My attempt at visualizing the crop factor

[Belmondo]

Here's my attempt at visualizing the actual affect of the .6X crop factor in the 10D vs. a 35mm or full frame sensor.

Area bounded by the black circle represents the image as the lens records it. The red rectangle bounds an area equal to the image as seen by a 35mm film or FFS digital camera. The blue rectangle represents the image area recorded on the 10D sensor. There is no magnification; it's just a smaller portion of the same image. The rectangles are 'more or less' to scale, and are in the proper proportion. To me, they are pretty illustrative of the effect.

I've taken some liberties here, and if any of you think I've misrepresented the effect or if this is not helpful to those who are having trouble with the concept, I'll happily remove or modify this picture.

Tom

http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/data/500/353Crop_Factor_Illustration_jpb-med.jpg

[Derek Smith]

Excellent visualisation Tom, a case of a picture painting a thousand words.

Derek

[MarkH]

The description and illistration is exactly what happens.

Of course there generally is a magnification that happen later. When you view an image full screen or print it at whatever size, you are enlarging the image from the D-SLR by 1.6 compared to full frame 35mm size. But the captured image is indeed simple a crop of what the lens sees and as shown is a smaller crop then what you get from film.

[defordphoto]

It doesn't get any better than that Belmondo. You have hammered the proverbial nail.

[MediaMagic]

Extremely cool Tom. Great job. It's helpful to see the visual like that. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Would you mind if I saved a copy for personal reference? (I know I could sneak, but I'd rather be honest.. it looks great)

I'm just wondering how you got the humongous vignette filter and the two enormous boxes to stand up like that without wires or supports! Man, you are GOOOOOOD! :-)

[Belmondo]

Here's a general release.

Mediamagic: you can use it for anything you want. Feel free to copy it, save it, post it, slice it, dice it, etc.. You can even copyright it. I've made my point and am done with it.

Thanks for the nice words. Obviously I used invisible wire and duct tape to position the various elements in the picture. Fortunately, the wind was not blowing this particular day or I'd have had much more trouble getting the shot.

Tom

[ilya]

One back at you Tom !! :D

We can start a "share your favorite crop comparison pic" thread.

http://images.fotopic.net/?id=1470448&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1

(ripped off from luminous landscape)

[Belmondo]

Believe it or not, I hadn't seen that before. Stylistically, we think a lot alike --- his execution was better, though. I'll bet mine took less time, though.

Makes me wish I'd used a bird instead of a golf course.

Tom

[ilya]

belmondo wrote:
Believe it or not, I hadn't seen that before. Stylistically, we think a lot alike --- his execution was better, though. I'll bet mine took less time, though.

Makes me wish I'd used a bird instead of a golf course.

Tom

I think I like yours better because you took the time to differentiate the areas a bit more with the shading. Nicely done.

Ilya

[Belmondo]

You're just going to have to take my word for this, but I'm blushing. Thanks. The hardest part for me was finding a picture that didn't have a train in it.

Tom

[CyberDyneSystems]

Great illustration Belmondo!

//sighs relief that someone understands :D

Yours is better because it also illustrates the negative aspect,. re the loss of feild of view for a wide angke (even though the lens you used wasn't THAT wide angle).. the fact that the buildings get cut off...

shows how much lens is being wasted and how much extra weight in glass we carry around with our 10Ds for no reason :)

[Belmondo]

Hey CDS.

The beta version of Humor Sense 95 has been installed, but I find it a little 'buggy,' and I'm still a grouch. When can we expect the XP version?

Back to the subject at hand: check my math, please.

If the 10D sensor is .6 (approximately) the length and width of a standard 35 mm frame, then the area should be:

.6 length (X axis) times .6 height (Y axis), or .36XY.

That being the case, then the area of the 10D sensor is only slightly larger than 1/3 that of the full frame version.

If they could build a full-size sensor using the same pixel density, we could have roughly a 17.5 megapixel image.

Wouldn't that frost the naysayers?

[Sketcher]

Sweet illustration belmondo,

That's exactly the way I envision it in my mind.

Thanks for taking the time of putting a thousand words into the picture ;).

(BTW, WinXP has a "compatability Mode" to run windows 9x programs within the WinXP shell -- CDS's program runs just fine under that guise ;)).