Crop Factor

Ewan

Ewan

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Ok, I have a question.

People talk about the "crop factor" of DSLR bodies, which effectively makes your lens focal length something like 1.5x longer.

So, my question is, do you lose image quality with the crop factor? Is it the same as taking a picture on an FF body and cropping it, or will it retain the detail of a FF, uncropped shot?

I hope I've explained this properly :help:

And thanks in advance :)
 
There shoud be no quality loss, the only difference is the amount of the image circle captured by by the sensor.
 
And nor is there any loss of quality!

Although that is assuming that the quality is the same for both the APS-C sensor and 35mm sensor or film.

But the fact that has a relatively smaller size does not have any bearing on quality. In factsome would argue that the quality would be better combining an APS-C sensor with 35mm lenses (as opposed to digital EF-S, DX, Di II, DC etc. ones) because you are only using the centre of the lens and not the edges.

Michael.
 
Hi Ewan,

Am I at all right in thinking that you mean quality as in, how much detail is captured and how far could you enlarge the shot?

If so, it's all to do with the type of sensor, rather than the size of it. Something like a Canon 10D which is 1.6 crop and 6 megapixels would be some way short of the quality of 35mm film. A newer Canon with something like the 10 megapixel sensor, still in a 1.6 crop but far improved over the the older chips, would probably exceed a good old bit of 35mm film.

HTH :)
 
Ewan said:
People talk about the "crop factor" of DSLR bodies, which effectively makes your lens focal length something like 1.5x longer.
Click to expand...

A common mistake, the focal length stays exactly the same for ALL sizes of sensors.

An example, a full frame sensor camera and a 1.6 crop factor camera each take a shot using the same lens from exactly the same position, what you would see on each would be the following

cropfactor.jpg


Notice the 1.6 crop factor sees less of the car because there's less of it to 'see' the car, it does not magnify it any differently since it's the lens that magnifies not the sensor.

If the two sensors were identical except for the size the part of the image they both see would also be identical.
To get the whole car into shot with the 1.6 crop sensor you would have to move further away, this in turn would mean a greater enlargement to make the printed image the same size as the full frame with a corresponding loss in quality.

So the answer to your question is, yes there could be a loss in quality. :)
 
Well yes, but I said effectively. My question was is it the same as cropping in software like Photoshop where you lose a certain amount of detail. And it's been answered, so thanks everyone :)
 
This thread has some very useful info on the subject too ;)
 
Ewan said:
Well yes, but I said effectively.
Click to expand...

Not even effectively m8, that's a red herring, marketing hype put out by unscrupulous advertising types.

Glad your question was answered though.
 
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