Tag Archives: sensor

Reader Questions

Full Frame Or APS-C For Landcape?

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Earlier today I was asked a question about cameras for landscape photography, and since I think the answer may be of interest to others, too, I am sharing the reply here. “Pat” asks:

I have been reading a number of your posts and have to say that I appreciate your balanced pperspective on camera selection….something that is missing in much of these discussions.

I am a landscape photographer that purchased a Sony A7RIIII to complement my A6000. However I have recently become infatuated with the Fuji XT-3. While many Fuji users seem to be more street or travel photographers, I focus mainly on landscape.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the “better” system for landscapes.

This is a pretty common question — whether to hold out for a camera with larger sensor and higher megapixel (MP} resolution or to go with a smaller and lighter APS-C format camera with lower sensor resolution.

Alpine Lake, Morning
“Alpine Lake, Morning” — A solitary sunrise angler stands on shoreline rocks at an alpine Sierra Nevada lake reflecting a nearby peak. (Photographed with a Fujifilm XPro2 and the Fujifilm 16-55mm f/2.8 lens.)

You might think the answer is obvious — a system with a larger sensor and high megapixel resolution is capable of producing images with more detail. However, there are some considerations that turn this into a somewhat subjective question with more than one “correct” answer.

The classic understanding holds that, for example, a 50MP full frame sensor can resolve more detail than, say, a 24MP APS-C sensor. In fact, this is true. If you work with care, using a tripod and a remote release and paying careful attention to things like accurate focus, aperture selection, and camera stability, you can produce a larger print from the higher MP full frame image. So the larger, higher MP system can help if you are likely to produce very large prints .

One of my camera systems uses a 24MP Fujifilm APS-C sensor. I’m absolutely confident that I can produce excellent 20″ x 30″ prints from images shot on this system. But my other system uses a Canon 51MP sensor, and it can go even larger, reliably producing 30″ x 45″ and larger print sizes.

Update (1/15/2023): During the past month I acquired a Fujifilm X-T5, a new 40MP APS-C camera. While my main use for the camera is not landscape, I have now made some landscape photographs with it, and I feel like I have a sense of whether the high resolution sensor is useful in this smaller format. In short, it is. Test images that I have made show lenses I regularly use with the camera are “sharp” enough to produce details that benefit from the higher sensor resolution. If you have an older 24MP or 26MP sensor, should you go out and upgrade? Not necessarily. This is not a “night and day” difference, but one you might notice if you make large prints and look closely. But if you are at the point of getting a new APS-C camera and you wonder if 40MP even makes sense in this format… it does.

So, how large will you print? If your realistic answer is, “probably no larger than 16″ x 24″, you can get excellent results from the APS-C camera as long as you use good technique. In all honesty, you could hang 16″ x 24″ prints from the 24MP APS-C system and from the 51MP full frame system side by side… and no one would notice a difference. The odds are that virtually no one would notice at 20″ x 30”. A very experienced photographer carefully comparing side-by-side prints might see a subtle difference.

If you find that APS-C is good enough — and for many photographers is is more than good enough — this smaller format has some other advantages. The cameras tend to be smaller and lighter. The lenses are also smaller and lighter, partly because a given focal length doesn’t have to cover as large of an image circle. In addition, you get the same angle-of-view coverage from a shorter lens. For example, a 50mm focal length on my Fujifilm APS-C system gives me the same angle of view as a 75mm focal length on full frame. And last but quite possibly not least, APS-C sensor systems tend to cost less than full frame equivalents.

So, yes, bigger sensors and higher MP count can be “better…” but perhaps in ways that you’ll never see. So if you won’t print so large (or perhaps you never print at all) and you value a smaller and lighter system and perhaps saving some money… you could be extremely happy with a good APS-C system, as long as you can find all of the lenses you’ll need for it.

NOTES: This article was slightly updated in June of 2021 and again in early 2023.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Equipment

Comparing 33 x 44mm “miniMF” and 24 x 36mm Full Frame Sensors

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Comparing Full Frame and miniMF Sensors
Comparing full frame 24mm x 36mm and Fujifilm mini-MF 33.8mm x 43.8mm sensors

Starting a few years ago with cameras like the Pentax 645d and then 645z and continuing with new cameras from Hasselblad and Fujifilm, systems using  the “miniMF” 33mm x 44mm sensors have become more readily available and less expensive.

In preparation for writing something about the merits of the two types of systems I created this image that holds quite a bit of technical comparison data based on pixel counts (e.g. — “megapixels”), sensor size, and ways of comparing them.

For now I won’t try to analyze this too much, except to say that comparisons between the two formats are more complicated than you might think and they are somewhat subjective — it matters how you plan to use them. For example, do you prefer to use the 3:2 aspect ratio of full frame,  or the 4:3 ratio of miniMF, or will you adapt to whichever you are using? This chart shows you how that affects your comparisons.

NOTE: The graphic is a first attempt at including a lot of information in a single chart. It has some problems, especially with the numbers representing crop factor. I’ll update the image to correct the errors before long, and at that point I’ll use it in a more substantive post about comparing the formats.

© Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Deals and Sales

Fujifilm Deal: X-Pro-1 And Lens Bundles

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There is a special deal right now on the Fujifilm X-Pro-1 mirrorless camera if you purchase it with a couple of available lens options:

Yes, you read that correctly — the 27mm lens is essentially free with the X-Pro-1, and for $150 you can also get the outstanding 35mm f/1.4 XF R lens which is sold separately for $599! (This is the lens that is almost always on my X-E1 body.)

Fujifilm X-Pro-1 Body
Fujifilm X-Pro-1 Body

If you are interested in trying out the Fujifilm sensor system, like rangefinder-style bodies, and like to shoot with small, high quality primes, this seems like a great deal to me.

These days I use two different camera systems, depending on what kind of photography I’m doing. While my main system is based the Canon EOS 5DS R DSLR, I also use a separate system based around one of the Fujifilm X-trans mirrorless sensor cameras. I still use the original Fujifilm X-E1, even though it has now been superseded by newer models including the Fujifilm X-E2, the Fujifilm X-T1, and the less expensive Fujifilm X-T10.

The first of the interchangeable lens X-trans sensor bodies was the Fujifilm X-PRO-1. This was — and in many ways, remains — a groundbreaking camera. Continue reading Fujifilm Deal: X-Pro-1 And Lens Bundles →

Equipment

The Canon 5Ds R — Dynamic Range Examples

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Updated August 13, 2015 to add a second dynamic range adjustment example.

Ongoing development and refinement of digital camera technology continues to improve cameras and the technical quality of the images they produce. Color accuracy improves, dynamic range expands, sensor resolution increases, AF accuracy gets better, and so on.

The Canon EOS 5Ds and the Canon EOS 5Ds R continue this process. Their most notable feature is the 50.6 megapixel (MP) sensor, currently the highest sensor photo site density available on full frame digital cameras. (Nikon and Sony both produce 36MP sensor cameras using Sony sensors, and Sony has introduced a camera with a 42MP sensor. Note that the differences between 36MP, 42MP, and 50.6MP are less than you might expect.)

When it comes to dynamic range — the ability of the sensor to record a wide range of luminosity levels from very bright to quite dark in a single exposure — Sony is the current champion, and cameras using their sensors have the largest available dynamic range among comparable cameras. (Some MF cameras have more dynamic range capability than any current full frame camera. )

(All current digital cameras capture images with more dynamic range than we can display on monitors or in prints — the display media cannot keep up with the capture technology. Consequently, the primary advantage of greater dynamic range comes in post-production, where the photographer will find more useful scene data in darker areas that can be “pushed” or otherwise recovered while maintaining useful image quality.)

If you can get more dynamic range without giving up anything else, there is no reason not to have it. In marginal situations, that extra bit of dynamic range might enable you to get a bit more image data in a single exposure, while a photographer with a camera providing less dynamic range is a bit more likely to have to use exposure bracketing or HDR techniques (which combine multiple images in post-production), use a graduated neutral density filter, or possibly find ways to suppress noise in shadow areas of scenes with very wide dynamic range. That said, all current high quality digital cameras capture a wide dynamic range — much larger, for example, that was possible with typical film media. (Note, however, that no currently available full frame camera can capture in a single exposure the largest dynamic range scenes that you may encounter.)

With all of that in mind, I thought I’d share a couple examples of files from the Canon 5Ds R that have been pushed quite a bit. Continue reading The Canon 5Ds R — Dynamic Range Examples →