sungphoto
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 Re: APS-C vs Full Frame | |
In all seriousness though, wouldn’t you care more about the differences in sensor format on ones better images rather than their throwaways and snapshots? I mean I have boatloads of family pics but I’m pretty sure no ones aside from me wants to flip through those.
@chiron would it help if I showed you what the raw unprocessed image looks like of these? Almost all of them were taken in challenging light (aside from of course the studio images). The fisherman hand fishing in Cienfuegos for example was taken close to high noon on the a6500 and required a pretty big push on the shadows and reduction of highlights (processed on my phone if I recall correctly). In the unprocessed RAW, the details in the dog for example are almost completely indistinguishable
Charlie N wrote:
chiron wrote:
sungphoto wrote:
chiron wrote:
What changes in image characteristics, image quality, and light handling when one goes from full frame to aps-c? I know this is discussed in passing in various threads, but the information is not in one place.
I am seriously thinking about building a small aps-c kit for the sake of the smallness and lightness and for purposes of travel and easy-carry in everyday circumstances, e.g. just going for a walk. The appeal of the aps-c to me is that it gets closer to the experience of carrying a Leica or Contax G-2 or other small rangefinder, and that is very appealing.
I know the rough outline of what changes: FOV, obviously, by a factor of 1.5; more depth of field; less dynamic range, less light on the sensor and thus less amenable to low-light shooting. But I would like have more precision and detail in my understanding of the differences and how much they matter to the final result (in the various opinions of those who have shot both).
Especially I would be interested in views of how much or how little difference the differences make in the final photograph's characteristics and image quality in actual practice. I know this is a soft issue, but I would live to know what others think and what their experiences have been in shooting and seeing their own work in both formats.
It's kind of a 1 step forward, 1 step back kind of situation in real world shooting having shot both full and crop sensor sony cameras quite a bit, often side by side. Ultimately, I think the thing (that you recognize) is that the sensor format is a pretty small part of final image output unless you're trying to print something 4x6 ft.
A few factors off the top of my head that make a pretty big impact outside of sensor output are:
-autofocus performance in challenging low light environments: I've primarily used the A6300 and A6500, and generally in very low light they tend to hunt more or have issues achieving focus lock at all, which obviously impacts your ability to even get the photo in the first place
-lens options and performance: Primarily on the wide end - sony doesn't have a great selection of crop lenses. The 10-18 f4 is just ok wide open, and in my experience doesn't really start to get sharp in the corners until around f8. Mild wide angle primes with fast apertures are also still going to be pretty big regardless (like the excellent 16 f1.4 and 30 f1.4 sigma). On the other hand teles are actually pretty solid - I've been impressed with the performance of the 55-210 kit lens
-user interface and EVF: Lack of an autofocus point joystick bugs me in the crop bodies, and I've found that I end up using center point and focusing and recomposing on the A6500 because I dislike the ergos have using the little directional menu pad for that. Also the EVF on the crop bodies are a bit cramped and don't have as effective hoods as the full frame bodies out of the box.
-post-processing technique and experience: This obviously has a huge impact, as just using in-camera noise reduction versus a more conscious approach in LR and photoshop can be a night and day difference.
-your subjective preferences in terms of what constitutes a "good" image, and acceptable levels of noise: I personally find that crop body high iso performance starts to fall apart around 3200 for my tastes, and at 6400 the noise looks more "digital" than full frame sensors of the same resolution.
These are a few photos taken with both full frame and crop sensor sonys. Can you pick which came from which? 
Very nice images, Sung, and I appreciate the points you made in your discussion. But as far as guessing which sensor size was used for which picture, with such different subject matter, camera settings, lenses, and lighting, it is not meaningful to try to pick which is which.
One is really not isolating the factor of the sensor size but is just confusing the issue with so many unrelated variables. Holding everything constant while only varying the sensor would b more interesting and relevant in the context of this thread.
Totally agree. Photography is often about entire albums rather than your best pics you've amassed with the best lighting. Raw processing is important, and with troublesome lighting, FF shines comparatively. That said, I took a bunch of family snapshots, and aside from FF, the main difference was sharpness. It was for web sharing, in-laws, didn't need a super resolution, so I slapped on the 16-50 pancake, a truly tiny lens, and I'm comfortable with the IQ stopped down a tad.
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