Originally posted by traderdrew I have read the reasons why people want a FF camera. However, I would like to see a couple of photos taken with a FF camera and someone explain to me why they cannot be taken with a 1.5X crop sensor camera. I seriously expect someone to be able to answer this.
I'll just paste what has come before
, and give a new summary:
If you spend time with both formats, you'll start to appreciate the differences. Asking to see a two-shot comparison is not going to help very much, just like posting a two-shot comparison between a Limited and a regular lens won't help much, and would cause almost anyone to claim there's no real value in the Limiteds.
Basically: You get about 1.3 stops more DOF control from the same FOV, same distance to the subject with FF. Practical example: 50mm f/2.8 on FF = 35mm f/1.8 on aps-c (approx,) and 35mm f/1.8 on FF = 23mm f/1.2 on aps-c. As you can see, in the wide to normal range (even moving into short telephoto) the aps-c lenses will be harder to come by, more expensive, or even impossible to come by.
(You also get at least a stop better noise control at similar ISOs, a larger viewfinder, and advanced features like state-of-art AF.)
A few folks like Norm and Pål are choosing to crank up the Ornery meter about this and be willfully obstinate, even though it's been explained countless times. Unfortunately, it clouds the issue for folks new to the question. It seems to be primarily aps-c strict-landscape shooters who are having a problem imagining the value, here.
Anyway here's my latest posting on this:
Originally posted by Pål Jensen But the point is that those people constitute a so small part of the photographic comunity that percentages is not a useful measuring standard
. Hence, the argument is moot as the vast majority struggles to get sufficient DOF.
What has become a fetish is impossibly thin DOF (in theory; in practise it has very little value).
As has been stated countless times: it's not just about 'razor thin DOF.' It's also about being able to get sharper on the plane of focus with perhaps less CA while being able to retain that smaller DOF. For example, 50mm f/2.8 on FF is bitingly sharp, sharper than my 35mm at f/1.8, but it gives the same DOF as the 35 wide-open - while retaining that f/2.8 sharpness. When the subject (say, a person) is a certain distance away, the DOF has perhaps expanded to hold them, to 'float' them from the background in a way that's a bit harder to do with aps-c with available lenses.
And sometimes it just brings a 'look' wide-open that you start to notice with many iterations:
Below taken by
darrenleow, 50mm f/2 (equiv to about 35mm f/1.3 on aps-c)
Me, 180mm f/2.8 (equiv to about 120mm f/1.8 which afaik doesn't exist - my 77ltd wide-open gets close to this on aps-c, but it's just not as long.)
50mm f/1,8 (= 35mm f/1.2)
Quote: I have never seen any image in any newspaper, book, or magazine or fine art prints ever that had so thin DOF that it couldn't have been shot with APS.
I see it all the time. Perhaps you're just not attuned to it - I'm sure newspaper editors are. There was a beautiful, striking shot of a girl standing at a gravesight in the Mpls Satr Tribune last year - widish, very environmental-portrait-style, but the subject was isolated and the picture just
worked. It was so wonderful that I emailed the photographer to ask - 35 f/1.4 shot wide-open on FF.
Quote: It is a non issue.
If it's a non-issue, then bothering to shoot with Limited lenses is a non-issue as well, because the difference between a Limited and an equivalent good FA, or a good M, K or Tak lens isn't as great as the difference the format change brings to your lenses.
For example, if I were to shoot a series of random shots with my M 85 f/2 and 77ltd, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Or if I shot some random shots with both my FA 50 1.7 and 77ltd, not matching FOV, you wouldn't be able to pick out the FA 50 shots with any regularity. After time, you'd probably grow to prefer the typical 77ltd shot - but the small-sample blind test would fail. In other words -
this preference that comes with iteration is what we're talking about, what really matters. If you say it doesn't matter with FF, then it doesn't matter with anything, and we can throw away our Limiteds, free of this illusion!
Anyway, the 'more DOF control' - and that's what it is, not simply 'less DOF', considering the available lenses - is only one aspect to consider. For me it's really only about the third most important attribute the format brings.
.