Full Frame teaser - Spring 2016!

the Q is john if the 70/200 f2.8 had been there when you first bought your k10 would you have bought one
i think the awnser would have been yes

The answer is no. I have no intention of buying a 70-200mm lens either then or now. It doesn't fit in with my photography.

Johnriley wrote:

Well, I am dead serious. My coin jar is quite full.

Why do I want a FF ?
I have a K5, a k20 and a X-5. I don't think that the FF should be much larger, if at all. As an example:
My grand daughters K10 with 10 Mp is quite a big larger and heavier as my K5 with 16Mp.
It shows the advancements made in the miniaturization of the support electronics for the larger sensor during the time, the K10D and the k5 was released.
This surely will continue by the time the FF is released.

Also when I look through the viewfinders of my Super-A and my K5, I notice the Super-A is much brighter and also because it is larger, easier on the eyes.
Finally, I can use my FF lenses the way they are supposed to be used. My 43 LTd will be a 43mm lens, my 50 will be a 500mm , my 77Ltd will be a super great portrait lens again and so on.

Really finally: all the new FF lenses Pentax will be releasing can all be used on aps-c. So there is no reason for whingeing.
Talking about whinging and whining about Pentax releasing a FF.
Nobody forces you to purchase a FF. Just keep on using your current camera .
There is only one reason why it is ok to whinge: It is the time to have to wait for the release of the FF.

Regards, Horst

Dariony wrote:

Why do you say this?

Regards, Horst

I think its because APC-C makes things look bigger in the viewfinder, so you can see them more easily from a distance.

I have a growing interest in wildlife photography. The 300 F4 DA Star with the 1.4 HD tele adapter on gives the same field of view as 630mm on a 35mm sized sensor. The latest Nikon 600mm (for example) weighs 3.8 kg as well as being huge.

Bearing in mind it might have a 42MP Sony sensor I am thinking that whilst the subject might appear smaller it would give the opportunity for close cropping and still render a sharp image, In which case could you not still use your APS-C lenses to their full effect?

It would be a large crop, but assuming you don't actually need the pixel dimension aspects of the image (say specifically for large printing) then I suppose there's still worth in gaining from the other quality improving aspects of the sensor ...eg dynamic range.

Raises the obvious question though .... Would an 'aps-c' crop of an object shot at the same size on FF look just as sharp as the equivalently magnified object on an aps-c sensor?

wvbarnes wrote:

[quote][I have a growing interest in wildlife photography. The 300 F4 DA Star with the 1.4 HD tele adapter on gives the same field of view as 630mm on a 35mm sized sensor. The latest Nikon 600mm (for example) weighs 3.8 kg as well as being huge./quote]

The misconception, that a lens of a given focal length gives a different size of the object to be photographed with different sensor size is not correct.

Lets make a few assumption to make things easier.

The existing camera is a K3, the Camera to be purchased in the future would be a Pentax FF.

The K3 has approx 23Mpixels so to be comparable the FF sensor should have 48.3Mpixel.
This insures, that the resolution of the FF is as good as the APC-S. The pixel size of approx 3.91 microns
stay the same. Also the light sensitivity is equal. therefore there should not be more noise for a high sensitivity (ASA) setting. Assuming of course the technic stood still and no improvements where made.

The FF sensor is 2.1 times larger in area than the APS-C sensor

The next assumption is the same lens (say 200mm) ,the same size subject and the same subject to camera distance is used.

The 200mm Lens has an angle of view of 12Deg. No matter what sensor is used the angle of view of the actual lens does not change. The smaller sensor just does not utilize the whole 12Deg, but somewhat less.
No say, you photograph a grazing Elephant and you are a t a distance from it, the height of the Elephant exactly fits in to your viewfinder. In your APS-C viewfinder and sensor it would be 15.6mm.
if you take the picture, the image in your memory card would reflect this.
Now with your FF camera, You fit the same lens to it, stay at the same spot and the Elephant has not moved. The Elephant in your viewfinder and sensor is still 15,6mm high. But it does not touch the top and bottom of the viewfinder, you see more in your viewfinder. but the Elephant size is still the same.
You are just utilizing the whole 12Deg of the viewing angle of you 200mm lens.

The resolution of the Elephant is exactly the same as in your APS-C sensor.

Now the next step is where a problem seems to appear. If you download it to your computer and view it on your existing screen, the Elephant appears smaller,, because more is shown on your scree,

The same happens if you print it on paper if you are fixed to a given paper size.

The resolution is reasonable simple.
a.) You buy a screen which has a 2.1 times the viewing area as your existing one.
b.) You use paper with 2.1 times the area compared to your paper you used so far
c.) you crop it back to the APS-C size. You don't loose resolution, because the pixel size stays the same.

So for the Wildlife or sports photographer, there is no disadvantage using FF. On the contrary, you gain some extra area which you can use or discard.

Have a look at the attached drawing . It shows you exactly the size of both sensors and the actual size of the image.

Now for the wide angle enthusiasts:

FF is even better than for tele. Your existing 24mm lens has an angle of view of 84 Deg. This does not change with the sensor size.
However APS-C does only utilize 62mm. .
So to get the same view on your APS-C, you need to buy a a 18mm lens . This is of course more expensive.

You have actually lost what you can see with your APS-C compared to your FF.

I hope, I managed to explain somehow that FF has no disadvantages but only advantages,

Regards, Horst

McGregNi wrote:

Yes it would, because if your APS-C has 23Mpixels and the FF 2.1 times the amountas it should , when you crop back to APS-C then you again have your 23MPixels and the same sharpness.

Regards, Horst

Excellent post Horst

A bird photographer DOES NOT NEED FF see about 6 mins in in this video....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbli8lh9Pcw

Chelsea prefers FF because she likes the shutter noise

You also get a BIGGER DOF with APS-C which is often needed for birds.
i.e. 400mm lens compared to 600mm equivalent on FF.

FF is just two APS-C shots blended together with possibly a 3rd shot to fill in the missing centre bit. Sharpness will be the same, but the size will be 2.1x bigger.

The result WILL BE BETTER because you don't have to include the poor edge/corner performance of the lens at FF







Anyone who hasn't already tried this must want FF just because they like spending money

--

Yes, a detailed and helpful analysis, thanks Hirst, and info plus entertainment added in as well, cheers Algi

I've said it before, but the imagined boost to subject size at telephoto lengths on smaller sensors is an optical illusion. No doubt it is compelling, as it appears cheaper and lighter for example. But the actual magnification of the subject is of course exactly the same given the same focal length from the same distance.... As nicely explained above, it's what's all around the subject that actually changes with sensor size.

More importantly is the perception of subject magnification depending on the amount of extra space around it ... That is where the illusion comes in.

I've said it before here, but here we are again..... What Full Fame photographers moving up from aps-c really need for their long distance wildlife shots at 'only' 300 or 400 mm is an adjustable viewfinder magnification setting! Then when they are shooting something that feels a bit small in the giant viewfinder, they can make it bigger for the shot, which would help with focusing too, plus it will feel just like when they had aps-c ..... Likely to be much cheaper than 500 and 600mm lenses as well

Where all this falls down is when we consider the number of pixels. Yes, a FF sensor will have more pixels when the camera position is the same and yes the image remains the same for all formats, but in real life the FF sensor does not have more pixels.

So taking the bike image, the bike fills the frame with the APS-C version. If both cameras, FF and crop sensor, had let's say 20 MP then clearly they both have the same pixel count and dimensions and produce the same size of print. The FF version has a wider view. Hence, for birding, a crop sensor gives more magnification. Hence there is an advantage for this type of photography.

It's very easy to over-think these things.

Now thats got me thinking more .... do you think theres a good book about it in Waterstones ?

Thank you John as my head was spinning with more than relevant info for wildlife photographers.

I get my APSC sensor circle dedicated 300 F4 has the same field of view (roughly at 5.4 degrees) as the 150 450 new zoom will have at full telephoto on the new 'full frame camera (at 5.5 degrees). Of course the latter has an amazing 3.6 degree (magnified) view on a K3 as many are already enjoying before they even pop on a tele converter. The K3 is 24 megapixels (6016 x 4000 pixels actually) by the way and was misreported in early camera reviews as 23 Megapixels. It crops nicely for birding to a quarter frame still at 6 megapixels for prints. I recall seeing a friends landscape exhibition at St Martins in the Field of 6mp images printed to A1 as still amazing some years ago.