Comments on: Sensor Size Matters – Part 1

By: Walt French

Walt French — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:52:27 +0000

Perhaps smartphone users are less critical about their photos, but clear articles like this one would be even more helpful in including examples of some representative models.

Actually, when I look at the 21:1 ratio between the areas of my APS-C and the iPhone sensors, it’s quite amazing that the iPhone is as good as it is. The newer technologies you mention must be contributing a LOT. As this also shows up in RAW files, I suspect it’s not the limitations of the older in-camera chips.

By: Nicholas Bodley

Nicholas Bodley — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:16:57 +0000

The camera tube you show is a vidicon, much smaller and much less costly than image orthicons, which were the best. Pretty sure that the first vidicons were one inch in diameter (glass, or photosensor?). When smaller ones were developed (such as ⅔ or ½ inch, iirc), that started the designations by fractions of an inch. (Of course, vidicon lenses were made for specific sizes of tubes.)
The current fractional-inch designations for digicam sensors must have developed from the vidicon scheme, although vidicon fractional sizes used integers only for numerator and denominator.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:26:43 +0000

In terms of swabbing out lenses between formats I think an important issue is: How big it is the area of illumination. In other words if one were to put a super 16 on a 4/3 camera how much light fall off would once see in the corners. I have been looking for and have not been able to find a table listing the area of illumination at the focal plain for various designed for various film and sensory sizes. Does anyone on this for him have any suggestions?

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 02:10:34 +0000

The diagonal measurement for the 4/3 is listed above as “22.4″ but the pythagorean theorem (for 13.5 x 18) yields 22.5. Is this just a typo? Or is this a real measurement, implying some sort of non-planar surface?

By: Richie

Richie — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:55:35 +0000

Just to be clear, the above comment was made in jest, but it’s interesting how the pixel size between the two sensors appears to be identical.

By: Richie

Richie — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:52:46 +0000

36 x 24 = 864 (Nikon FX)
24 x 16 = 384 (Nikon DX)

864 / 384 = 2.25

16MP (D7000) x 2.25 = 36MP (D800)

So the D800 sensor might just be two D7000 sensors glued together!?

By: DaveB

DaveB — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:30:11 +0000

Above, it is written, “….Put a crappy lens in front of the camera and the sensor’s resolution doesn’t matter.”

Has anyone taken the same body and tested with 3 different lens, but same focal length, to show the differences between crappy, average and great with images?

I’d like to see a site that says, “Brand X is a crappy lens, and here’s why.”

By: David

David — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:10:02 +0000

Another great article. I think it’s worth emphasising a couple of points. First, the Canon APS-C crop factor is 1.6, while Nikon and Sony are 1.5. I know you mention Canon’s are a bit smaller, but it’s not spelled out clearly in the table. (I think the double asterisk was meant to point to a note somewhere but it’s been left out)

Secondly, it’s worth explaining why diagonals are used to calculate crop factors and make other comparisons. I’ll explain it like this. The image projected from the back of a lens is generally circular. If you measure the diameter of this circle, then that is the diagonal of the biggest sensor you could put behind the lens to capture the image without vignetting. So by comparing diagonals, you are kind of comparing the diameters of the image circles that match those sensors. As Michael points out above, you can have two sensors with the same vertical dimension but different aspect ratios and hence different diagonals (e.g. G1X and 7D/60D/600D).

By: Esa Tuunanen

Esa Tuunanen — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:58:18 +0000

Roger Cicala: “Plus it works. I just saw on one forum where someone was claiming the G1X sensor was larger than APS-C because 1.5″ equals 38mm. So maybe Canon knew exactly what they were doing.”
Yep, average consumer is just like dung fly, except there are less dung flies in cow’s pile than people in shop selling latest “Second coming of Jesus” hype product. (and dung flies accept only fresh stuff while consumers are happy with museum age crap)

Actually 2/3″ sensor was used in many digicams. You just have to look ten years into past to time when digicams were tools of enthusiasts and before they become average consumer’s toy.
5MP Sony made sensor was used in four Minolta Dimages (7, 7i, 7Hi, A1) and in two Sony’s “grenade launchers” (F707/F717) and 8MP sensor of 2004 was used by every major brand’s camera, depicted in nice family portrait in this page:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/konicaminoltaa2/page3.asp
KonicaMinolta A2 would actually give about perfect basic body design for DSLR challenging EVF based high end mirrorless body instead of current P&S/retro fashion toys. Even its ~920k dot EVF was almost half decade ahead of time. (at time when ~230k dot LCD was the greatest thing since sliced bread according marketroids)

By: Carl

Carl — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:40:28 +0000

Walter, what “glass” do you want?