in this video I'm going to show you the differences in sensor sizes scale of an image image quality crop ability and lots of other factors you'll want to stay till the end because I'm going to clarify a difference between sensor sizes that's very misunderstood and that's around the depth of field of the various sensors and their ability to blur out the background my name is Simo adaltermal and I'm a professional nature and wildlife photographer living in Eastern Canada I make weekly videos giving you photo tips for taking you behind the scenes for wildlife and nature photography subscribe if you want to see more nice [Music] nice [Music] right off the bat I want to warn you about people pretending to be me using my photo and offering you prizes in the comments below don't engage these are scammers please report them as I am first let's get a handle on all these sensor sizes full frame sensors are sized to be similar to the former 35 millimeter film format standard and our 36 by 24 millimeters like on this Canon R5 crop sensors are smaller and come in roughly at 24 by 16 millimeters Canon 7D Mark II or my little M50 are also crop sensors but Canon makes Those sensors a wee bit smaller but close to that they also go by the name aps-c they're called crop sensors because they effectively crop out some of the pixels of the full frame Dimensions now let's make sure we don't mix these two things up sensor size is the physical dimensions of the boundaries of the sensor resolution is how many pixels are squished into that space my R6 that I'm recording with right now has 20 million pixels or 20 megapixels at roughly 55 500 by 3600 pixels this 7D Mark II has a smaller crop sensor yet has the same 20 million pixels 5500 by 3600 how is that that's because each pixel is smaller so it has more densely packed pixels we'll see later why this is important there are even smaller centers called micro four thirds at 17 millimeters by 13 millimeters I don't own a micro four thirds camera but I do own a cooled astrophotography camera right here which actually has a sensor close to that size the term crop factor is used to explain the ratio of the smaller sensor to the larger one for many brands of crop sensor cameras it's 1.5 for Canon it's 1.6 this is used to determine the equivalent magnification difference between the sensors this is because using the same lens the crop sensor will capture a smaller field of view than the full frame something like this a micro four thirds camera will capture this let's look at what this means with a photo if the same 50 millimeter lens is used on this full frame camera and this crop sensor camera the image Circle projected into the camera is the same the difference is that the larger full frame sensor can capture a larger piece of the image and the crop sensor camera captures a smaller crop of the image when you look at these two images full screen on your monitor the crop sensor image has an effective magnification of 1.6 times that means that while I was using a 50 millimeter lens the crop sensor made it look like I was using an 80 millimeter lens 50 times 1.6 a micro four thirds camera would double the effective focal length to 100 millimeters so crop sensors give you the equivalence of more reach for similar lenses this is a critical consideration for wildlife photographers or any genre of Photography that crops their images the smaller sensor has already made the subject larger in the frame and you don't need to crop as much to enlarge your subject they also often have more pixels jammed into a smaller space so when you cross drop an image from a crop sensor you often have more pixels Left Behind compared to a full frame if we take this fox photo taken with a 20 megapixels full frame sensor like my RSX the image would look like this but with a crop sensor the resulting image would look like this if I crop the image of the full frame to get the same framing I lose all these pixels and the remaining dimensions of the image has less resolution than the crop sensor image I may be down to 12 megapixels as such you need a very high resolution full frame camera to match the ability of crop sensors to get that look of being really close if you're in a style of Photography where you can't zoom with your feet that is get closer like Wildlife or maybe Sports lens is designed for different sensors can often be different as well lens is designed for full frames need to be designed to illuminate a larger area lenses for crop sensor cameras don't need to illuminate as large a surface area this leads to a few considerations for first lenses for crop sensor cameras will usually be smaller and cheaper to make and since getting a great lens for your camera is as important as picking the right sensor size this needs to be taken into account when you're making your choice note that on some camera systems full-frame lenses can be used on crop sensor bodies as they can easily illuminate the smaller image sensor but it doesn't work the other way around if you try to illuminate a large sensor with a lens designed to illuminate a small one you get this Effect called vignetting so buying full-frame lenses for your crop sensor camera is a good way to ease yourself towards a full frame someday as you'd have some usable lenses right away just make sure they're compatible the other consideration is that full-frame cameras have less effective magnification so you need to buy longer lenses to get reach I'm lucky to own a big 500 millimeter F4 to use with my full frame for wildlife but these are very expensive and you need to consider your lens cost if you want to shoot this type of genre now let's have a look at size and weight this one isn't too technically complicated smaller sensors can usually be designed with a smaller form factor and are often designed to take advantage of this so smaller sensors will also take smaller size lenses and together make great small packages compare here my Canon R5 full-frame camera with a 17 to 40 lens and my M50 with an 18 to 45 I can fit this camera lens and all into my pocket this may be an advantage for Street photographer that doesn't want to draw attention to themselves or when you want to travel to allow your gear to fit into a smaller bag or even your pocket one of the differences that's often discussed in regards to sensor sizes is noise performance and image quality what's happening is that for the same amount of megapixels a full-frame camera will have larger pixels than a crop sensor and will capture more light each and also more light in total because of the larger surface area larger pixels tend to have less noise than smaller pixels because they get more light each come compared to the digital noise inherent in the sensors having a better ratio of good light to bad noise is what's called a better signal to noise ratio and hence cleaner images they also usually have better dynamic range that is the ability to discern the difference in tones of light to dark and colors can be captured with more Fidelity as such full-frame sensors are often favored by photographers who shoot in low light often or in challenging light this might be wedding photographers who shoot in dark reception halls people who photograph in dark music venues or like me Wildlife photographers who are out before Dawn and stay out after dusk because that's when our subjects are the most active I also use a full frame camera as my camera of choice to shoot Milky Way photos or Aurora the photos taken in these dark environments with a full frame are cleaner and have better colors and Clarity a landscape photographer who shoots right into a bright Sunrise might also choose a full frame because of the ability to recover the brightest highlights of the sun and it may be better are on a full frame on the other hand in good like like Outdoors or while taking a walk or daytime Street or architecture photography a smaller sensor can perform close enough to larger sensors that many people can't tell them apart of course the cost of systems is a consideration everyone needs to deal with crop sensor cameras are often cheaper and their lenses are cheaper too as such they're a great choice for entry into the photography hobby even for someone who wants to go full frame in the future full-frame cameras are more expensive and are often paired with extra features like dual card slots maybe extra video features a weather sealing which may add more to the cost lenses are more expensive also so make sure you need what they deliver before spending the extra money on one now it's true that many professionals use full-frame cameras but it's not always a choice because of the sensor itself there are often many professional features that are added to full-frame cameras that make them attractive for professional photographers now let's look at another difference the bokeh and the depth of field field this is a very misunderstood one while there's a predominant view that larger sensors create a thinner depth of field and blur out the background more this is actually just a correlation not the cause the real causes of thinner depth of field that is the depth of the part of the photo in Focus are getting closer to the subject wider lens apertures and longer focal lengths now I could shoot different examples of shots with each camera and varying focal lengths to show you all the differences and nuances but there are different ways to show equivalent photos from each camera depending on your genre photography people will argue on for days in the comments below about whether or not the methodology was right do you stand at the same place do you move backwards and forwards to have the subject the same size in the frame or do you adjust the aperture in the iso for the crop factor it would go on forever I'll just shoot one example the same lens set at the same setting shot at the same distance I'll put the same 50 millimeter lens shot at the same F2 on both cameras the framing looks tighter on the crop sensor image due to the crop factor but shot from the same standpoint and the same f-stop both have the same depth of field in fact if I take a crop of the center of the full frame image and blow it up 1.6 times the crop factor they're the same view and the same image but I'll point out that small sensors usually make us stand farther back to fit our subject in the frame those things are actually what makes the depth of field deeper and the background less blurry for crop sensors on the other hand larger sensors make us get closer to our subject or use longer lenses and these lead to shallower depths of field the longer lenses also blow up things in the background making them appear bigger and even blurrier so while only a correlation these things do happen in real life and as such having larger sensors and the accompanying changes it makes to taking photos does lead to blurier backgrounds for big sensors and More in Focus backgrounds for small sensors whether or not these are disadvantaged or an advantage depend on your style of Photography a certain portrait photographer may want a blurry background to make the subject Pock from the frame and clean up those busy backgrounds because that's what suits their photographic style as such they might favor a full-frame camera but some landscape photographer may find it easier to get all of the scene in focus at once with a smaller sensor and so favor that someone who also shoots macro might also find it easier to get all of an insect in focus with a smaller sensor this is another example of showing that different sensor sizes shouldn't be viewed as better or worse but different tools for different purposes so in the end larger sensors do have advantages in the ability to blur the background capture a wide dynamic range and shoot in low light but they cost more and have a larger form factor crop sensors have more reach are easier to travel with cost less and have their sensors pack packed with tiny pixels that can get lots of detail when paired with a sharp lens they also cost less and an easier way to get into photography if you want to get into even smaller packages micro four thirds make wonderfully small cameras are easy to travel with and give you tons of reach without breaking the bank on lenses remember that regardless of the size of the sensor the quality of the lens you put on it will make a huge difference a sharp or fast high quality lens will make any sensor Choice shine and a poor lens choice will throw away any advantage in sensor size you thought you might get the best camera for you is the one you have in your hand and you use if you're curious about the megapixel counts of cameras and how to choose amongst them that was last week's video to see it click here use what you have and go out there and take some amazing photos I know you can do it

Channel: Simon d'Entremont

Views: 661,456

Keywords: photography, photography tips, photography tutorial, digital photography, photography tutorials, photography tips for beginners, photography tips and tricks, quality photos, better photos, learn photography, photography tricks, megapixels, MP, high megapixe, high megapixel camera, high megapixel camera vs low, high megapixel noise, high megapixel photo, high megapixel vs low, full fram, full frame camera, crop sensor, crop sensor vs full frame, aps-c, aps-c vs full frame

Id: Bfh6TRiHWzo

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 28 2023