Must watch video on full frame vs crop cameras. "Full frame look" covered.

[Nikkor]

Andrew, the fstop tells you how much light you get per surface area. If you have a bigger surface you will gather more light. It's pretty easy to understand. So if you had a 1 pixel camera, the fullframe one would gather 4 times the light the m43 one gathers, so it has a 2 stop advantage. If both sensors are from the same generation (most sensors are sony now and they seem to perform about the same) the fullframe one will have two stops advantage in signal to noise ratio, as they both have the same noise in readout, but the bigger one has a 4 times stronger signal.

This hasn't anything to do with fullframe look.

[Andrew Reid]

Reducing an image in size from any sensor crop allows you to think of the sensor as one giant pixel but the problem is not all sensors are created equally.

 

You can have the Blackmagic sensor in the Production Camera, a large APS-C sized sensor with just 8MP and yet above ISO 400 it is really noisy because the photosites that actually do the light capturing are so small, and around them is a load of circuitry for global shutter readout taking up room on the sensor, that cannot be used to capture light!

 

You can have the 1" sensor from the RX100 Mark III which is back illuminated and very good micro lenses, no gaps between pixels, crowded out with 20MP on a small surface area and it ends up being as clean at ISO 1600 as the much larger 24MP sensor in the NEX 7 from a few years ago, because the pixel architecture and design is more modern, the micro lenses better, the readout circuits cleaner, less noisy A/D and so on...

 

So what is this total nonsense calculating ISO with the crop factor of the sensor.

 

The OP is trying to over simplify and combine specs so that they are universal with all cameras. It can't be done. You have to measure each component of the camera separately. Aperture is a separate spec to sensor size. Focal length is separate to sensor size. A 24mm is a 24mm! Whilst it may help to think of focal lengths multiplied by crop to get the angle of view (we all can use this to figure out what a 12mm looks like on a 2x crop sensor can't we?) it doesn't help when people try and change the spec of the lens based on something that is actually unrelated and a totally different thing, a different part of the camera.

[Andrew Reid]

Andrew, the fstop tells you how much light you get per surface area. If you have a bigger surface you will gather more light. It's pretty easy to understand. So if you had a 1 pixel camera, the fullframe one would gather 4 times the light the m43 one gathers, so it has a 2 stop advantage. If both sensors are from the same generation (most sensors are sony now and they seem to perform about the same) the fullframe one will have two stops advantage in signal to noise ratio, as they both have the same noise in readout, but the bigger one has a 4 times stronger signal.

This hasn't anything to do with fullframe look.

 

Gather more light yes but how much you gather ACTUALLY depends on the pixel architecture!

[Andrew Reid]

the bigger one has a 4 times stronger signal.

 

Again... not true when you look at it on a per pixel level at 1:1.

 

If all is equal with the generation of sensor, and pixel density, then a crop sensor is merely that... a crop of a full frame sensor and in that crop is the same quality of image, same pixels, same intensity of light capture, same signal to noise ratio, to pretend otherwise because you are taking the whole sensor and shrinking the image down in post is a bit daft really.

[Nikkor]

You do understand that the important thing is the percieved image as a whole, do you? What people on photography forums try to tell pixel peepers when they say they should look at a print ;)

 

I haven't read the procedure DXO mark uses but I can imagine they measure based on the total image, not per pixel basis...

[Michael Ma]

I agree with him with the point that they should list the 35mm aperture equivalent when it comes to DOF as a separate spec, and they should also list the ISO 35mm equivalent for the camera specs in terms of noise as a spec of the camera.  It wouldn't be good marketing, but as he states, Panasonic is able to charge higher prices because of not stating his information.

 

If they sold a 24-70mm f/5.6 full frame for $1100, would you ever buy it for your full frame?  Probably no.  Never in a million years.  That's what Panasonic is doing by cranking up the sensitivity of their sensors 4x.  This lens would probably be worth $400 tops if it was incredibly sharp.  Yet, that's what's Panasonic charges for the same kind of image you'd get for a f/5.6.

 

I never thought of Panasonic lenses to be incredibly expensive, but now that you mention it, he has a point.  All the more reason to get the A7S in the future!

[dishe]

I can't believe what I'm reading. 
 
People, this is really basic stuff- I'd expect anyone joining this site to at least have a basic understanding of how aperture and crop factors work.
 
 

I agree with him with the point that they should list the 35mm aperture equivalent when it comes to DOF as a separate spec, and they should also list the ISO 35mm equivalent for the camera specs in terms of noise as a spec of the camera.  It wouldn't be good marketing, but as he states, Panasonic is able to charge higher prices because of not stating his information.
 
If they sold a 24-70mm f/5.6 full frame for $1100, would you ever buy it for your full frame?  Probably no.  Never in a million years.  That's what Panasonic is doing by cranking up the sensitivity of their sensors 4x.  This lens would probably be worth $400 tops if it was incredibly sharp.  Yet, that's what's Panasonic charges for the same kind of image you'd get for a f/5.6.
 
I never thought of Panasonic lenses to be incredibly expensive, but now that you mention it, he has a point.  All the more reason to get the A7S in the future!

 
That's asinine, I'm sorry. You know why they don't call it an f/5.6? BECAUSE IT ISN'T AN f/5.6! It's an F/2.8! 
If it were an F/5.6, your image would come out extremely dark indoors. Your DOF might not be the equivalent of the same lens on a full frame, but the aperture is so much more than just DOF! 
 
I can't believe people are looking at it like that! Look, DOF is calculated on a mathematic level as the relation between the aperture and distance to the subject. This f/2.8 lens will have the SAME DOF as a full frame one or a smaller one based on that calculation, and together with the amount of light it gathers, calling it anything other than a 2.8 IS A DIRTY FILTHY LIE. If you have to go wider to get the subject in your shot, and therefore lose some of your shallow DOF, that's the mechanics of aperture-to-distance=DOF at play, and you should not have gone into owning a crop camera without understanding that.
 
Remember, you can buy the same Canon EF lenses and use them on a FF 5D or a cropped Rebel t2i. Should they write that the F2.8 zoom is a 5.6 when using it on certain cameras? Why if you put it back on a full frame body? Why should we call it anything other than what it is? You guys are being ridiculous, I can't believe what I'm reading! That proposed system would make the world of photography a bloody nightmare for consumers, much more confusing that what we currently have!
 
 

Andrew, the fstop tells you how much light you get per surface area. If you have a bigger surface you will gather more light. It's pretty easy to understand.

What we're trying to say is that the surface area of each pixel isn't bigger just because the sensor overall is. It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the entire sensor is. This has been proven with cameras that have smaller sensors or less megapixels on the same sized sensor. 

 

So if you had a 1 pixel camera, the fullframe one would gather 4 times the light the m43 one gathers, so it has a 2 stop advantage. If both sensors are from the same generation (most sensors are sony now and they seem to perform about the same) the fullframe one will have two stops advantage in signal to noise ratio, as they both have the same noise in readout, but the bigger one has a 4 times stronger signal.
This hasn't anything to do with fullframe look.

If you have one giant pixel, that one pixel will gather more light than a smaller one, true enough. But thankfully, that doesn't exist. A 16 megapixel MFT sensor actually has larger pixels than a 36mpix full frame one does. So explain to me how the larger sensor makes a difference there?

[sunyata]

I am shocked and appalled at how terrible the information in that video is (and I want my 37 min of my life back). 

 

What makes it worse is that he is actually presenting it with such arrogance and conviction, that people are buying into it!

 

Karrim, let me take a moment to explain:

 

If you take a picture on a 7D (APS-C crop) vs a 5D (Full Frame) with the same 50mm lens, the 7D only sees the center part of that lens. If you were to take that picture from the 5D and crop it inward 1.6x in post, it should look pretty much identical to the 7D's picture. Same bokeh, same DOF, same amount of light exposure. The difference is only that you are cropped inward so much that you might not be able to get your entire subject in the frame anymore.

 

The aperture does not change on a crop sensor camera. PERIOD. However, you have to stand farther away from your subject to get what you want to fit inside the crop. Since DOF is a combination of aperture and distance, the DOF will change and become deeper as you step back more. But again, the aperture does not change! Only your distance has. A picture taken at the same distance will have the same DOF, and most importantly the same amount of light!

 

The reason the manufacturers list "35mm equivalents" on their lenses is not at all misleading. Many photographers think in full frame FOVs, so they need to know that a 28mm is no longer a wide angle, but rather a medium one. The amount of light gathered does not change, the aperture is very much the same. But your composition is different, as you are standing farther away. F/2.8 at a particular distance to your subject will yield the same DOF no matter what size the sensor is. What Northup is saying is PATENTLY FALSE.

 

As far as light gathering with a speed booster- imagine you have a flashlight, and shine it at a wall. As you get closer to the wall, the photons are less scattered, closer together, smaller and brighter. If you've ever tried to fry ants on a sidewalk with a magnifying glass, you know how a focal reducer can condense the light from the sun into a single spot intense enough to start a fire. So when using a speedbooster, you are actually gaining more light, technically more than a full frame camera with the same lens would as it is more condensed now. This is science, this is physics of light, and has been totally explained to death before. 

 

As an aside- his whole thing about smaller sensors having poor low light performance because they see less light overall. I'm with Andrew- total and complete bullocks. The size of the sensor overall has NOTHING to do with it, but rather the size of the photosites. The photosites are what make up the individual pixels for your image. The higher the megapixels, the more densely populated the sensor is and therefore the smaller each photosite. Smaller photosites gather less photons per exposure and therefore get noisier at similar ISO values to larger ones. But technically, you can have a small sensor with larger photosites than a larger one. The Sony A7S how shown what a difference smaller megapixel counts can do for a sensor in low light. Technically Panasonic can make a MFT sensor especially designed for low light by only making it 10 megapixels. Then we'd get stellar ISO performance compared to any 5D, despite sensor size. 

 

He keeps going on about how because the sensor is smaller than a full frame one, it can't see as much light and therefore the ISO needs to pump up the gain higher to reach the same exposure. Everytime he says that I want to shove my fist through the computer screen for being so arrogantly ignorant. 

 

 

Very interesting debate.. I understand what you are saying. I also think he's making a valid point. Most people are trying to do a conversion in their head when they buy a lens, based on a 35mm film lens, so they think of crop, sharpness and dof conversions as primary importance in price. He's saying if you advertise the crop equivalent, then you should also think about the "dof" equivalent. Unfortunately, he kinda emphasizes this as an empirical aperture number, but he could have said instead "this lens will give you the DOF equivalent of X aperture at 35mm..." and include "assuming you step back and frame the subject the same scale".

 

One thing about the noise issue though.. you have to always consider the limits of our fabrication abilities as they stand today.. in theory the density and size of photosites should have a linear inverse relationship, higher density -- in same format -- the smaller the photosite, but in practice, we are bound by limitations of manufacturing. Leakage and impurities in materials, not to mention impurities in glass and smoothness of lens surface, all become more challenging as you shrink the camera. This is why I still love my film lenses, you couldn't just shrink them down and have exactly the same quality in practice, only in theory... and even that would break at some nano-scale.

[dishe]

Very interesting debate.. I understand what you are saying. I also think he's making a valid point. Most people are trying to do a conversion in their head when they buy a lens, based on a 35mm film lens, so they think of crop and dof conversions as primary importance in price. He's saying if you advertise the crop equivalent, then you should also think about the "dof" equivalent. Unfortunately, he kinda emphasizes this as an empirical aperture number, but he could have said instead "this lens will give you the DOF equivalent of X aperture at 35mm..." and include "assuming you step back and frame the subject the same scale".

 

One thing about the noise issue though.. you have to always consider the limits of our fabrication abilities as they stand today.. in theory the density and size of photosites should have a linear inverse relationship, higher density -- in same format -- the smaller the photosite, but in practice, we are bound by limitations of manufacturing. Leakage and impurities in materials, not to mention impurities in glass and smoothness of lens surface, all become more challenging as you shrink the camera. This is why I still love my film lenses, you couldn't just shrink them down and have exactly the same quality in practice, only in theory... and even that would break at some nano-scale.

 

Again, Canon sells EF lenses that are designed to go on any of their cameras, crop or not. That 50mm F/1.4 will have a different FOV on a full frame 5D, APS-C 7D, and entirely a different one on an APS-H 1DX. They don't list "FF equivalents" because it would be too $%#@! confusing to the consumer. They just sort of expect you to understand enough about this to make your own call. If you can't be bothered to figure out what 50mm looks like on an APS-C, then you shouldn't have bought one.

 

And honestly, that's how it SHOULD be. The "FF equivalence" numbers have always bothered me, since I don't actually think in photography. My background is in video/cinema, and a "full frame" to me is super35mm film, a 1.5x crop compared to what everyone is talking about on the packaging. 

 

That being said, I understand why they do it. 12-35mm seems like a very limited and very wide range if you are coming from film photography. So what they are saying is "by the way, this covers the same range of that 24-70 range zoom that was considered standard on your old film camera". Oh, ok- this is what I need for a good walk around lens then.

Yes, of course the DOF per-same-framing will be different, obviously- this is a "crop" sensor after all! You should have known that going into the camera system. No one is saying this will be the equivalent of a 24-70 f/2.8 on a FF, only that the range covered is what it is. The lens is still, in fact, a 2.8 aperture. It gathers as much light as a 2.8, and renders the same bokeh at the same distance to the subject. If you have to stand further away to get your shot in frame, that's your own problem to deal with. They shouldn't have to spell it out for you on every piece of packaging and marketing material. It sounds like the guy in that video wasn't aware of how this worked before he bought one, and felt cheated by the relative lack of DOF control compared to his FF. And is taking out that frustration in a misguided angry rant about how they are pulling a fast one on you (give me a break!).

[Michael Ma]

 

That's asinine, I'm sorry. You know why they don't call it an f/5.6? BECAUSE IT ISN'T AN f/5.6! It's an F/2.8! 
If it were an F/5.6, your image would come out extremely dark indoors. Your DOF might not be the equivalent of the same lens on a full frame, but the aperture is so much more than just DOF! 
 

 

No need to apologize but I don't think you have the technical understanding to know what you're talking about.  Please stop making yourself look foolish.  

 

Your argument is that (quoting you verbatim) "it it were an F/5.6, images would be extremely dark indoors."  And you're here calling people *asinine*?  Your understanding of how light passes through the lens and how the data is written to your memory card, and everything in between is probably beginner level at best.

 

Just because you are being loud, obnoxious and trying to demonstrate the little knowledge that you have about technology doesn't make you correct.

 

If you had watched the video and read what people are actually saying in the comments, (which you obviously didn't do) is that these small lenses and sensors are delivering *the equivalent of* lenses of higher F-stop numbers when it comes to DOF and noise, and by not making it obvious to everyday consumers, they are getting away with charging premium prices.  But you probably just glanced over it and didn't even catch the *when it comes to DOF and noise* part, and you're just trying to prove everyone wrong without listening to what was said first.

[jasondhsd]

No need to apologize but I don't think you have the technical understanding to know what you're talking about.  Please stop making yourself look foolish.  

 

Your argument is that (quoting you verbatim) "it it were an F/5.6, images would be extremely dark indoors."  And you're here calling people *asinine*?  Your understanding of how light passes through the lens and how the data is written to your memory card, and everything in between is probably beginner level at best.

 

Just because you are being loud, obnoxious and trying to demonstrate the little knowledge that you have about technology doesn't make you correct.

 

If you had watched the video and read what people are actually saying in the comments, (which you obviously didn't do) is that these small lenses and sensors are delivering *the equivalent of* lenses of higher F-stop numbers when it comes to DOF and noise, and by not making it obvious to everyday consumers, they are getting away with charging premium prices.  But you probably just glanced over it and didn't even catch the *when it comes to DOF and noise* part, and you're just trying to prove everyone wrong without listening to what was said first.

 

It's real simple does the lens itself physically change depending on what sensor it covers? I'll answer for you, not it doesn't.  The light being let in and striking the sensor is the same and focal length is the same, focal length being the distance from the focal plane to the optical center of the lens.  All that remains the same.  The video is trying to say Panasonic and Olympus is cheating when they advertise their lens as being f2.8 but that's not cheating the lens is f2.8 that's how much light it lets in, the focal length is 12-35 or 25 or 35-100 etc. because that's the physical attributes of the lens itself, again that does NOT change no matter how big or small the sensor is so long as the lens is big enough to cover the whole sensor.

 

 

Now trying to figure out the equivalent of everything is fine but impossible to do on a consistent basis to come up with a new standard.   In regards to ISO the video is trying to put forth that it's light on the entire sensor that matters when that's not true. What matter is pixel density and the technology of the sensor. The video annotation says the per pixel or pixel density has little impact,  that's complete and utter bullshit that's EXACTLY what matters.  The more pixels that cramped in an area the more wires are criss-crossing producing magnetic fields and thus producing noise, the higher the electric signal to each pixel sensor the stronger the magnetic field and the more noise is produced.  If you were to take a full-frame sensor and pack the same amount of pixels onto it as mft sensor has with 16mp then the full frame sensor would a lot more noisier so it's not the size of the sensor that matters. Perhaps today on average ISO 400 on a MFT is equivalent noise wise to 1600, perhaps? But what about next year, every year the sensor perform improves the GH4 performs better at higher ISO then the GH3, the GH3 is better then the GH2, etc. Same on the Olympus side. So that 4x won't hold up for long and IMO doesn't hold up right now not when comparing high-end mft cameras.

Play around with this here http://***URL removed***/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gh3/14 scroll down to the compare raw ISO noise section. PIck the GH3 and the Nikon 5200 or 5300 one's a micro-four thirds, the other APC-C. 16mp vs 24mp, now the APC-C sensor is 30% larger then the mft and how much larger is 24mp compared to 16? about 34%, so roughly the same. and what do we notice? The noise is pretty much the same through the whole ISO range. Different size sensor, about the same pixel density, same amount of noise so we can conclude that the physical size of the sensor isn't what's really important here.  And of course you can see how the sensor technology has improved, compare the full-frame Canon md mkII in the third column even though it's far less densely packed, but the newer Nikon and Panasonic hold up pretty well thanks to improvements in sensor technology from when the Canon came out in 2008 to when the Nikon and Panasonic came out in 2012.

 

Bottom line is no one is misleading anyone. If you're spending $1000+ on a camera system you better fucking be a consensus buyer.  You should know the differences in sensor sizes in regards to how it affects DoF and focal length equivalents, you should be reading reviews and comparing ISO noise.  Now you want to use this guys math as a rough rule of thumb when comparing sensors and lenses, go right ahead but to try to come up with some sort of new standard for the industry is asinine and impossible because it will change and fluctuate with each new generation of sensor technology. 

[jcs]

With respect to the simple math and examples, where are the errors? If it's not possible to point out an error with this math or images, what he says in the video is essentially correct:

1. Multiply focal length by crop factor: well known and the point of the crop factor for full frame reference.
2. Multiply aperture by crop factor: this matches his examples for apparent brightness and bokeh.
3. Multiply ISO by (crop factor)^2: this matches his example for apparent brightness and makes sense based on what ISO really is: gain; the square term makes sense for sensor area, and works for the examples shown.

Samuel (flaat profile creator) did tests and includes an FOV/DOF calculator which exactly matches what is in the video. He made this post in 2011: http://www.similaar.com/foto/doftest/doftest.html

[hmcindie]

With respect to the simple math and examples, where are the errors? If it's not possible to point out an error with this math or images, what he says in the video is essentially correct

 

It doesn't go like that because the reasoning behind the "correct math" are wrong.

 

It's like 1+1=2 which means that 3=8!

 

Yeah no. The problem here is that he doesn't get that an f2.8 lens will let the same amount of light in, no matter the size of the sensor behind it. There's the fallacy. If you'd call that an f6.0 lens or whatever, it shouldn't let ANY LIGHT in compared. Doesn't work.

[jcs]

The beauty of math is it stands on its own- where is the math error? The examples match the math prediction, so it's a useful construct. Samuel's 2011 DOF/FOV calculator does the same thing and matches the video.

 

Separate from anything else said or shown, are there math errors for items 1-3 above? Is there an example of the math not working for any case?

[hmcindie]

The beauty of math is it stands on its own- where is the math error? The examples match the math prediction, so it's a useful construct. Samuel's 2011 DOF/FOV calculator does the same thing and matches the video.

 

Separate from anything else said or shown, are there math errors for items 1-3 above? Is there an example of the math not working for any case?

 

Sure the math works (as I said) but it's irrelevant because it's used to approximate the "look of fullframe" which is a different thing. He draws all sorts of conclusions from it.  For example you can see that f2.8 at both crop camera and fullframe do get the same light in. The brightness is the same. But still he decides to draw a conclusion that it's all wrong. It isn't.

 

A ISO 100 is effectively noise free with all crop/fullframe cameras. Some of that math only works in lower light.

[richg101]

I think the only way his point can stand up about multiplying iso by the crop factor would be if each sensor had the same resolution (same number of pixels) and that each sensor also had the same base iso and technology, in combination with using just full frame glass.  

 

He disregards the fact that a lens designed for m4/3 used on m4/3 sensor actually has a t-stop that matches that of a similar lens designed for full frame when used on a full frame sensor.

 

If we didnt have lenses designed specifically for smaller sensors, or speed boosters the points he makes would be valid.  Unfortunately for his theories we don't live in that world.

[jasondhsd]

With respect to the simple math and examples, where are the errors? If it's not possible to point out an error with this math or images, what he says in the video is essentially correct:

1. Multiply focal length by crop factor: well known and the point of the crop factor for full frame reference.

That's correct but focal length as a physical attribute of the lens DOES NOT CHANGE in regards to what size sensor it's put on

 

1. Multiply aperture by crop factor: this matches his examples for apparent brightness and bokeh.

It will match the dept of field by doing that, ie 25mm f2.8 on a mft is will have the same dof and focal length as a 50mm f5.6 on a full-frame but the brightness is another story, keeping the ISO constant f2.8 is going to be brighter then f5.6, and forgetting about dof for a second if the full frame sensor has a f2.8 lens and the mft sensor has a f2.8 lens, same ISO the images will be equally bright. What the video is trying to do is match everything up to compare with full frame, ISO in regards to noise, DoF, brightness again that's fine to do all that but to say manufactures are being misleading for putting the physical specifications on their lens is wrong. It's not the manufactures responsibility to conform the physical attributes of their system in relation to a full frame system.  Some people don't care about the differences in dof and angle of view and those that do can easily calculate it.  

1. Multiply ISO by (crop factor)^2: this matches his example for apparent brightness and makes sense based on what ISO really is: gain; the square term makes sense for sensor area, and works for the examples shown.

Read my post above, pixel density matters greatly.  The guy makes a false analogy about rain water and buckets, saying if you put a bucket of water that 4x smaller out in the rain you'd have to leave it out 4x longer...that's 100% completely false!!!  If you took a larger bucket and a small bucket left it outside for 5 minutes and then poured it in a measuring vessel they'd have the same amount of water in them. The smaller bucket would be filled higher while the larger bucket would the water spread out across the bottom and not filled up very high but the volume of water collected in each would be the same.  If you left the smaller bucket out 4x as long you'd have 4x as much water assuming the bucket is tall enough to collect the water without overflowing.

 

 

Samuel (flaat profile creator) did tests and includes an FOV/DOF calculator which exactly matches what is in the video. He made this post in 2011: http://www.similaar.com/foto/doftest/doftest.html

[KarimNassar]

Dishe, Andrew, again appreciate the discussion thank you.

I am not arguing for the sake of arguing but so far I do not understand how what I am stating is wrong.

But I will gladly learn something and stand corrected.

 

I do understand that sensor pixel size is to be taken into consideration when talking about exposure of the sensor, larger sensors generally having larger pixels than crop ones for instance. And architecture as far as gaps between pixels and the amount of pixels. 

 

In order for me to understand your arguments, can we proceed step by step?

 

Can we begin solely with light intensity? Regardless of sensor specs.

 

What I don't understand in your arguments is regarding the intensity of the light, focused by speedbooster or not.

 

For the sake of understanding here is a lens that has an aperture that lets through 4 rays of light:

Is this correct or is this wrong?

 

[jcs]

My understanding of ISO is it's calibrated gain, which goes up in powers of 2, where each value doubles the gain: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc., shown as 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400. Sensor details don't matter if ISO is correctly calibrated. Some cameras show gain in dB. In any case, I haven't seen any counterarguments or errors in the math for the above 3 items when used as a tool to understand fov, brightness, and bokeh (and noise to some extent). Folks have issues for other things he's said in the video, however I'm focused on the math and the examples which support the math: it works for the examples shown so far.

 

Regarding a smaller diameter bucket capturing less water vs. a larger bucket: a greater diameter bucket has more capture area and thus will capture more water per unit time for uniformly distributed rain particles. The depth of the bucket only determines how much water the bucket can hold till it overflows. In Photoshop create a new file and add noise. Draw a circle in it. Now draw a smaller circle inside the first circle. This represents a large and small bucket capturing rain particles as a snapshot in time. Which circle incloses more particles?

[hmcindie]

Draw a circle in it. Now draw a smaller circle inside the first circle. This represents a large and small bucket capturing rain particles as a snapshot in time. Which circle incloses more particles?

 

Oh man, that's just silly. It completely disregards A) megapixel levels. Is the fullframe 36mp D800, 22mp 5d or 12mp a7s? Is the crop sensor 16mp?  And b ) light levels. What are the actual light levels? In iso 100 you could argue that a 24mp a6000 takes sharper images with more dynamic range than a 22mp 5dIII. How does that fit in with those silly analogies? It doesn't.