[zplus]

If someone says that all you would have to do is use a focal length on the aps-c thats 2/3 that of the focal length used on the ff camera, they clearly don't understand.
Perspective is not the same as FOV.

A picture taken on APSC with a 55mm lens will be indistinguishable in composition and perspective from an FF image taken with an 85mm lens from the same place. Or for that matter the same FF image taken with a 55mm lens and cropped to the same size as the APSC image.

Exhibit A.

[Venturi]

My perspective is I will stand up and cheer if/when Pentax launches a full-frame lineup ... as long as they have a lens lineup to back the body(ies). But the simple fact is they don't have enough existing lenses in production to support it, and they do not appear to have the physical and financial resources to effectively double-up their lenses.

Screaming from the hilltops at Hoya/Pentax and down talking the APS format isn't going to add money to their bottom line to facilitate things. But it just might turn a few folks away from Pentax by creating stigma that Pentax is inferior - and that would take money away from the bottom line. I bought my K10D March'08 at least in part because of what I read about its performance here. If I'd seen the level of pissing that exists here now over pretty much *everything* I might have followed my initial "instinct" and gone with Nikon instead; and unlike many new DSLR shoppers I was already fairly familiar with Pentax already from years past.

[jsherman999]

This attitude ignores the very real advantages of a full frame sensor. Pentax makes a pretty decent camera body, I really don't understand why there is this infantile resistance towards people who would like to see them make a better Pentax.

If the entire world had your attitude, we'd still be living in caves and would be wearing animal hides for clothing.
Instead of living in a nice, warm house, why not just enjoy the cave that you have?

But what if a particular cave-dwelling tribe, after moving into grass/weed huts, decided that they wanted sheepskin-lined walls like the chieftains from another tribe were seen building, so they decimated their flocks to get this newest thing?


Moral: people are weak and stupid.

Better moral: analogies can be lazy.

Best moral: FF is wanted but not required for every manufacturer, especially Pentax, who will be coming out with a DMF camera for Pete's sake.


.

[*isteve]

This attitude ignores the very real advantages of a full frame sensor. Pentax makes a pretty decent camera body, I really don't understand why there is this infantile resistance towards people who would like to see them make a better Pentax.

Possibly the resistence stems almost entirely from the fact that FF proponents like your good self seem very ready to dismiss any counter argument as "infantile" or anyone who disagrees as an "idiot".

Are you denying people the right to disagree?

If the entire world had your attitude, we'd still be living in caves and would be wearing animal hides for clothing.
Instead of living in a nice, warm house, why not just enjoy the cave that you have?

A straw man argument if ever I heard one.

[*isteve]

But what if a particular cave-dwelling tribe, after moving into grass/weed huts, decided that they wanted sheepskin-lined walls like the chieftains from another tribe were seen building, so they decimated their flocks to get this newest thing?

Heh. Good point.

[*isteve]

My perspective is I will stand up and cheer if/when Pentax launches a full-frame lineup ... as long as they have a lens lineup to back the body(ies). But the simple fact is they don't have enough existing lenses in production to support it, and they do not appear to have the physical and financial resources to effectively double-up their lenses.

I totally agree, and I would add - provided they have the resources to do it "in addition to" and not "instead of" a range of high quality, small form factor APSC cameras, which some of us actually want.

Screaming from the hilltops at Hoya/Pentax and down talking the APS format isn't going to add money to their bottom line to facilitate things. But it just might turn a few folks away from Pentax by creating stigma that Pentax is inferior - and that would take money away from the bottom line. I bought my K10D March'08 at least in part because of what I read about its performance here. If I'd seen the level of pissing that exists here now over pretty much *everything* I might have followed my initial "instinct" and gone with Nikon instead; and unlike many new DSLR shoppers I was already fairly familiar with Pentax already from years past.

I concur.

[*isteve]

It is propaganda only.

Meanwhile, I feel insulted by this paper. It says that 200 APS-C, but only 20 FF, sensors fit onto one wafer, so FF must be 10x more expensive.

How brain-damaged does Canon believe its customers are for buying this?

Somewhere on this forum, I have given the respective, correct numbers.

Actually its just a classic case of marketing people misunderstanding what the engineers told them.

Of course the number of chips per wafer is not 10X less. There are about 100 APSC chips per 8" wafer, and 40 FF ones. Yields based on pure silicon impurities evenly spread would give about 70 APSC chips and 15 FF ones.

However, it IS possible the relative COST is up to 10X less for complete sensors - including the AA filter, microlenses and bayer filter. One factor is certainly the number of separate passes required, another is the process errors at each stage.

The other issue is that Canon and Nikon make far more margin on APSC. They have very little incentive, as yet, to eat into their APSC market too much.

This attitude ignores the very real advantages of a full frame sensor. Pentax makes a pretty decent camera body, I really don't understand why there is this infantile resistance towards people who would like to see them make a better Pentax.

If the entire world had your attitude, we'd still be living in caves and would be wearing animal hides for clothing.
Instead of living in a nice, warm house, why not just enjoy the cave that you have?

Well. Larger sensor does not mean more progress, more advanced technology or anything like this.

BUT, everyone agrees that larger sensor means better IQ, better control over DOF. Sure these are advantages.

IT may mean no in body IS, bigger size, more expenses buying body. These are disadvantages.

Of course it would be great if Pentax would have a FF camera line and APS-C at the same time. But it takes time and money to develop a FF.

DO You think it is wise to abandon APS-C camera line in order to develop FF (just say there is no resources for both, FF and crop)? Keeping in mind that competing with existing FF cameras is a risky deal

You have to be extremely careful choosing a brand, because switching it can cause lots of paint to you wallet

[falconeye]

"we"??????

I meant that this paper had been discussed on this forum ("by us") a long time ago.

[jeffkrol]

Surely anyone who has picked up a 35mm film camera can see the advantage of the viewfinder.
Surely anyone who has fought with noise from a 1600iso or higher image can see the advantage of a moderate pixel count full frame sensor.
Or is the majority just fooling themselves into thinking that looking into tunnel like viewfinders and being noise limited to lower usable ISOs is the best that there is?

We can agree to disagree on this. Viewfinder is an issue but even FF fail when you need it most (dim lighting) I do have 2 ff film cameras.
A lot of the noise is circuitry based. Only seems like the sensor size...
Yes larger sensors can gather more photons, no argument. Then you might as well go 645 skipping FF..... or wait for a cropped 8x10 sensor... the argument becomes absurd. Most (me included) can barely utilize the quality of current APS-C, no point in giving false hopes to us hopeless..

Let me guess, even higher pixel counts? Anything that provides an advantage to APS-C sensors will benefit full frame sensors as well.

Same size pixels w/ larger sensors increases ALL the processing hardware so cost will again scale up for diminishing returns. There will always be a large cost differential that way.

It is a very POLARIZING subject, but as you can gather both sides have there strength and weaknesses...
this (and a whole ton of posts at dpreview) should be required reading...
Noise, Dynamic Range and Bit Depth in Digital SLRs -- page 3
Bottom line: Among the important measures of image quality are signal-to-noise ratio of the capture process, and resolution. It was shown that for fixed sensor format, the light collection efficiency per unit area is essentially independent of pixel size, over a huge range of pixel sizes from 2 microns to over 8 microns, and is therefore independent of the number of megapixels. Noise performance per unit area was seen to be only weakly dependent on pixel size. The S/N ratio per unit area is much the same over a wide range of pixel sizes. There is an advantage to big pixels in low light (high ISO) applications, where read noise is an important detractor from image quality, and big pixels currently have lower read noise than aggregations of small pixels of equal area. For low ISO applications, the situation is reversed in current implementations -- if anything, smaller pixels perform somewhat better in terms of S/N ratio (while offering more resolution). A further exploration of these issues can be found on the supplemental page. Rather than having strong dependence on the pixel size, the noise performance instead depends quite strongly on sensor size -- bigger sensors yield higher quality images, by capturing more signal (photons).
So it supports your arguement in part, but there is no definition of "higher quality images". What 1% better, 2, 10, 100???? Most will never see it...
the S/N ratio of the 1D3 at ISO 200 is somewhat over 7.6 stops, the 40D about 7.3 stops. However, an ideal resampling of the image of one sensor to the pixel density of the other would yield the same photon noise, because the sensors capture the same light per unit area.

[Kunzite]

Exhibit A.

You know, *isteve is actually right. The perspective has nothing to do with the format, and everything to do with your location. Use a FF and an APS-C camera, with lenses that gives the same angle of view, and you will reproduce the same perspective with the smaller format.
This, or you'll have to explain how one can change perspective by cropping, nope, even by cutting out the borders of a print

Now, about the FF issue: I'm one of those who'd like to see a bigger format camera from Pentax. In fact, something between APS-C and FF - so I could afford it (just put a nice, big viewfinder...) This, while the K20D offers more image quality than I can handle
OTOH, I understand very well it may too difficult for Pentax to make it (and sell it for a profit). FF advocates should understand this, also. And they should understand this is what other people are saying.
So, it' OK to want/need a FF camera. But for Pentax, it may not be OK in this moment to make one. Simple as that.

[zplus]

You know, *isteve is actually right. The perspective has nothing to do with the format, and everything to do with your location. Use a FF and an APS-C camera, with lenses that gives the same angle of view, and you will reproduce the same perspective with the smaller format.
This, or you'll have to explain how one can change perspective by cropping, nope, even by cutting out the borders of a print

Exhibit B.

Looks like I'm going to have to take pictures to prove my point.

[Kunzite]

Please do. Make sure you'll keep the same location before pointing out to "perspective changes".
And I should take pictures myself, but for my own enjoyment

[zplus]

And I should take pictures myself, but for my own enjoyment

Good advice for everyone I think

[KungPOW]

Exhibit B.

Looks like I'm going to have to take pictures to prove my point.

good luck with that.