Are 'L' lens that much better on FF than Crop?

All,

I was quite suprised after reading the dPreview on the 70-200 F2.8 that sharpness is much better in FF than crop. Is this true for all 'L' lens? I'm starting my collection of 'L' lens for my 40D and while I love it, I'm wondering if they'll be better served on FF (say 5D classic)?

thanks in advance all!

From what I have read you get more for your money with any lens on a crop body. See www.slrgear.com. Lower blur index. Less chromatic aberration, vignetting, and distortion.

But honestly, at the end of the day I do not think it really matters that much. If the lens is fast enough for the lighting conditions (shutter speed) and the ISO is kept low enough (noise), then getting that perfect picture is not going to be dictated by the lens/body. It's the person standing behind the camera.

And with digital you can do amazing stuff in post processing. For example; I took a picture of an awesome sunset out the windshield of my car while driving home. With a little creative post processing it turned into an absolutely stunning picture. Everyone I have shown it too loves it. The thing is, anyone could have taken that picture. Any glass. Even a point and shoot could have captured that. It comes down to how you see the world.

XJS999 wrote in post #7803740
All,

I was quite suprised after reading the dPreview on the 70-200 F2.8 that sharpness is much better in FF than crop. Is this true for all 'L' lens? I'm starting my collection of 'L' lens for my 40D and while I love it, I'm wondering if they'll be better served on FF (say 5D classic)?

thanks in advance all!

All EF mount lenses, no matter L or otherwise will be able to deliver best IQ on FF cameras. This is actually a really simple matter.

For any given print size, the larger sensor requires less enlargement from recorded sensor to print. For example, 8x12 prints require an 8.5X enlargement on FF and 13X enlargment for 1.6X. This increased enlargment for the smaller sensor means defects like blur and CA get enlarged more.

More to the point, the lens itself can only resolve detail to a certain level. The smaller the sensor, the more you are trying to enlarge that detail to make a print. In short, FF makes all your EF mount lenses look sharper.

The only things that get worse with larger sensors are vignetting and of course any bad corner performance. But the corners need to be pretty bad on FF before they will offset the natural enlargement advantage.

Thanks Jeffrey, that makes sense.

The belief that FF has softer corners and more vignetting than crop comes from comparing images at the same f-ratio rather than the same DOF. When we compare at the same framing and DOF, the differences in corner sharpness and vignetting all but disappear:

http://www.josephjames​photography.com/equiva​lence/#4

Interesting. See I knew all that hoopla was for not.

Too much talk. I just want to shoot things. I leave the worrying to others.

XboxWeasel wrote in post #7804118
Interesting. See I knew all that hoopla was for not.

Too much talk. I just want to shoot things. I leave the worrying to others.

Aren't you from Canada? That's weird. : )

JeffreyG wrote in post #7803913
All EF mount lenses, no matter L or otherwise will be able to deliver best IQ on FF cameras. This is actually a really simple matter.

For any given print size, the larger sensor requires less enlargement from recorded sensor to print. For example, 8x12 prints require an 8.5X enlargement on FF and 13X enlargment for 1.6X. This increased enlargment for the smaller sensor means defects like blur and CA get enlarged more.

More to the point, the lens itself can only resolve detail to a certain level. The smaller the sensor, the more you are trying to enlarge that detail to make a print. In short, FF makes all your EF mount lenses look sharper.

The only things that get worse with larger sensors are vignetting and of course any bad corner performance. But the corners need to be pretty bad on FF before they will offset the natural enlargement advantage.

so, if I take my memory card from my 450D with a pic I want to have printed out at any 1 hour photo I will have to enlarge it myself 13x its size for my 1.6 cf sensor?

I tried to print something out last week in 8x10 and it cut out a lot of my border.

Joe_Gravelle wrote in post #7804489
I tried to print something out last week in 8x10 and it cut out a lot of my border.

That is because it is a different aspect ratio. The sensor is 4x6.

XboxWeasel wrote in post #7803808
From what I have read you get more for your money with any lens on a crop body. See www.slrgear.com. Lower blur index. Less chromatic aberration, vignetting, and distortion. .

There is a lot or wrong infrormation flying around on the internet and this one is a particular nonsence. Be more critical to what you read.
70-200/2.8 for example simply incomparable on APS-C and FF
Some very sharp primes my give a different experience but still there is no way a crop camera can deliver the same image quality as the full frame.
This has been true for the last hundred years. Professionals have tried to shoot the biggest frame possible that still would be not too expensive and inconvenient.

Simple physics states the larger the formate / sensor, the lower the sharpness for any given lens. Seems many are wrongly pointing to the reverse.

Dprivew can prove anything can do anything. Be careful of what you read.

DPreview did a massive disservice to the hordes of newcomers out there with its horrible writing style with this issue.

Basically what they mean is that because current APS-C sensors have higher pixel density than current FF sensors, APS-C sensors are going to be more demanding on lens performance and FF sensors are going to be less demanding on lens performance for the same area and at the 100% view level. That's it.

Simply, yes.

XJS999 wrote in post #7803740
All,

I was quite suprised after reading the dPreview on the 70-200 F2.8 that sharpness is much better in FF than crop. Is this true for all 'L' lens? I'm starting my collection of 'L' lens for my 40D and while I love it, I'm wondering if they'll be better served on FF (say 5D classic)?

thanks in advance all!

I'd probably say a 12mp full frame sensor should give you more detail than a 10MP cropped sensor with the same (high quality) lens. As mentioned above, with full frame there are increased vignetting, etc.

Whether the difference is worth the price increase of going to full frame is an individual decision of course.

Tee Why wrote in post #7805309
I'd probably say a 12mp full frame sensor should give you more detail than a 10MP cropped sensor with the same (high quality) lens. As mentioned above, with full frame there are increased vignetting, etc.

Whether the difference is worth the price increase of going to full frame is an individual decision of course.

As mentioned above, there isn't increased vignetting of FF unless you choose to use a wider aperture (note: "aperture" and "f-ratio" are different things):

http://www.josephjames​photography.com/equiva​lence/#5