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.
Tags: Cameras for Beginners, Crop Sensor Cameras, Full Frame Canon DSLR, Full Frame Sensor Cameras, Full Frame vs Crop Frame Last modified: July 7, 2021
