My new Z5-II has DX mode at the touch of a button. It looks like a useful feature provided one is OK with shooting at 12 MP.
Do you use it? Or do you just crop in post? Do you use it only on the higher MP bodies or also on the small 26 (I mean 24) MP bodies? Only with certain lenses?
I would never use it on a 24mp body, but I use it all the time on my Z9. It helps me track distant subjects (birds, mostly) more reliably and the bigger the subject is in frame, the better the AF works. If I know I'm going to be cropping down to 20mp anyways, then it gets used in the field.
Like @RoamingScott, I'm using it all the time on Z9, mostly to reach more distant targets without changing the lens to a longer one (because I don't have one, or because I'm too lazy to switch...) Alternatively, I'm using the Z9 with the little 16-50mm kit lens as a glorified point-and-shoot carry-anywhere camera at times.
The only issue is that sometimes I'm forgetting to check whether I have the Large file size set. Actually, if I do have that setting in place, I end up with 20MP~ish files that aren't that much smaller, resolution-wise, than the 24MP of the FX, Medium size output.
And even when I'm down to DX, medium size, there's still ~10MP to go, which is perfectly fine for my work a lot of the time, since much of it is for the web anyway. It's pushing it when talking about print (or so I tell myself) but there's never been an actual shortage of pixels in my experience. Yours may be different, of course.
I too use crop mode frequently, but never on 24mpx-class bodies.
Most of my work is ultimately displayed on 4K (or sometime 5K) screens, so I'm always aware of that target when I crop. Plus, I like to have wiggle room to crop in post. The Z8 crop mode, which barely covers 5K, is about as close as I like to shave it.
A while back I made this crude graphic to help myself visualize the crop-ability of my three main systems (A7cr, Z8 and iPhone 17).
Sure I use it, but in consideration for what I'm using it for regarding the impact to image quality when shooting on 24mp bodies. I like the 50-250 so much for its size/weight ratio I kept it after divesting of all things DX for use on my Z7 when hiking.
I used crop mode with my D850 with a 200-500 f/5.6. It was exactly the same as shooting a 20 mp D500. I used it that way for birding as I always ended up cropping the heck out of everything anyway. Today I just use my D500 for birding. A lot of people get real anal over crop mode because you are really wasting pixels. My philosophy is that "If it looks good, it is good"
darwinphoto wrote:
My new Z5-II has DX mode at the touch of a button. It looks like a useful feature provided one is OK with shooting at 12 MP.
Do you use it? Or do you just crop in post? Do you use it only on the higher MP bodies or also on the small 26 (I mean 24) MP bodies? Only with certain lenses?
I always crop afterwards. There are some limited use cases, such as stretching the buffer thoughput or simplifying processing, but if the subject is alive then it may move to close to or out of the DX area and ruin the composition. On a 24MP camera it's praticularly not a great idea. I'm more inclined to use with 60MP+ cameras where you get 26MP+.
In any case, perhaps just go out and try it one day. I'm not sure of the exact size, but it woudl be less than 11MP.
Easier and more flexible to just crop in post. You can decide how you want to frame it and what bits to trim away or what bits to keep depending on how you want to use the photo later.
Sauseschritt wrote:
Thats not hard for me to forget since I never owned those. :-p
Well, I've owned D100, D200, D300, D700. Then I moved to 24 Mpix cameras (D7200, D780, Z6 & Z5 II), and I own only FX bodies at present.
I made very very good A3 prints from 5 Mpix crop from D300 files ...
Aside from my personal experience, which is irrelevant, I remember an exhibition of Steve McCurry's prints in 2011 (https://www.arte.it/notizie/roma/al-macro-una-grande-retrospettiva-dedicata-a-steve-mccurry-7258).
Very large prints from both D3 and D3X, and from scanned slides as well. Very large prints (1 m large at least) from D3 files weren't "technically" as good as D3X files. However, I wonder what those who claim they will never crop 24 Mpix files are going to do with their photos, apart from pixel peeping ...
I used it on the Z8 from time to time. I’m glad there’s an option to make the DX indicator blink.
I would use it on a “low-resolution” body after considering the image’s final destination and if I really-really have to use it. You know, I still enjoy images I made with the 6mp Canon D60 more than 20 years ago.
There's a really big difference between a full frame, low resolution sensor with big fat pixels, and trimming down today's tiny little pixels to the same resolution.
RoamingScott wrote:
There's a really big difference between a full frame, low resolution sensor with big fat pixels, and trimming down today's tiny little pixels to the same resolution.
I hear people don't own computers anymore and look at pictures on IG on their phones only. Unless you plan to print big why care at all about the size of the image? I crop Oly images without second thoughts, and those are "the worst pixels" after phone pixels
