DSLR - full frame or cropped?

DAA

Well-Known Member
So... I'm thinking about getting a DSLR.

I did some film photography with decent manual equipment 20+ years ago, but have never used anything but point and shoot digitals. Absolutely zero experience with a DSLR. And so, I'm just starting to try and learn something about them, so I can have some idea what to look for if I decide to buy one.

It looks to me, like one of the first things I need to decide, is whether I want/need a "full frame" DSLR or not?

Intended uses... Some landscape photography, some wildlife photography and of course general travel/family/portrait stuff. Output mostly on screen or online, will print a few 8x10's on occasion.

Budget... Keeping in mind that I'll be buying used equipment and can wait for a good deal on what I want. Looking to spend maybe $700 on the camera body? I haven't priced anything yet, for all I know my budget has already made this decision for me?

I think I have a grasp on the cropping effect and some of the techical advantages/disadvantages such as larger pixel size and reduced noise etc. But, in the real world? I've no clue!

Seems full frame might be a big advantage in wide angle landscape work? And also in low light wildlife/action shots? Or, is it really not THAT much of a difference, in the real world?

Likewise, seems like the small sensor body might have a distince advantage in telephoto shots, stretching a smaller lighter lens?

What about lens selection? Anything to think about between the two formats here?

Size and weight of the body... Realize, I've not even handled any of these things yet. But, size and weight are fairly important considerations for me. The larger and heavier the camera, the less likely it is to actually get used in many circumstances for me. Is there a real size/weight penalty with a full frame body vs. a cropped sensor body?

Any and all opinions and comments welcomed!

- DAA
 

NoTrax

New Wheels Big Trax
Location
Utah
Thats a good question, depends on what you like to shoot. Full frame provide you with the ability to get it all in frame, say a large building, or indoor shots with not much room to back up. Fullframe create some really gorgeous shots with a 14mm.

If you want to shoot with a 200 zoom, or wildlife a crop gets you more zoom for your buck.

The Cropped sensor on a 1.6x gives you a 320mm zoom when you buy a 200mm lens, due to crop factor.

I think that the canon 60d I bought is awesome, take for example yesterday...

We were driving down the causeway and saw a gorgeous owl flying low looking for dinner. My brother in law is a professional photographer, owns a 5dmkii and a 1ds mkii I think...

He asked me for my 1.6x and he threw on his 200mm 2.8 L II and instantly went to a 320mm zoom.

Watching him do that, makes me want to hold onto the 60d, and pick up a 5dmkii and keep both.

Lens... you have so many selections.. id say get a fixed aperture lens.

great reading here

www.fredmiranda.com

or Photography On the net ( search for it )
 

DAA

Well-Known Member
Budget wise, I'm thinking I'll have about $700 to spend for a used camera body. I'll probably have to sell a rifle to finance it. Won't be in any hurry either. Once I figure out what I want, I can sit and watch ksl.com for months until I get the right deal on the right piece of equipment.

Lenses, that's going to be a long term thing. Right off the bat, I'll just take whatever I can get. A crappy "kit" lens that gets thrown in with the camera body or whatever. But eventually I'll have some GOOD lenses. That part I know will take a long time though. Even buying used, it will probably take me five years to buy three lenses. Just guessing about a kilobuck to a k-buck and a half each, for good (not great...) used lenses these days? I'll eventually want a wide or ultra wide for landscapes, a FAST long prime for wildlife and a high quality mid range zoom for most everything else. A really good zoom in the 70-300 range would be nice too.

Lens choice is one of the aspects of full frame vs. cropped that I'm really clueless about. I read this morning that a full frame sensor works better in low light. So, one of the lenses I'll eventually want is a 300 or 400mm prime. And one of the primary applications for it will be wildlife either in low light (dusk and dawn) or fast action (or both! Think coyotes running at first light). So, I'll want a FAST long prime. Lenses like that cost a fortune 20 years ago, I'm sure they cost an even larger fortune today. Out of my range, realistically. So, if, just say for instance, the full frame sensor really IS better in low light, say to the tune of a full f-stop or more, then could I shoot a slower lens with it than I could a cropped sensor body? If so, I could probably buy a bunch of full frame bodies for what I'd save on that one lens alone by being able to use a slower one. I honestly have no clue. But this is the sort of thing I'm trying to figure out BEFORE I buy, so hopefully, I get the right rig for my application the first time.

I fully understand how the smaller sensor effectively stretches the zoom. With no actual experience to go on, just thinking about it, I see this as double edged. Good for tele work, bad for wide or ultra wide. Again, I figure in the end, the camera body is going to be the cheapest part of the system. The lenses are where the real money will eventually be spent. The small sensor seems like it could save me some money on long lenses, but cost me a boat load if I want a a really decent ultra wide lens? Like I said, absolutely no experience with this, just really wanting some experience based opinions!

Size and weight of the whole rig really is a pretty big deal to me too. Even if everything else stacks up in favor of a full frame, if they are really much bigger and heavier than a small sensor body with otherwise comparable features, I'd have a hard time not choosing the smaller package.

- DAA
 

muleskinner

Well-Known Member
Location
Enoch, UT
I'll definitely do some reading. But, how do you control depth of field with a fixed aperture? Is that something all DSLR's are capable of?

- DAA

With a fixed aperture the aperture does not change when you zoom in or out.

This is the lens included with the Rebel kit- EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (F3.5@18mm up to F5.6@55mm)

I have this lens which is F2.8 the entire 70-200 range.

You can still change the camera aperture to whatever you want.

Don't get caught up in the megapixel war.

I wouldn't worry too much about the crop either. My MarkIII 1D is a 1.3 crop and I've never wished for a full frame.
 

iceaxe

Backroad Adventurer
Location
Sandy
Lens choices.
You can pretty much rely on your experience using film, not much has changed here with the only exception possibly being some systems offer in camera image stabilization and some offer in the lens image stabilization. You are pretty well covered by pretty much any brand camera for what you will be shooting. All of them as far as I know even allow for old legacy glass to be retrofitted to the digital bodies? (which has some extra pros and cons) as an aside factor to consider, any good old gear in the closet for example?
You mentioned to me last week in the Maze that wildlife isn't found during great light conditions and so there might be some compromises there. Carry the extra weight of faster glass or make more effort for rarer captures of the critters in better light :confused:. I defer fully to you on the art of spotting critters of corse, candids of family if any of the very young energetic types may fall under the same catagory lens wise for fast action indoors with poor light (though there are cheap and easy workarounds like reflectors or a flash off camera so then again not neccesarily).
Landscape you often shoot when the light is great so it isn't as big of a factor to worry about how fast the glass is compared with wildlife.
Some companies put more effort in to thier kit lenses than others, but some very light weight, compact, decent quality glass can be had with those that do make relatively decent kit stuff.
I mention the lens options first as your absolutely right, that is really where the investment lies, bodies can be upgraded to later and much greater technology just a few short years down the road, but a good glass collection will stick with you throughout those changes as it sounds like your aware, if you start with a crop sensor and think you might upgrade to full sensor down the road then when you do invest in glass I think your right that you will want to make sure its all compatible with those plans so you will want to put some fore-thought in to that.

The body.
I'd Highly recommend handling a few different bodies with different lenses to see how they feel, might be kind of hard as the used ones your looking at might not be on camera store shelves, maybe pawn shops or something? But getting a first hand feel of the way they "fit" you, overall size and wight too, will help your decisions immensely.

The dynamic range the sensor can capture may be a factor to consider in particular for landscape

Full frame sensors in newer bodies are great for being able to crop down the shot and still have plenty of resolution to play with. There are concerns about edge to edge sharpness and having the right lens to match the sensors, which your budget may play in to. Again you will have room to crop any fuzzy edges resolution wise if that is a reality. Newer bodies have some incredible low ISO performance too which will help greatly for the wildlife aspect of your plans. They are bigger and heavier bodies.

Small frame or crop sensor bodies are great for magnifying the effective focal length as mentioned above, getting you closer to the wildlife with less glass (weight) to haul around relatively speaking. And it's always more fun to be out shooting than sitting at the computer cropping images as some say. Your generally sacraficing some of the low ISO performance in the bodies compared to full frame. Bodies are smaller and lighter in general. I don't consider it bad for ultra wide shots, at least my system has an awesome 7-14mm fixed aperature zoom lens available and even at a 2x crop sensor still gives very respectable 14mm efffective wide angle with relatively little distortion and excellent edge to edge consistancy and I know there is fairly comperable options avialable with other systems.

Fixed aperature just means that a zoom lense will have the same minimum f stop (maximum light allowance) throughout the whole zoom range such as the example above. Most zooms or the cheaper ones anyway usually allow in less light at mazimum zoom and let in more light at the shortest focal length end. Fixed ones again are generally heavier and more expensive than those that aren't.

A prime lense is one that doesn't have a zoom range - just a fixed focal length (and also therefore fixed minimum aperature)

Hope that helps,
Jared
 
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NoTrax

New Wheels Big Trax
Location
Utah
Do you plan on printing images? Or just viewing them on a monitor? or Sharing them? What is your goal?

I would say 700 for a body is a good starting point, altho id probably hold out for about 900 (I paid 903 new shipped, amazon). You can get into a great camera and decent megapixels. The Canon 60D is a great camera for someone who wants to take great shots, and be able to mount some good quality glass.

Next step down would be the ti2 from Canon, that falls easily into your existing budget same crop factor.
 

Caleb

Well-Known Member
Location
Riverton
As muleskinner said, don't get caught up in the megapixels. If all the other specs are lining up, the megapixels will to. Megapixels are a marketing gimmick :D
 

DAA

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the input guys. I appreciate it!

I get it on the fixed aperture now. Thanks for explaining it. And, absolutely, that would be the kind of zoom lens I'd want :D.

And, no, I'm not caught up in the megapixels at all. I'll print some 8x10's to frame and hang and that will probably be as much resolution as I need. I doubt it is even possible to buy a point and shoot these days, let alone a DSLR that doesn't have plenty of resolution for my purposes. If I end up with enough megapixels to print posters, fine, but it's not anything I'm worried about.

Jared, I wish I had some good old gear to build from! I do have a couple of lenses for my old Nikon FM stashed away somewhere, but they aren't anything special. Probably some of the more gimmicky type filters I never actually used buried somewhere in my junk too. But all my "good" stuff was for my Canon, I had a few really nice FD lenses for it, but that entire kit all got stolen many years ago.

I think the advice to get my hands on some of these and actually handle them is a really, REALLY good idea, too. From my experience of long ago, I think handling and ergos are super important to really enjoying a camera and getting the best shots out of it. Not to mention, simple cold hard fact is, if the thing is too unwieldy, there is a good chance it will still be in the Jeep when the chance for a great shot arises.

But it sounds unanimous from you guys. Just don't worry about the full frame vs. cropped sensor is what I'm clearly getting here.

So, that's my plan as of now. Just not worry about this particular issue :cool:.

- DAA
 

phatfoto

Giver of bad advice
Location
Tooele
I'll weigh in. I'm a retired Navy photog. Started using digital cameras in 94, used a Kodak DCS200 which was built off a Nikon 8008 with the Kodak digital back. Was effectively 1.3 megapixels. Nice, but limited. The sensor size (which has carried over to today) is like the short lived APS film size. So, yes, the magnification factor is 1.5X to 1.6X. Like mentioned, great for longer focal lengths, but not so good for wide angle work. (For the record, in 35mm film, I much preferred 28 and 35mm lenses to almost anything else)

I wound up with a decent collection of Pentax mount lenses over the years. So when I decide to get a DSLR, I'll have to consider the Pentax line of cameras. But there are many excellent lenses available for Canon and Nikon that aren't horribly expensive these days.

I have access to and use Nikon d200 and D300s at work, and my new favorite lens is a 14-24 zoom. Although, you can really get some bad distortion if you aren't careful...
22May2010Teraflex0110.jpg


I spent a bunch of the last ten years not really caring about photography. But have caught the bug again this past year... Now, if I had a bigger budget, I have a long list of what I want...
 

DAA

Well-Known Member
With your budget, you'll only get into the 1.6x. Ful frame start out real pricy!

Yeah... I've been doing some looking around, you are definitely right about that. No problem though, I think a cropped sensor camera will do me just fine.

My budget just got bumped a bit, too. I put out a feeler on the rifle I'm thinking of selling to finance this and got an offer that is higher than I had expected. By a few hundred bucks.

Looking at reviews and specs, I'm really liking that 60D. Not finding them used though. But, if I sell the scope with the rifle... Was going to keep the scope, but, now I'm thinking about selling it too. Would give me enough to buy a new 60D with the 18-135mm kit lens. That would be pretty sweet :greg:.

- DAA
 

NoTrax

New Wheels Big Trax
Location
Utah
I shopped about 4 weeks, and waited till amazon had a crazy sale. Started at 1099, I ended up getting it for 899, I picked up a 17-50mm with stabilizer, and hsm,osm. I am into it about 2500 or more, with tripod and bag. Plus a 580ex II....

Some guys are into it easily 15k as a HOBBYIST... So be careful its like a crazy drug my friend.
 

DAA

Well-Known Member
I appreciate the heads-up on those. And, it no doubt would have been smarter to stick with my original plan of buying used equipment. Either one of those cameras would have been more than good enough for my purposes. And a lot less expensive than buying a new camera.

But... I allowed myself to be seduced by the allure of "new". So... I snagged a new 60D yesterday!

Really looking forward to learning how to use it. And, hopefully producing some decent images.

Thanks for trying to steer me right though!

- DAA
 

muleskinner

Well-Known Member
Location
Enoch, UT
I appreciate the heads-up on those. And, it no doubt would have been smarter to stick with my original plan of buying used equipment. Either one of those cameras would have been more than good enough for my purposes. And a lot less expensive than buying a new camera.

But... I allowed myself to be seduced by the allure of "new". So... I snagged a new 60D yesterday!

Really looking forward to learning how to use it. And, hopefully producing some decent images.

Thanks for trying to steer me right though!

- DAA

Nice! Keep your manual with you at all times;) Be sure to post photo's when you start shooting.
 
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