A few questions regarding FF vs 1.6

Hey,

I was hoping I could get a few questions answered quickly.

I just rented a 24-70 for my XT and was playing around with it. It seems pretty wide at 24mm - I was impressed. If I were to mount the 24-70 on a FF body, stand in the same place and look through the view finder, would it look the same or would things be even wider?

I'm a complete amateur and I don't forsee myself being much more than that for a long time. In my case, is there any need to keep full frame in mind for the future? The EF-S lenses seem to fit what I'm looking for perfectly. 17-55mm is a great range and f/2.8 with IS would also be really helpful. The 10-22mm looks like a great wide angle lens for the money as well. I would like to invest in these lenses but I'm worried about them not working on a FF camera in the future.

Another thing I've been wondering about is the 1.6 crop sensor here to stay for a while? I really don't want to invest in two EF-S lenses only to have them useless in 5 - 10 years.

The image will be much wider on a FF body than on the XT. The XT is a crop camera which means that the image sensor is smaller than on a full frame. What this means is that the sensor will only record a percentage of the image that is being delivered by the lens. A full frame camera has a larger sensor and therefore will capture more if the image. To get an idea of the difference take a picture at 24mm and then again at about 38mm. This will give you some perspective between similar shots on an XT vs. Full Frame.

Hope this helps.
Jason.

That's what I thought, thanks.

I knew the actual picture would be wider, I was just unsure if what you actually saw in the viewfinder would be wider or not.

Yep it will look different in the viewfinder as well. The XT's viewfinder has been adjusted to reflect the captured shot (well 95% or so of it....).

A quick comparison picture I scanned from Canon's Lensworks III book shows the relative difference of Canon's 3 sensor sizes on a given focal length lens:

when I sold my 1.6 crop camera and went to a 1D, I also sold my EF-S lens. There are lots of crop-camera shooters out there and the lenses hold their value.

In regards to if they will make 1.6crop camera in 5-10 years had me thinking in the past as well. I presume in the future as technology advances (faster buffer speed etc etc) and parts becomes cheaper, I don't see any reason why they would continue to make the crop sensors vs FF but other members probably can fill us in on this info.

I don't think you should worry too much about the full-frame/crop issue. Look around - only Canon even make current FF bodies, and even then only two out of the line-up of five. I don't see any reason to expect the crop format to go out of use when it is cheaper (and always will be) and satisfies a good 95% of DSLR users.

tomhide wrote in post #2369278
... I presume in the future as technology advances (faster buffer speed etc etc) and parts becomes cheaper, I don't see any reason why they would continue to make the crop sensors vs FF ...

I seriously doubt this. The full frame sensors require a lot more silicon than the smaller crop sensors, which means that they are always going to be significantly more expensive. Also, because the size of the sensor is defined by the camera format, they are not able to take advantage of new manufacturing processes the same way that other semiconductor devices can.

SimonG wrote in post #2373578
I seriously doubt this. The full frame sensors require a lot more silicon than the smaller crop sensors, which means that they are always going to be significantly more expensive. Also, because the size of the sensor is defined by the camera format, they are not able to take advantage of new manufacturing processes the same way that other semiconductor devices can.

Well I'm no expert but my assumption was simply based on the significant price drop and the technology advancement since the first introduction of DSLR's.

Nearly every year we are fortunate to have some sort of upgrade to our DSLR cameras whether it’s in mega pixel count, noise reduction, metering system or dust reduction system and these often comes with price reduction.

This may be irrelevant here but quick research shows that first introduced DSLR with 1.3 mega pixels costed something like $30,000 US. IMO computer parts prices have always gone down despite the hype about how good it is today and how expensive it is to make today. CMOS sensor being one of them.

Only reason I can think of that companies won't make FF the industry standard is that makers of these cameras want to protect the premium price for FF privilege by keeping it in different category.

I'm sorry if I am way off but I'm a real newbie and this is just my thought. I would be happy to hear other reasons why 1.6 crop won't be phased out in 5-10 years time as I am very curious.

Cheers!

It's hard to predict 10 years from now -- if for no other reason than the sensor technology we currently use will probably be gone by then.

Honestly if I can imagine any kind of paradigm shift in DSLRs for 10 years from now, I could envision them evolving into rangefinder lineups instead of SLR lineups. Yes, point and shoots are sort of the poor man's rangefinder. But there have been fantastic 35mm rangefinders like the Zeiss Ikon and a bunch of Leica bodies for a long time -- and if they took away shutter lag you could end up with a camera with the same size sensor as SLRs but much much smaller, more portable, less prone to mirror slap, easier to handhold at long shutter speeds, etc. It's not such an outlandish idea.

The 24-70 on a full frame body would be like using a 15-44 lens on your 1.6 crop body. That means that if you have the 18-55 crop lens, the 24-70 on a FF body would be slightly wider on the short end, but not as narrow on the long end.

EF-S cameras will be around for a long time. They already meet the image standards of the majority of photographers and as technology improves will only get better. Canon would lose too much market share if they ever tried to force the majority of their customers to abandon what works and buy into something they don't need.

tomhide wrote in post #2374240
Well I'm no expert but my assumption was simply based on the significant price drop and the technology advancement since the first introduction of DSLR's.

Nearly every year we are fortunate to have some sort of upgrade to our DSLR cameras whether it’s in mega pixel count, noise reduction, metering system or dust reduction system and these often comes with price reduction.

This may be irrelevant here but quick research shows that first introduced DSLR with 1.3 mega pixels costed something like $30,000 US. IMO computer parts prices have always gone down despite the hype about how good it is today and how expensive it is to make today. CMOS sensor being one of them.

Only reason I can think of that companies won't make FF the industry standard is that makers of these cameras want to protect the premium price for FF privilege by keeping it in different category.

I'm sorry if I am way off but I'm a real newbie and this is just my thought. I would be happy to hear other reasons why 1.6 crop won't be phased out in 5-10 years time as I am very curious.

Cheers!

All the upgrades you refer to have not included larger sensors (without doubling the price tag) - 1DMK2 is about half the cost of 1DS. 5D was about 2.5 times the cost of a 20D when introduced.
D30 - D60 - 10D - 20D - 30D - sensors are the same size. Number of pixels increased , but not the size of the sensor.

Choderboy wrote in post #2375028
All the upgrades you refer to have not included larger sensors (without doubling the price tag) - 1DMK2 is about half the cost of 1DS. 5D was about 2.5 times the cost of a 20D when introduced.
D30 - D60 - 10D - 20D - 30D - sensors are the same size. Number of pixels increased , but not the size of the sensor.

My uderstanding is that FF sensor has been introduced fairly recently and 5D is the product that offeres FF at lower price compared to your other option FF bodies. Isn't this the result of technology advancement and perhaps due to lower cost of producing FF sensor to what it was when it was first produced? I Don't know why you are comapring 20D and 5D... 1.6 crop body vs FF body... It should be compared with other FF cameras if any and if you do that its probably more than 2.5 times less than 1DS...

Why do you think its important that I should of mentioned sensor size development when I was only merely trying to make a point that there has been technology advancement and prices has come down lower in our DSLRs.

The fact is that full frame sensors are very big compared to most semiconductor devices. Using the current manufacturing processes only 20 full frame sensors can be manufactured from a single silicon wafer, compared to 200 crop sensors. And unlike most other semiconductor devices, manufacturing advancements that allow for smaller and smaller devices are less useful here because the sensor size is fixed; i.e. the only way to get more sensors from a single wafer is to make the wafer itself bigger. (Source: Canon Full-Frame CMOS White Paper)

To summarize, I'm not saying that full frame sensors won't drop in price in the future, but I am asserting that crop sensors will always be far cheaper, and for that reason alone I believe that crop cameras are here for the long term.