Quote: I'm not being sarcastic here, but can someone refresh my memory as to why FF consistently gets significantly better noise measurements than APS-C?
Because they don't normalize the DoF. Remember 35x23 is one stop shallower DoF. SO if you stop the 35x23 down to achieve the same DOF, and maintain shutter speed, you have to increase the ISO one stop, and both your total light and noise advantage are gone. The whole "better in low light" , "total light" advantage is predicated on using settings that give you narrower DOF. It;s been a slight of hand used by 35x23 protagonists for years.
Equivalence actually proves equivalence, not an advantage for one over the other.
The advantage to 35x23 is one stop shallower depth of field wide open, coupled with one stop better noise, shooting wide open. In any other circumstance, there is not advantage. People talk about wider angle shots looking more natural, there's a window where an FF image shot for narrow DOF looks quite a bit better than an APS-c shot at 35mm.. there are other advantages, but most of the other advantages are offset by higher pixel density of APS-c creating the illusion of more reach.
Because of the smaller pixels for equivalent APS_c the one stop more DoF at the long end, you'd expect to be an advantage for APS-c really doesn't exist. Shooting ƒ32 on APS-c to get that extra stop is so diffraction limited, it's not really an option.
Last edited by normhead; 12-30-2015 at 10:33 AM.