Ian.Dobinson wrote:
I dont know why everyone gets so hung up about 100% crops. Surely the best test of IQ is to see the result printed out for full effect (unless you want to make a poster of the smallest part of your image)
+1
Comparing 100% crops of versions of photographs shot in different sensor formats and with different photosite densities is fraught with problematic variables.
Here is one example: When the 5D II first was released I started seeing posts that breathlessly proclaimed, "I compared 100% crops from my 5D and my 5D II and the 5D is sharper than the 5DII!" Well, of course the camera with fewer photosites looks sharper at 100% - you are looking at a smaller area of the photograph in the example with more photosites! This simply proves that "flaws" in lens performance are easier to see when you look at them more closely... ;-)
But if you compare prints (at large enough sizes to make the differences apparent) made with photographs from the two cameras (as suggested by Ian) you will discover that the 5DII can produce greater resolution.
The situation is even worse if you compare 100% crops from crop and full frame samples.
It is almost universally true - and pretty much impossible to argue against in a credible way - that the larger the format the more "quality" the photograph can potentially provide. Does that mean you should always use the largest possible format? Of course not. For one thing - and there are other "things" as well - unless you reproduce the photograph at fairly large sizes there is a good chance that you won't see any difference. There is no question that a 8 x 10 LF film photograph can hold more detail than the best cropped sensor DSLR can capture - but if you compare photos from both in jpg web renditions the differences will be completely lost.
RDKirk wrote:
There is nothing subtle about the difference if you enlarge the images with the same framing both to 30x40...which is the size of the portraits I sell. The difference is clearly obvious--the larger format wins.
How close to a 30x40 image do you have to stand to notice the difference?
or
How far away do you have to stand before the difference is unnoticeable?
There is no objective number that could serve as an answer to either of those questions. In the end it is a matter of expectations and perception.
Regarding the "typical viewing" distance concept I always recall that someone once said or wrote that the minimal typical viewing distance for photographers is limited only by the length of the photographer's nose.
If your photograph is going to be used as a billboard or a poster - situations in which there is no expectation that anyone will look at them closely - the only issue is how it will look at typical (large) viewing distances.
However, watch how people view photographs in gallery and similar settings where they are likely to focus on the photograph and spend some time with it. Yes, they will look from a good distance back - but in virtually all cases they will also move in close and look at the details from a shorter distance as well.
Whatever standard you adopt for your print work, I think it is important to take multiple viewpoints into consideration. In my view, for the kind of prints that I like, a 30" x 40" print from a crop sensor camera is likely to lose too much detail - unless viewed only from "poster" distances or if the subject is one in which detail is not so important.
But the reasons are not limited to just the ability of the format to contain sufficient detail. There are a number of shooting technique and optical issues that must play out perfectly in order to make very large prints from DSLRs.
YMMV.
Dan
kakomu wrote:
How close to a 30x40 image do you have to stand to notice the difference?
or
How far away do you have to stand before the difference is unnoticeable?
I can't help but wonder if the relative differences in quality between multiple cameras is much like comparing TVs. That is to say, if you have two TVs playing the same source material side-by-side, you can easily note the differences between the two and determine which TV is better than the other. But, when viewing the TVs apart from each other, do either look bad when viewed by themselves?
This applies to the photos produced by cameras as well. Is the crop sensor capable of producing images that look good in their own right? Not whether it looks better or worse than a higher/lower quality camera, but if you took a picture and printed it out in a large format, would it look bad of its own accord.
While I understand that many professionals want nothing but the highest of quality (hence the willingness to pay exorbitant prices for equipment), but it seems improper to dismiss another camera simply because its quality is lower (but not necessarily low quality).
Regarding the "typical viewing" distance concept I always recall that someone once said or wrote that the minimal typical viewing distance for photographers is limited only by the length of the photographer's nose.
I once saw a guy whip out a loupe to inspect a landscape at a gallery. I'd bet money he was a photographer.
However, watch how people view photographs in gallery and similar settings where they are likely to focus on the photograph and spend some time with it. Yes, they will look from a good distance back - but in virtually all cases they will also move in close and look at the details from a shorter distance as well.
I would agree and add that you can see the same thing with paintings as well. There will be people with enough curiousity about the technique involved who will mozy closer.
Unless, of course, the picture does not interest them, in which case they'll just mozy on to the next one.
Whatever standard you adopt for your print work, I think it is important to take multiple viewpoints into consideration. In my view, for the kind of prints that I like, a 30" x 40" print from a crop sensor camera is likely to lose too much detail - unless viewed only from "poster" distances or if the subject is one in which detail is not so important.
For the 30x40 portraits I make, it's virtually certain that they frequently will be viewed from within 4-5 feet in the typical living room for foyer setting, and sometimes closer. Resolution is, fortunately, less important in portraits than landscapes. A portrait is "sharp" as long as facial hair looks sharp--nobody wants to see skin flakes and hair mites in a portrait.
A landscape, OTOH, is expected to reveal more and more detail as the viewer gets closer to it--and perhaps even whips out a loupe. The resolution requirements of a landscape, therefore, are essentially infinite.
This applies to the photos produced by cameras as well. Is the crop sensor capable of producing images that look good in their own right? Not whether it looks better or worse than a higher/lower quality camera, but if you took a picture and printed it out in a large format, would it look bad of its own accord.
That's like comparing Boone's Farm to a fine wine. You're depending on your audience never having experienced anything better, and you're vulnerable to the other guy who can show them something better.
RDKirk wrote:
That's like comparing Boone's Farm to a fine wine. You're depending on your audience never having experienced anything better, and you're vulnerable to the other guy who can show them something better.
Maybe, but Boone's Farm is disgusting of its own accord. Moreover, the best tasting wine is the one you like.
I'm sure everyone can accept that things can always look "better". But at 30x40, does a crop camera look "good enough" or even "great"?
n0b0 wrote:
Looks like DOF is the bigger reason to move to FF.
That's the big difference in my book. I can use f/4 zooms and get narrow DOF and subject isolation that would necessitate an f/2.5 lens on a 1.6X crop at the same camera to subect distance.
I've got more examples that I'll post tonight if I have time.
michael49 wrote:
That's the big difference in my book. I can use f/4 zooms and get narrow DOF and subject isolation that would necessitate an f/2.5 lens on a 1.6X crop at the same camera to subect distance.
I've got more examples that I'll post tonight if I have time.
I'm struggling with this a bit - that seems like a huge downside for macro, since more DOF is king. But it'd be a huge plus for everything else. Right now, I shoot 50-50 macro/nonmacro.
Do you have examples where FF would benefit more than crop in low light too?
Do you consider the 40D image on the right side bad, or merely not as good?
NumberFive wrote:
Do you have examples where FF would benefit more than crop in low light too?
Low light performance of a FF camera would hinge more on auto-focus performance (which isn't sensor specific), lens aperture (not camera related) and ISO noise. ISO noise would be a function of pixel pitch and technology. A larger frame allows high resolution with larger pixels, whereas a smaller frame requires pixels be shrank to fit on the sensor. In such a case, it'd be best to look at high ISO noise tests. For instance, the 1D3 has good high ISO performance, despite being a smaller sensor.
kakomu wrote:
Low light performance of a FF camera would hinge more on auto-focus performance (which isn't sensor specific), lens aperture (not camera related) and ISO noise. ISO noise would be a function of pixel pitch and technology. A larger frame allows high resolution with larger pixels, whereas a smaller frame requires pixels be shrank to fit on the sensor. In such a case, it'd be best to look at high ISO noise tests. For instance, the 1D3 has good high ISO performance, despite being a smaller sensor.
Can you help me understand the bolded part a bit more? From what I was reading, here's a common misunderstanding:
The aperture could be affected by the camera body. In the 1.6 to FF comparison, that's like a stop and a half. A f/2.8 on a crop is roughly equivalent to somewhere between f/4 and f/5.6 on full frame because of the greater light.
I read something else about how that's not exactly true, it's the same aperture, just composed differently.
But at 30x40, does a crop camera look "good enough" or even "great"?
That depends on audience expectation, which is what I spoke of earlier.
Viewers will call a portrait "sharp" as long as the facial hair is defined at an image headsize in which they would expect to see it defined. It would be better to express this as some section of an arc, but for example, if the image headsize is three inches or larger on an image seen at arms' length, the facial hair should be resolved (with exceptions for image styles that are clearly intended to be blurred or soft-focus).
When the viewer sees a human face in a photographic image at such a reproduced size and distance that he would be able to distinguish individual facial hairs in a real-life view of a human face at that perceived distance, the viewer expects to distinguish facial hair in the photographic image as he would in a real-life view.
This is why portrait photographers began to "get away" with using 2-3 mp DSLRs ten years ago...for headshots. Any DSLR can resolve facial hair in a headshot, and that's all it takes for viewers to accept it as "sharp." Because hair is easy to interpolate--it's just a dark line without interior detail--if the original image manages to resolve the facial hair, it can be resampled to nearly any size.
In the same vein, if the head is reproduced so small in the image that the viewer does not expect facial hair to be individually visible (because the perceived distance to the subject is "far"), a low resolution image can be accepted, so group photographs or full-length portraits that were held to a small enlargement were also acceptable.
But if that full-lenght portrait were enlarged to, say 40x50--a 2- or 3-inch head size--the obvious blur of the facial hair would make it unacceptable--it would not be "good enough." This would be regardless of whether the viewer had ever seen a sharper image. The problem is that the viewer would be able to see individual hairs in a natural (real life) view of a human face at that perceived size.
However, only recently have the best DSLRs been able to resolve facial hair in the original image of full-length and group portraits so that they can be resampled to any size, interpolating from that orginally resolved detail.
I recently did a loosely posed group image (similar to Leibovitz's "Vanity Fair" Hollywood covers) in which the women's eyelashes could be counted in a 30x40 enlargement...that from a 5D2. My 5D1 could not have accomplished it. The 5D2 has retired my Mamiya RZ67.
kakomu wrote:
Do you consider the 40D image on the right side bad, or merely not as good?
I wuold say "not as good", but definitely not "bad". My amateur eye can still see noticeably higher detail in the 5D shot, particularly in the head of the metal post. The DOF is also noticeably more shallow.
NumberFive wrote:
I wuold say "not as good", but definitely not "bad". My amateur eye can still see noticeably higher detail in the 5D shot, particularly in the head of the metal post. The DOF is also noticeably more shallow.
NumberFive wrote:
I'm struggling with this a bit - that seems like a huge downside for macro, since more DOF is king. But it'd be a huge plus for everything else. Right now, I shoot 50-50 macro/nonmacro....
If your an "everything in focus" kind of macro person then you may do better with 1.6X crop than FF. Most of my "macro" is flower close-ups and I'm not usually trying to get everything in focus....
The argument is all moot. You either see the difference yourself and want the FF camera or not. I used to think it was not really a noticable difference, but having come from a 40D (which I really liked BTW) to a 1DsII I can tell you there is a difference other than resolution. It's actually harder to describe than it is to see. There just seems to be a better "fine-ness" to the details and more pop to the images. I shoot mostly people and to me my work has gotten a lot better after my switch to FF. The same shots of models that I took before with my 40D and looked good to me look much better now with a FF camera. You will not really be able to tell on an 800x600 reduced file on this forum. You need higher res than that to really see it.
NumberFive wrote:
Can you help me understand the bolded part a bit more? From what I was reading, here's a common misunderstanding:
The aperture could be affected by the camera body. In the 1.6 to FF comparison, that's like a stop and a half. A f/2.8 on a crop is roughly equivalent to somewhere between f/4 and f/5.6 on full frame because of the greater light.
I read something else about how that's not exactly true, it's the same aperture, just composed differently.
As far as light is concerned between two lenses:
Between a full frame camera and a cropped frame camera, an aperture of F/2.8 will yield the same amount of light in both situations. In both situations, the lens is projecting the exact same amount of light into the back of the camera. The only difference between the two is that the crop frame body is recording a smaller area of that projection than a full frame body.
To give you a better understanding, it would be like if you went out and shot a roll of film, developed the negatives and just cut out small rectangles from the center each frame. The center of your frame would be exposed the same regardless of whether you're using the entire frame of the negative or just a small portion of it.
As far as DoF is concerned, as I've written many times, it's a function of subject distance, focal length and aperture. The full frame sensor requires you to recompose your image by getting closer to a subject. Given the same focal length and aperture, a crop body user must step back further from the subject. Going further back requires them to focus closer to infinity, thus reducing the amount of background blur.
If you were to use a longer focal length on a full frame body to get the same composition, while standing in the same location, you'll get a smaller DoF because longer focal lengths decrease DoF.
It's important to note that while a 50mm lens on a crop body has the equivalent field of view as an 85mm lens on a full frame body, it retains the same DoF as a 50mm lens on a full frame body.
B. Landis wrote:
The argument is all moot. You either see the difference yourself and want the FF camera or not. I used to think it was not really a noticable difference, but having come from a 40D (which I really liked BTW) to a 1DsII I can tell you there is a difference other than resolution. It's actually harder to describe than it is to see. There just seems to be a better "fine-ness" to the details and more pop to the images. I shoot mostly people and to me my work has gotten a lot better after my switch to FF. The same shots of models that I took before with my 40D and looked good to me look much better now with a FF camera. You will not really be able to tell on an 800x600 reduced file on this forum. You need higher res than that to really see it. ...Show more →
The fineness of detail is probably due to requiring less resolution in your lens to get the same composition.
michael49 wrote:
If your an "everything in focus" kind of macro person then you may do better with 1.6X crop than FF. Most of my "macro" is flower close-ups and I'm not usually trying to get everything in focus....
If you're an "everything in focus" kind of macro person, you might also consider a Canon G-series camera. The small focal lengths translates to a very wide DoF. Moreover, it has a hot shoe so that you can use a flash.
