Transitioning from Point-and-Shoot to DSLR: Understanding Full Frame vs Crop Frame Sensors
Upgrading from a point-and-shoot camera, or from just using your phone, to a digital SLR camera can be daunting, especially when you start hearing people go on about the benefits of a full frame sensor vs a crop frame one and you have no idea what they are talking about! The following will help you understand sensor size and how it can be a factor in your photography. This information will better equip you with the knowledge you will need to successfully choose your next camera.
What is a Sensor?
A visual comparison of the Crop Sensor on a Canon Rebel T4i (left) and a Full Frame Sensor on a Canon 5D Mark III.
Every digital camera, even your point-and-shoot, has a sensor inside of it. In the simplest of terms, all these sensors do is convert an optical image (light) into an electronic signal which can be read as digital information–an image you download and can see, edit, and share. Your point-and-shoots have tiny, little sensors inside of them and for the most part they do a good job of converting light into digital information you can use–a photograph!
Some of you may have heard people carry on about the “size” of their camera’s sensor. The reason they care about this is because dynamic range and low-light sensitivity generally improves as the size of the sensor increases.
Defining Crop Sensors and Full Frame Sensors
35 mm (1.4 in) wide film (36×24 mm). Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
A piece of 35mm film measures approximately 36 x 24mm in size, and that’s the size of the sensor in Full Frame cameras like the Nikon D4 and the Canon 5D Mark III. Full frame sensor cameras are among some of the most expensive DSLRs you can buy. However, you can buy a DSLR camera with small sensor and still experience much greater image quality than you can from your average point-and-shoot. Cameras like the Nikon D7100 and the Sony a77 have APS-C-sized (or “cropped”) sensors that measure about 23.6 x 15.7mm (this varies slightly among manufacturers) vs the average point-and-shoot sensor which runs about 11mms when measured diagonally.
Pros and Cons of Crop Sensor Cameras
One of the fun things about advancing from your point-and-shoot to a DSLR is the ability to change out your lens. Lens types are described in two ways: focal length (size of the lens) and max aperture.
The max aperture, the f/stop reading when the lens is “wide open”, stays the same regardless of camera. Shooting at f/1.2 is the same no matter what kind of camera you use. You are letting in more light than when the lens is set to shoot at f/8.
The focal length of a lens, however, is subjective. On a Full Frame camera, like the Canon 5D Mark III or Nikon D800, a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. That’s because the focal length of the lens is measured based on the standard 35mm film size–a size that lenses are built to accommodate.
However, on a Crop Sensor camera, like the Nikon D7100 or Canon T4i, your 50mm lens becomes, effectively, a 75mm lens (sometimes even 80mms if the sensor is even smaller). Since the sensor is smaller, it’s only seeing a portion of the image the lens is trying to project onto it. In effect, the smaller sensor is “cropping” the image being transmitted to it by the lens – hence the term Crop Sensor. This change in size is not a physical one–your 50mm lens is still a 50mm lens no matter what it is attached to. However, the results are different depending on your camera’s sensor and that is what it means when you hear that a lens of a certain length is “effectively” another length.
Sometimes you will hear the term “Magnification Factor” when referring to Crop Sensor cameras and the effect they have on perceived lens length. The lens isn’t shooting at a focal length that is any longer than what the lens actually is. The image appears magnified on the smaller sensor producing a narrower angle of view. Again, your 50mm is still a 50mm – but the resulting image is not what we think of as 50mms when shot on a Crop Sensor camera.
A Full Frame sensor (35mm) sees the entire tree. The Cropped Sensor sees only part of the tree. The lens remains the same but the angle of view, and what we see in the final image, is different. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Are Crop Sensor Cameras Worse than Full Frame Cameras?
Not necessarily. Sure, Full Frame DSLRs are receiving more information than Crop Sensor ones are and they certainly make the math on what lens to choose a no-brainer. But some photographers strategically choose Crop Sensor over Full Frame.
For one, Crop Sensor cameras tend to be cheaper but still pack a lot of quality punch, Nikon’s D7100 and Canon’s 60D being notable examples. Also, photographers who like doing telephoto photography enjoy the extra bump having a Crop Sensor gives to the lenses they use. If you are out birding, having a 70-200mm lens read like a 112-320mm (or thereabouts) lens is certainly a good thing! And, above all, even a Crop Sensor DSLR is going to provide a huge jump in quality for the average point-and-shoot user.
I’m Using a Crop Sensor Camera – How Do I Figure Out the “Length” of my Lens?
Warning: math. However, it is very easy math. If you know you have a Crop Sensor camera and it is a Canon, you can multiply your lens’ length by 1.6. For Nikon and Sony, it is 1.5. There are only two exceptions to this rule and that is for the Canon 1D Mark III and the Canon 1D Mark IV, for which you use 1.3.
Don’t panic. Finding your focal length on a Cropped Sensor camera is easy.
Let’s say you have a Canon T4i. This is a very popular first DSLR for beginning photographers. Let’s say you want to use the also very popular Canon 24-70mm:
24 x 1.6 = 38.4
70 x 1.6 = 112
Your 24-70mm lens just became a nearly 40-112mm lens!
This is good to know because if you are shooting a wedding and you are in a very small chapel, the 24mm would be perfect but having nearly 40mms instead might be too tight to capture the scene. However, if you are shooting from the balcony and need to photograph the couple’s kiss, 112mms is likely more useful than 70mms.
So, in short, as a general rule: Crop Sensor cameras make lenses appear less wide than they say and also longer than what they say. This is one of the appealing things about a Full Frame camera–what you see is what you get in terms of lens focal length.
We hope this gives you a better understanding of what a Crop Sensor camera will mean for your lens selection versus a Full Frame camera. We also hope that this information has better equipped you with the knowledge you will need to help you successfully choose your next camera.
Alexandria Huff
Alexandria Huff's photography and lighting tutorials can be found on 500px and her blog. See her lighting tutorials here. She is a Marketing Associate Manager at BorrowLenses.com. She learned about lighting and teaching while modeling for photographers such as Joe McNally and has since gone on to teach lighting workshops of her own in San Francisco. Before focusing on studio portraiture, she shot motorsports for X-Games, World Rally Cross, and Formula Drift. See her chiaroscuro-style painterly portraits on her website.
20 Comments
-
Caylin
Thanks for this thoughtful article! I would like to be able to take photos of my paintings make enlarged prints of 24×36 inches plus. Do you think a full frame camera like the ones you mentioned are best? Thank you kindly.
-
Alexandria Huff
The T4i is the newer, better version of the two you mention. For just starting out, I would consider these for wildlife: https://www.borrowlenses.com/product/Sigma-50-100mm-Art-Lens-Canon & https://www.borrowlenses.com/product/Canon-EFS-55250mm-f456-IS-II-Lens.
-
Beth
Very helpful;) I recently “inherited” a friends old Canon Rebel T4i and have an older Canon XSi. I want to add a lense to take pictures of wildlife. Currently I have the basic EF-S 18-55mm lense on both. 2 questions: Which camera do you suggest I re-home and what lense and size do you suggest? I believe both cameras have a cropped-frame sensor but a full-frame DSLR is not in my budget.
Thanks!
Beth in Minneapolis -
Brandon
Great Article! thank you.
-
Antores
Last week I went to a business trip to visit farms with a Canon 70D. I normally use a 18-200 lens. Not the best quality but very versatile for trips. Unfortunately i drop it in a river, so I had to use a companies’ prime 50mm lens.. The problem was that I could not fit anything in the picture… everything was SO CLOSE that I had to step back a lot to get the subjects in the frame… I thought a 50mm should allow me to get closer pictures, but just now after reading this I realized it was a prime lens on a cropped sensor, so as per the math here, i was really on a 80mm lens!!! Thanks for the clarification.
-
Michael S.
You don’t really get a magnification or “telephoto” boost with a “crop sensor” as you can crop the image in post processing if you have enough pixels to work with.
-
Larry Rohling
When shooting in low light conditions,… Are you going to be able to shoot at a lower ISO with a FF than Crop Sensor? Larger sensor, more light, less noise?
-
Ryan Toyota
I think the average point-and-shoot sensor is a likely smaller than 11mm diagonally. Where did you get that average number from?
-
deltadave44 (@deltadave44)
my biggest reason for choosing to shoot a crop sensor over a FF sensor is frame rate (12 fps v. 6 fps)…for sports frame rate is critical
-
sunil kumar panghal
dear sir/Madam
please tell me how i can convert millimeter into soot -
Eric Bogan
But it would have less resolution if the sensors had the same pixel count. So what is your point?
-
cheappictureframesniche
For any of your readers that are still interested in point and shoots, I created a comparison chart to make it easier to find the best point and shoot cameras. I also have several camera reviews on my site. I hope that some of your readers might find it useful! http://bestpointandshootcameraguide.com/
Although after reading this article, I might be buying a DSLR next!
Thanks –
Will -
kathryn3sons
Well written article! I had learned this in bits and pieces on the Internet. Well done,
-
Jacob D
The article is good as written. Presumably this is intended for people who are relatively new to photography or digital cameras; delving too far into the tech (or semantics) tends to be cause confusion for anyone who’s not specifically looking for that type of stuff.
That aside, the quality of today’s APS-C make it hard to argue that FF is a necessity except in a few very specific circumstances. It’s still a nice luxury though 🙂 I do miss the days of shooting with my 5D and some wonderful, fast glass.
On the topic of choosing your next camera, here’s something you might find interesting…
http://hikeitlikeit.com/2011/photography-and-backpacking-3 -
Daren Morgan
Additionally, the output size from the crop sensor results in an image size the same as the full frame. Example: Suppose you were printing out a picture in a 4 x 6 size taken from a full frame cameras, and then took the same picture from the same position with a crop sensor camera. The resulting image at a 4 x 6 size would be the same as if you cropped the full frame image and then out put it to a 4 x 6 print,
-
Andrew Marburger (@AndrewMarburger)
Perhaps just a technicality but you should mention that the focal length “difference” between crop and full frame is really just a matter of Field of View or FOV.
That is, the focal length, being a mechanical function of the glass, never changes for any lens on any body. Rather, the FOV is tighter on a crop sensor (hence the crop) and so it gives the impression of seeing “further.”
Something else that doesn’t change is perspective. The center portions of an image captured with an 85mm lens on a crop and full frame sensor will have identical perspective due to the mechanical focal length of the lens.
-
Drew Hoover
I think it would be helpful and appropriate for this article to discuss pixel pitch as well, since it severely affects image quality and what glass is appropriate for your camera. I use a D7000 (16MP APS-C) and a D700 (12MP FF), and at any given equivalent focal length, the D700 outperforms the D7000, even though the latter is a more recent design and packs more MP. It was hilarious to me that everyone freaked out about what glass can resolve the 36MP on a FF D800 when it has almost identical pixel pitch to the D7000, which was released years prior.
-
-
D~C
What is the crop factor math for Sigma DSLR cameras, particularly the SD1M and the SD15?
Post a comment
You may also like
How to Visualize and Shoot in B&W
Learn how to see your images in black and white in-camera without losing the ability to also shoot i
Understanding Sensor Crop Factors
Learn the differences between crop frame sensor cameras and full frame ones and what this crop facto
Using a Tilt-Shift Lens for Panoramic Photos
There are a bunch of approaches to creating your own panoramic photos but using a tilt-shift lens ma
Alexandria Huff
For copy work, like photographing paintings, I tend to lean toward recommending full frame. While you certainly can do copy work effectively with a crop frame sensor (you simply have to account for the narrower field of view and stand back further than maybe you planned to given a particular focal length you’re using), I would rather default to the highest possible frame and resolution I can provide myself for that kind of photography.