APS-C vs. 35MM/FX/Full Frame

[photomarcs]

Hey guys,

Here's something that I've been meaning to post up as a very simple and yet complicated debate.

APS-C vs. Full Frame

What do you prefer and why ? why do some people rave on about Full Frame being so much better, and what advantages does APS-C have that Full Frame doesn't allow? I'm sure plenty of the obvious points will be spotted, but please label what situation you feel they are suitable for according to the following :

1. Portraits - Studio
2. Landscape,Seascapes and fun in the sun.
3. Professional Fashion,editorial, on location.

Please note, that things and responses I'm after is more than just IQ. go for gold

[chrisk]

i prefer FX for the following reasons...

1. low light performance is the no brainer
2. colour and light gradation seems to be smoother
3. 35mm, 50mm and 85mm were always my fave focal lengths on film and with FX i get that FOV back.
4. dof is a little shallower which i personally prefer
5. FX snobbery

dont know if its differences between FX on DX or just between the d300 and d700 but i found all of my glass performed better on the d700.

i still want a DX body aswell though for wildlife and macro where that added reach, (yes i know this is techically not right but for arguements sake...), comes in very handy. DX advantages also in glass being smaller/ lighter.

[Mr Darcy]

I prefer DX, for much the reasons Rooz gave.
Better reach, and the lenses are smaller, lighter and cheaper. This is because a smaller image circle is easier to make.

1. Yes I miss low light performance, but the new DX bodies are not exactly poor in this regard. Hell I remember when ISO64 was regarded with suspicion because it was so fast. (ISO25 was the norm then!)

2. I have heard this said, but I do not understand it. JPEG is limited to 256 gradations in tone for each colour, regardless of of body. RAW is a bit more, but FX &DX use the same RAW format, so there should be no difference here either. If FX bodies used 16bit & DX 14 bit, it would make sense, but AFAIK they don't.,

3. So use 24mm, 35mm and 55mm or grab that 24 - 70 zoom & forget about the focal length & just frame the shot.

4. I wouldn't want shallower DOF on my 85mm@1.4 It's hair thin already.

5. Who cares. A camera is a tool.

That said, I prefer FX lenses on my DX body. Any problems in the lens will be near the edge of the image circle & that is simply not an issue with this combination. You do need DX at the wide end though. FX lenses are just not wide enough.

[ozimax]

Good question. I have owned D70, then 30D, 40D, 50D and now have 5D Mkii. There is definitely a "pop" about the photos taken with the latter, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's all in my (small) mind?

The photos obviously are softer in the corners on full frame, at least with my lens, but the 5D coupled with 70-200 2.8 gives portraits something that I didn't get with the 40D.

I still though think that lighting and skill are inestimably more important than the camera system or even the lens choice.

[chrisk]

2. I have heard this said, but I do not understand it. JPEG is limited to 256 gradations in tone for each colour, regardless of of body. RAW is a bit more, but FX &DX use the same RAW format, so there should be no difference here either. If FX bodies used 16bit & DX 14 bit, it would make sense, but AFAIK they don't.,

it has something to do with pixel density. dont know why technically...it just is.

3. So use 24mm, 35mm and 55mm or grab that 24 - 70 zoom & forget about the focal length & just frame the shot.

no, not quite the same i'm afraid for a number of reasons. and the 24-70, (which i owned), is not a fast prime. its 2 stops slower and much heavier.

4. I wouldn't want shallower DOF on my 85mm@1.4 It's hair thin already.

yes, but you can stop the lens down to f2 and get a sharper centre with the same DOF as you would on DX with 1.4. and 1.4 on an 85 isnt razor thin all the time, it depends on your working distance.

5. Who cares. A camera is a tool.

obviously its hard to tell a tongue in cheek comment reading it online. lol

[aim54x]

This is an awesome discussion topic.

I am torn between DX and FX myself, I want the IQ and the advantages with wide lenses that FX offers, but the size and price of DX is very inviting.

I dont use the long ends of my lenses all that often and have never missed the lost "length" when I use the same lenses on a film body. However, the extra "width" on film (and FX) always makes me smile!

[Wink]

I assume that FX = full frame and DX = crop sensor in Nikon speak for those of us playing at home?

I can't offer any technical reasons for or against, but started with a crop sensor on a 450D and really enjoyed using the 10-22mm lens. I upgraded to a 7D so I could still use the 10-22mm while taking advantage of the better body.
I also couldn't justify the extra dollars for the 5D MkII.

I figured that there can't be much in the argument since the 1D's are a crop sensor too. Whether that logic is sound or not remains to be seen.

[Mr Darcy]

I assume that FX = full frame and DX = crop sensor in Nikon speak for those of us playing at home?

Correct. Assuming that 35mm is the Holy Grail. Not at all convinced of that. You could argue that an 8x10 plate is "full sensor" and every thing else is crop.

obviously its hard to tell a tongue in cheek comment reading it online. lol

YEs that would appear to be the case

[ATJ]

For macro work, DX wins hands down:
* DX provides greater effective magnification* than FX
* At the same effective magnification and f/stop, DX will give greater depth of field. Do decrease DOF, all you have to do user a larger aperture. Given that macro is often a trade off between DOF and diffraction, there's less of a trade off with DX.

For underwater work, one could initially argue in favour of FX as for a given lens you would be closer to the subject (less water for the light to travel through) for the same effective magnification than you would on DX, but that all comes down to lens selection. Go with a wider lens on DX and you can achieve the same thing.

For me, the DOF argument for FX is somewhat meaningless as it only holds true when comparing the same effective magnification and f/stop. With DX you just choose a larger aperture to achieve the same DOF as with FX. I guess if you shoot wide open then there is advantage, but I almost never shoot wide open.

* By effective magnification I mean magnification relative to the frame rather than the image size of the film/sensor. At 1:1 with DX a 24x18mm object would fill the frame where as it would appear smaller on FX.

[surenj]

I have owned D70, then 30D, 40D, 50D and now have 5D Mkii. There is definitely a "pop" about the photos taken with the latter, but I'm not sure what it is

Hey Ozi, I'd like to see an example of this...

[gstark]

I assume that FX = full frame and DX = crop sensor in Nikon speak for those of us playing at home?

Yes, although Marcus is Canon-carrying cardmember.

I figured that there can't be much in the argument since the 1D's are a crop sensor too. Whether that logic is sound or not remains to be seen.

Logic isn't what the discussion is about, I'm afraid.

To me, this discussion is akin to the one whereby I say that vinyl sounds warmer (and thusly way superior) to digital. I cannot describe how or why, and I certainly cannot justify my approach and feelings, but that's what they are.

And nobody can prove me wrong.

Similarly there's a certain je ne sais quoi about FX over DX, but I truly don't know what that is.

[Mr Darcy]

And nobody can prove me wrong.

Ah! So we're talking religion, not science! That explains a lot.

I never took you for the religious type Gary. Ah well. Live & learn.

[Murray Foote]

I had nearly finished a post to this thread last night when some update abruptly closed down my computer.

I've never shot DX. My first DSLR was a D3 and now I also have a D3s. Prior to that I held off because I thought that DSLRs were not a mature technology (i.e. they became obselete too quickly) and I was using a Panasonic FZ50 and a 6x17 panorama camera.

FX is appropriate for me because of my interest in low light photography. Currently I'm taking a lot of live shots of musicians, mainly on primes and often wide open. The D3s gives me 3 or 4 stops over a D300 and has greater dynamic range, about 13 stops overall I understand. Apart from being able to take images that previously were not possible, this allows me to stop down or use higher shutter speeds where appropriate. I get improved image quality due to the increased dynamic range and also, because I often shoot primes wide open, subject isolation is a real benefit.

I'll be shooting more landscapes again before too long and I'm interested in low light there too, including moonlight exposures, so FX remains a benefit. The wide dynamic range also reduces the call for HDR.

Of course, cameras and lenses are only part of photography. Prior to getting the D3 I was shooting live music with the FZ50 involving tortuous denoising and sharpening operations in post-production. I was still able to print to A3+ (I sold one of those last week) though obviously FX has far greater potential for quality here. What you can do in post-production is probably a more important factor than differences between DX and FX.

For that matter, if you are only interested in shooting in the day and happy with low ISOs, you may well get better quality from say a Panasonic FZ100 than a DX DSLR with an indifferent kit zoom, notwithstanding the extravagant zoom range and tiny sensor of the FZ100.

No answer is possible as to what as best out of Digicam, four-thirds, DX, FX, Holga, Polaroid, Pinhole, 6x17, 5x4 scanning back, Daguerrotype, 10x8 or however they made the Shroud of Turin, though we can say for certain that Kodak Instamatics were rubbish. It all depends on what you want to do, how you want to do it, your workflow and your intended output. How well you do it will depend more on your vision and your application than your equipment. Everything has limitations and whatever stuff you have can probably produce great images.

[brentsky]

No answer is possible as to what as best out of Digicam, four-thirds, DX, FX, Holga, Polaroid, Pinhole, 6x17, 5x4 scanning back, Daguerrotype, 10x8 or however they made the Shroud of Turin, though we can say for certain that Kodak Instamatics were rubbish. It all depends on what you want to do, how you want to do it, your workflow and your intended output. How well you do it will depend more on your vision and your application than your equipment. Everything has limitations and whatever stuff you have can probably produce great images.

well put murray!

personally i shoot 35mm and 6x7 - for exposure latitude, quality and size of prints. so far there's no digital alternative for me to achieve these results at a resonable price.

b

[Murray Foote]

For quality as well as economy I believe you need to print your own. Medium format cameras and lenses are now very cheap and I think the cheapest option to produce quality black and white prints remains the chemical darkroom though that's far from easy. I don't think chemical colour printing is worthwhile any more (I used to print Cibachrome).

Otherwise, that leaves scanning as the big bottleneck, especially for 35mm and a flatbed scanner. The digital darkroom is a revelation though it's not cheap when you factor in appropriate computer, monitor, calibration, software and printer. The quality of 6x7 should translate well enough. I remember being impressed when I realised I could get as good resolution and better print quality from a 5x4 slide scanned on my now-aging Canon 9950 scanner as I used to be able to get printing directly onto Cibachrome.

Then if you have the computer and software one cheap digital option for landscape is to use a cheap digital camera and blend multiple exposures (portrait format) together at low ISOs.