Crop Sensor vs Full Frame ...... Which one is better?

Hello fellow photographer. Hope you guys are doing great. Many are still wondering my views about the D500. Well that D500 is basically pushed me to write this blog. I will be sharing my views about the machine later. But first thing first …. lets discuss in detail which one is better …. Full Frame body? ….. or Crop Frame body?

Its going to be little teche so you guys needs to bear with me a little ….

Frankly speaking ….. the recent development in the digital photography is changing the landscape of it. There was a time when 12MP was considered more then enough on 36x24 mm digital sensor (A.K.A. Full frame format)  and now we are witnessing around 250MP sensor from Canon in the same area of 36x24 mm. Technology is evolving rapidly and effecting the photography big times. 

The original question was ….. Which one is better …. Full Frame or Crop Body? …. The honest answer is …. NO ONE.  Actually it depends what you are going to shoot. If you are low light shooter and shooting dark areas or low light gatherings/parties then you need a full frame. If you are nature/wild life or bird shooter then you need a crop body condition provided you are shooting them in day light. Of course you are going to shoot birds in the day light to capture their beautiful colors. But Why crop body for wild life or Bird Photography? …. The answer is …. "more data per square millimetre". Let me explain below how. 

Take a look at below image. Left one is crop sensor ….. and right one is Full Frame. Both are exposed with a streak of light  of equal quantity. Now look and tell me which sensor area "relatively" more expose to the light. The crop body ? or Full Frame? ….. the answer is crop body. Even though the quantity of light is the same but it is covering "more" area of the crop body because of its smaller dimension & causing more data/detail to be record on it. That's why if low light is not an issue, then you will get maximum details using a crop body. But if you are in Low Light ….. then you need Full Frame. 

Talking about the crop body …. i was thinking ….. why there is a hell of difference in performance of two old crop bodies like D90/D3000 who's ISO cannot go more then ISO1600 practically speaking against the newly announced D500 who's maximum ISO is 51,200 which is unbelievably high!

The answer is Signal-to-Noise compression algorithm (SNR Firmware) which is embedded into the processor. Its this software who's job is to suppress noise which is generated by the sensor in the form of a different frequencies and then this software start filtering out those un-necessary frequencies from the sensor output and produces cleaner images.

As the time passes by, all these camera manufacturing companies are working day and night on manufacturing better sensor and writing better software for every new model. Its exactly like you are upgrading your PC RAM and processor to support new version of Windows. By the way …. Both Nikon and Canon are not making any thing new for every new camera they release. In some models, either they stuffing more pixels into the sensor keeping the same SNR firmware ….. or some time they keep the pixel count same but release the new model with better SNR firmware which ultimately causing "better ISO performance" by one-two full stops …. & company marketing team uses that increased performance characteristic to sell the new machine. 

Below are are some example. 

D5000 = 12MP = Max. ISO 3200

D5100 = 16MP = Max. ISO 6400

D5200 = 24MP = Max. ISO 6400

D5300 = 24MP = Max. ISO 12,800

D5500 = 24MP = Max. ISO 25,600

D7000 = 16MP = Max. ISO 6400

D7100 = 24MP = Max. ISO 6400

D7200 = 24MP = Max. ISO 25,600

If you look above table you will see that from D5200 ~ D5500 ….. the pixel count is the same …. but Nikon was releasing the new models back to back by increasing the ISO performance of one full stop. They were putting better SNR software to increase the performance of the same sensor used in all 3 models. Canon & all other digital camera manufacturer does the same regardless its a full frame or crop body. That's how they are running their business. 

Now here is another interesting thing …. i have quoted at my photography page some times ago that the future of digital photography will be ….. "Full frame camera will be coming in crop body pixel density" …. Now what that suppose to mean …. I am assuming  here that all reader knows this fact that pixel pitch (pixel width) on the crop body is smaller causing low mega pixels e.g. Nikon D300s/D90 which were of 12MP each …. vs ….. bigger pixel pitch on the full frame using the same 12MP count like Nikon D3/D700. Its like fitting 12 people inside a small room (crop body) which will cause every one to be squeeze and less chances to move …… vs ..... the same 12 people fits in a bigger room (full frame) in this way the same 12 people will have plenty of room to play around ….. Now if i give each of these 12 people 1 liter of bottle to collect water in 1 minute of time …. inside the bigger room then i will be having 12 liter of water total after one minute. So my Gain over Time (G/T) is 12. 

Now what happens if i squeeze 250 people in the same bigger room (full frame) …. obviously count is increase from 12 to 250 means there will be less space for each person. And i will be repeating the same exercise by asking 250 people to collect 1 litre of water in 1 min. Then i will be having 250 liter of water at the end of 1 min. Now my Gain over Time (G/T) is jumped from 12 to 250 :) …..  If you looked above i mentioned about Canon 250MP mega pixel right !!!! …. Why i mentioned this 250MP canon sensor? Reason i just explained  …. Gain over Time (G/T) ….. Canon newly announced 120MP & 250MP sensors are the foundation on which new bodies will be make. More MP means more G/T. Let me share few interesting example of G/T. 

The G/T of the 24MP D750 which is a full frame is "LESS" then 24MP D7200 which is a crop body which is a interesting fact. Why? Because the pixel width of D750 is bigger (5.9µ) in compared of D7200 (3.92µ) so if i distribute D750 pixel width (5.9µ) over a crop body sensor (24x16mm) then i will be having less number of pixels on a crop body sensor unlike D7200. That is why the G/T of the D7200 is better then full frame D750. 

Another interesting example is of Canon 5DSR vs 7D MkII. Both having identical pixel pitch of 4.1µ. Canon first build 7D MkII with more mega pixels (means smaller pixel pitch of 4.1µ) over a smaller APS-C sensor size (22.4x15.0mm) and then they enlarge/sampled the same ratio over a full frame 36x24 mm sensor ….. making gigantic 50MP Canon 5DS. So if follow the same analogy for Nikon D7200 which is 24MP over (24x16 mm) APS-C sensor ….. and then i try to enlarge that ratio like Canon over a full frame area (36 x 24mm) …. i will be having a new Nikon Full Frame camera around 54MP. If i enlarge the smaller pixel of Nikon D500 which is 20.9 MP over a full frame ….. i will be having a 46MP monster which exactly we witnessed in the form of a Nikon D850. In short, there is no difference at all when it comes to Mega Pixel count between Nikon D500 vs Nikon D850. Why? Answer is, both got the same pixel pitch (means same number of pixels per unit area). 

So basically the new domain or direction of digital photography is full frame sensor is coming in crop body pixel density. This means instead of bigger pixel width on full frame (means less pixel count) we are going to have many smaller pixels which can provide very fine details when you capture any image. But for every good thing, there is a bad thing coming ….. the more pixel these companies are going to squeeze into the sensor  regardless size, the more noise it will create. Consider this as a example. First there was 12 people talking in a small room (crop sensor) & talking so noise was high . Then we moved the same 12 people in a bigger room (full frame) so noise level went down considerably due to bigger room size. Now if I push the 250 people in the bigger room and they start talking ….. imagine how much noise is going to be?  :) 

All these companies are working hard on both end …. first by making new sensors with more pixel counts in it & then making better SNR to handle them. There is a chance that in future you will be seeing a crop body with 36MP sensor like mighty D810, which not only offer  Dynamic Range but also better ISO due to advance SNR firmware but it will be higly unlikely happens becuase physical limitation of the silicon is reached to its max when it comes to sensor which we will discuss in some time. So in future you will be seeing crop body performing almost near to Full Frame. The performance gap between a full frame and crop body is almost finish. The latest Nikon D500 is the best example to prove my point. I am testing it and its Dynamic Range and ISO performance is mind boggling. The D500 is better in performance to those full frame machine which were released like 7-8 years ago. 

So as far as question goes which body is better … full frame or crop body? ……

Answer is …. No One :)….. it depends on you what you like to do with them. The ISO performance of the full frame is better but crop body G/T is better then full frame means more translation data per square millimeter ..... means you can crop in later in post processing and still get stunning result.

Hope it will make sense. 

Thanks for stopping by  …. Have a great day ahead. 

Babar-Photography 

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