Some folks claim the 3x crop mode is far noisier than 1x mode.
Thinking about this, the vertical height in 1x crop mode is obtained from skipping every 2 lines , thus reducing full sensor height to 1/3rd, whereas the 3x crop mode is essentially a contiguous swatch of the central portion of the sensor but also by 1/3rd full height.
So essentially both schemes are using a third of the picture height....
So why should the 3x crop mode be more noisy - is there something I am missing?