(Advantages) - not all, just some - LONG REPLY
hayabusa03rx said:
Well Nikon doesn't have any FF bodies. Yes even their top of the line isn't FF. That got me to thinking what's so great about FF other than you don't have to do the conversion of 10mm on a 1.6 is really 16mm.
If there is some other reason please tell me because I've seen great pictures come from nikon cameras.
Goto
www.accessphoto.com Search for Yoshi234 (I think that's his username). If he has his exif data intact he shot with both top of the line Nikons, and shoots with all Canon 5d's.
Regardless of format, full-frame sensors are all about image quality. The most
obvious advantage of full-frame sensors is the ability to combine high resolution
with large pixel sizes. Compare two sensors with the same number of pixels, one a
full-frame unit and one smaller. The pixels of the full-frame sensor are larger. Each
larger pixel has a greater surface area available for gathering light. More light
collected means less amplification needs to be applied to the output signal of each
pixel for the purposes of readout and image processing. Less is better here
because magnifying low-level signals inevitably entails picking up and increasing
noise that will then have to be removed as thoroughly as possible in a later step.
Larger pixels help full-frame sensors to produce a higher dynamic range and
finer tonal gradations than their smaller brethren. Insufficient dynamic range for a
given situation means values at their respective ends of the exposure curve will be
compressed, showing little separation or variation, or worse, they will be entirely
featureless. These unwelcome events are called, respectively, “blowout†and
“black-crush.†Here are two difficult subjects rendered correctly
Canon’s full-frame sensors have reached another image quality milestone as
well. Their gradations and dynamic range are now the equal of the best positive
films, and their resolution and lack of grain are superior. No smaller sensor has
achieved this level of performance.
Something photographers discovered with early DSLR cameras was variously called a
lens magnification factor or correction factor or focal length conversion factor. On
every 35mm format digital camera with a sensor smaller than 36 x 24mm, lenses
originally designed for 35mm cameras act as if their focal lengths are longer than
their original specification. The arithmetic goes like this: an APS-C sensor is
approximately 22 x 15mm. Its diagonal is about 26.6mm. An APS-H sensor (found
exclusively in the Canon EOS-1D, -1D Mark II and -1D Mark II N – more on this later) is
about 29 x 19mm, so its diagonal is roughly 34.7mm. The diagonal of a full 35mm
frame is about 43.3mm. Dividing 43.3 by 26.6 gives a lens conversion factor of 1.6x
for APS-C; dividing 43.3 by 34.7 gives a lens conversion factor of 1.3x for APS-H.
Lenses of 20mm, 50mm and 300mm will become, functionally, 32mm, 80mm and
480mm respectively for APS-C. The original lenses will now have the field-of-view, or
angle-of-view, of 1.6 times longer lenses. With the APS-H sensor, the changes are
less pronounced: 300 to 390, 50 to 65 and 20 to 26mm.
For a sports or wildlife photographer whose tools of the trade are principally
long lenses, the use of an APS-C DSLR provides the advantage of “longer†telephoto
lenses that are smaller, lighter and more affordable yet have the same effective
maximum apertures as telephoto lenses on a full-frame camera. These benefits are
less pronounced at standard focal lengths, but are still significant occasionally.
Wide-angle lenses are another story, though. Until the recent advent of very wide
angle rectilinear zooms such as the Canon EF-S 10–22mm f/3.5–4.5 USM, it was
very expensive, if not impossible, to achieve high image quality with wide-angle
coverage at an affordable price with an APS-C DSLR camera.
