Bali Photographer / Thoughts and Portfolio

Photography is all about image quality, and the more I learned the more I understood why people spent a lot of money for medium or large format camera. Whilst I am dreaming of something like Hasselblad or at least an old Mamiya with ZD or PhaseOne digital back, I am highly considering a full-frame 35mm DSLR. Problem is that whilst it does not cost as much as a digital back, full frame DSLR is rather beyond my budget as well.

I have been a Nikon fanatic since I the first time I grabbed a camera back in 1983. Currently using a D200, I definitely looking at the first Nikon 35mm DSLR, the new D3. However, I do realize that its price tag is by far beyond my reach. So I am seriously considering Canon 5d, which used ones are sold at about the same price of brand new Nikon D300, about one third of a Nikon D3.

Here comes the issue. Beyond technical consideration, my reluctant came mostly from the fact that the only full frame DSLR I can afford was made by Canon. So it is all about changing religion. I can of course do the same as very few photographer do, own and use both. But I am not that rich, I have to sell my Nikon and all of it lenses to be able to buy the Canon.

Why would I want a full frame? Here is the main reason. I linked to the image from Ken Rockwell’s website as I do not have a 35mm camera myself.

Sharpness

Sharpness is actually one of the two keywords initiating my will to go full-frame. Especially in in large blast, comparing sharpness of D200 to 5D is nothing but shameful. Sharpness is how sharply all details, regardless of their fineness, are rendered. Sharpness is a much more complex issue than a simple resolution number. It’s a lot more than the 14% difference in linear pixel count between these two cameras.

The simple explanation is that we don’t have to enlarge larger formats as much, which makes lens performance much less important. Even at much less than the limits of resolution, practical lens performance is much better with larger formats because the lens doesn’t need to resolve as much as sharply to give the same great, or better, image.

Good Results even by Cheap Lens

Crappy lens on full frame camera body results better than superior expensive lens on camera with crop-factor. Ken Rockwell has a comparative image, showing that a photograph taken by Canon 70-210mm F4 on Canon 5D body is by far better than the Nikon’s legend 85mm lens on D200 body. Imagine if we use excellent but less sharp Nikon 80-200mm F2.8, or even more less sharp 18-200mm VR on D200. In contrast, imagine if we use top end of Canon L series like 85mm F1.2 L in a 5D.

Having bigger pixels on a larger format means you can use cheaper lenses and usually get better results than the best lenses on a smaller format.

Less Noise

Bigger pixel means larger surface to collect light, which immediately translate into clearer image. Smaller pixel with narrower surface collect less light, translated into flatter dynamic range and thus results in less details and more noise.

Capability of catching more lights minimize needs of amplification at the same ISO number. It immediately means that even if wind up at the same exposure, noise is not amplified so much, allowing us to get cleaner picture without noise reduction.

But there is something a lot more important than noise. Discussion about noise can be rather misleading. All cameras smooth over the noise in flat areas to varying amounts where it’s most visible, so simple noise measurements alone tell us nothing because they don’t look at how much the important details in the image have been smoothed over along with the noise.

In simple way. the noise tends to look about the same, but the full-frame image is much sharper, cleaner and alive than the cropped-sensor image. The full-frame advantage is in the details.

In his comparison between Nikon D200 and Canon 5D Ken Rockwell found that the DX D200 has to smooth over fine details (noise reduction) to bring the noise down as far as the 5D does. The D200 image also has a hot pixel, while the 5D doesn’t. The D200 image looks like smooth mud while the 5D is quite usable. The 5D leaves in far more detail at ISO 3200.

Color Differentiation

Larger formats see more and smoother colors than smaller formats. It is more visible if you have a chance to compare between larger and smaller film on a light table. I digital, even though the colors and histograms match, the larger format camera sees the subtle difference between colors. Why? The reason is actually identical with noise: bigger pixels catch more light. Its affect on color is that the lower noise of larger format cameras simply the colors more room to unwind.

Usage of noise reduction gives a real very visible image improvement. However it smudges over important subtleties. It is always better to have a clean image and not use noise reduction than it is to take a noisier image and clean it with noise reduction. noise reduction loses important subtle details, even if it leaves edges sharp.

Ultra Wide Lenses

Considered as ultra wide lenses are those ranging between 16mm and 21mm on full frame. Some ridiculously referred to those shorter than 16mm as ultra-ultra wide. Whatever they are called, these vocal lengths result in weird (lovely) effect.

There are no ultra-ultra wide lenses for DSLR with cropped sensor. The widest you can get is 10mm by Canon EF-S translating into 16mm on its 1.6 cropped DSLRs and 12mm translating into 18mm in its 1.5 cropped DSLRs. Sigma offers 10mm allowing Nikon cropped DSLRs to shoot as close as 15mm, but it is actually at least 1mm more than their claim, so we are talking about 16mm here.

For full frame, both Canon and Nikon have as short as 14mm linear (non-fish eye) lenses, which translated into 21mm in cropped DSLR do not do anything.