Being a statistical thing, noise is not about a single pixel. The notion of noise is developed with a sample of pixels, and their variation.
If you want to assess variation in terms of a single pixel, you need to take multiple captures in a sequence, pull the measured values for that pixel from each capture and there you go, a statistical sample. But now you have other influences, like how the light energy fluctuates over the period of the capture sequence.
Weâre already there. Just because theyâre expensive doesnât mean we canât talk about them. The A7CR is a 61MP camera. Itâs expensive at $3000 USD, but far from being top of the line and out of reach. I think itâs safe to assume that more high MP cameras will follow and more affordable ones too. This is the whole point of the discussion - that weâre now at a stage where itâs viable to use APS-C lenses on full-frame cameras without sacrificing too much in the megapixel department.
Iâm not try to argue for it and convince people to do it, far from it, but Iâm thinking itâs now viable if you can afford one of those cameras and if the idea appeals to you.
I canât really speak to the specifics of what youâre saying at the pixel/noise level because itâs not something I know enough about, but youâre still getting the max aperture of the lens, e.g. F4, and getting the same benefits of that lens as you would on an APS-C sensor. So, is it really a problem?
By using an APS-C lens on a FF body, you might not be getting the full benefits of the full frame experience, but we already know this because youâre forced into crop mode. But youâre getting the full benefits of the APS-C experience, like the smaller lens, extra reach and depth of field. Not to mention the software side of things where noise is easily removed or reduced during post processing.
There is no free lunch, but you can perhaps get more to eat in your lunch 
There are small little things if you worry about everything, but basically, a cropmode crops. So as you said you end up with less megapixels.
So if you end up with 26mp on a cropmode of a FF camera , you get the same effect as a 26mp cropsensor body.
But⌠You get the same effect. So the benefits are also gone of a FF sensor, since you are just using a tiny bit from iyou could as well mount an aps-c lens on a FF body and not use cropmode, and cut away the dark and/or unsharp bits afterwards. It makes no difference. (And maybe an aps-c lens has a bit more coverage then just aps-c) .
I wouldnât âplanâ on using the crop mode , but also not against using it Iâd I think I have to / need to.
You give the example of a telelens which gives more reach in crop l. But itâs only 1.5x most of the time.
So, given a cheap tele that goes to 300mm 5.6 (giving you an effective 450mm), against the chepeast budget ff lens that can go 450mm (like the 150mm to 600mm budget lenses) I would go with the cheaper FF lens every time.
If you are thinking this way (why not use crop mode) I think you very quickly come back to the point âwhy not get a crop bodyâ. With how good they are these daysâŚ
Yes , size is a thing. And what you describe with the sizes of the OM1 and the XT5 is that if you het âseriousâ cameras, the size of the EVF, grip and buttons for using the camera trumps the size. Iâd you go down in budget, they go smaller.
The XT5 is large for a crop bodyâ, but the x-e series is much smaller. The OM1 is big for m4/3, but the om5 or om10 are way smaller.
Itâs a good thing that you think about your priorities (and not just blindly trust in reviews or opinion ) and you have a very good point that the lens eco system and how it aligns with your budget and wishes is maybe more important than the type of camera you can get.
Story for me: I got an A7 mark2 and was in my âyay finally FFâ period. But I just donât have the budget to get into the good lenses.
It took years for some what affordable FF lenses to appear.
I love going out with my FF and 1 good lens⌠But the body is quite outdated by today standards. And I could fit my Olympus em10 with ALL my lenses in the same bag as just my a7m2 with 1 lens.
So everytime I went on a holiday , in the end I always took the Olympus with me⌠And I was fine with it.
So operation downsize, get rid of my Olympus , a7m2 and all A mount glass and all E mount glass⌠Get an em1 mark3 on outlet , and still have money left over to buy 2 new m43 lensesâŚ
Iâm happy :). So size does help in the end. FF as a hobby / enthousiast is harder than as a pro, unfortunately.
It helps to have a lens ecosystem where all the popular focal lengths are represented, but in a compensated manner. So in m43, there are affordable 15mm. 17mm, 20mm. 25mm , 45mmlenses. All to have a âeffective focallengthâ covered of what you know.
I think Fuji does this well with the xmount as well. A lot of focal lengths and lenses are clearly made with the cropfactor in mind.
I dont know how the cropbody ecosystem is of E mount and RF mount. But I always found it annoying to walk around with a 50mmbthat isnât 50mm, and a 35mm that was crazy expensive (back then).
Think of your use cases , and donât go crazy on the idea of FF. There is more out there.
I would maybe choose the 300mm 5.6 if it were significantly smaller than the FF 450mm lens. And this was kind of the whole point of my musings: that you can get the compact benefits of APS-C on FF with modern sensors if compactness is what you really value most. I realize that FF still has advantages and crop mode negates those advantages, but if compactness is top of your priorities, then you donât need to get a crop body anymore.
Sony in particular has a very large selection of lenses available, both full frame and APS-C, first party and third party; so you could just get one of their high resolution bodies and have a vast selection of lenses available. However, I do value Fuji for taking their APS-C lenses very seriously, which may not be the case for some of the FF manufacturers.
Absolutely, and donât get me wrong, I am not advocating for full frame at all. I am not lusting after it or dissatisfied with my current APS-C setup. But as someone who values a compact kit, itâs nice to see that there are more options now, and FF seems to be viable. If and when I decide to get a new camera, I will be looking at all the options and seeing which manufacturer fits my needs best at that moment in time.
My take on this is if Iâm consistently cropping my shots by a factor of 1.5 or more if shooting on a full frame - as I do because I mainly shoot wildlife - then a crop sensor body makes more sense to me.
Just yesterday, Digital Camera World (which is not peak journalism, I admit) posted an article about whether zoom lenses are dying out: With ever-higher camera resolutions, have zoom lenses had their day? | Digital Camera World
Weâre obviously not there yet, but you only need to look at the leaps made in technology/software over the last 15 years to imagine what imaging technology could be like in 2035. But even if tiny lenses, high megapixels and software enable 600mm equivalent zooms, Iâm thinking enthusiasts will still be wanting proper optical technology for their hobbies/career.
But it does make me wonder why some manufacturers are going all-in on full frame and larger lenses.
To fight photon shot noise, larger sensels are better than smaller sensels.
The other approach is to fight PSN in software. This can distinguish skin from sky from grass, and determine what each âshouldâ look like, and smooth accordingly.
Eventually, cameras will have maybe 9 tiny sensels. AI will examine the GPS coordinates, the camera direction, the weather at the time the photo was taken, and use this to invent an entire 100 MP photo.
For a portrait, will the AI consult the subjectâs medical file for a realistic acne rate?
Yeah, theyâre fixated on the cellphone camera architecture, where itâs nigh well impossible to make a performant zoom lens and keep it from scraping off when the owner shoves the thing into their back pocket. So, they âzoomâ with a crop, and most of their customers wonât grok the distinctionâŚ
Crop-to-zoom is always a degradation, youâre eliminating pixels you could have put to use in maintaining the cameraâs maximum resolution. I still see plenty of use-cases for zooms, just not in someoneâs back pocket 
@ggbutcher I guess the question is whether the degradation will cease to matter when weâve reached a certain quality.
As a total aside, I noticed you used the word âperformantâ. Iâve seen it used a few times recently online and Iâm wondering if itâs a newly adopted word or whether itâs always existed in certain professions. Iâm a French translator, so Iâm very familiar with it as a French word, but as far as I know, it doesnât exist in the average English dictionary. Just a curiosity I have as itâs related to my profession. Thanks for your insight!
Its a fairly common word, especially in technical fields:
ref Oxford: functioning well or as expected.
In the old day job, performance to specification was important. We tended to use performant as a bit of abbreviation of that.
Edit: I should clarify, that was usage in conversation. Never used it in documents, had separate verbiage for that, some of it with contractual implications. The word shall, for instance. We had tools that would shred documents for sentences containing âshallâ, because those sentences were contractually bindingâŚ
Not sure Iâd say âfairly commonâ, but depends on what circles you hang around in I suppose. According to Collins dictionary it is a ânew word suggestionâ that is being actively monitored for inclusion. Merriam Webster doesnât have it at all. I guess Oxford is a bit ahead of the curve. Speaking of which, looks like it has had a huge spike in usage in the last decade or two, which shows it probably started in the computer sector:
My whole adult life, lol, I guess thatâs why its common to me.
100% agree. The canon R7 I bought also has very high pixel density so I can crop my 34 MP images in even closer and retain great detail. This is a great camera for wildlife photography and a general good allrounder as well for travel photography. Noise is well controlled with this modern sensor but it is better to use high ISO to get good ETTR rather than low ISO exposing to the left to control the noise.
But many phone cameras now come with three lens for the camera to choose from. I presume this is their work around?
Yes, but they still canât make a properly long tele. Iâm not well up on the latest stuff but the last time I looked the top Samsung Ultra was like 120mm equivalent FOV on the tele camera. So they still need to crop in when people want longer.
I think⌠
I think they doubled that in recent models (the Galaxy S21 Ultra has a whopping 240mm equivalent zoom, they use a âperiscopeâ arrengement so that it does not stick out), but note that on the 1/3.2" sensor that has a full-frame equivalent aperture of f/37. I looked at some test images online and it does OK in bright light after the software enhancement gets done with the image, but the RAW is what you would expect.
And, funnily enough, most of the reviewers simply donât see the point of such a long lens on a mobile phone (âused it a few times after I bought the phone but not sinceâ).
This is a good point, I think. Even as telephoto lenses become feasible, is that what people use a phone for? Is there a big enough market for what is a pretty niche interest?
