BebuLamar

New Canon and Nikon crop sensor DSLR don't look too much like crop sensor camera. The 4/3 and M4/3 are certainly not crop camera. Everything looks normal on those 4/3 and M4/3 cameras. Looking at my old Nikon D70s and boy it really looks cropped. Why? The mirror box is bigger than needed. The viewfinder is masked. The shutter is larger than the sensor. Viewfinder image is tiny. It really looks look like a full frame camera modified to accept smaller sensor.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

I believe the first wave of Nikon digitals SLR's used film bodies (AKA full-frame) or were at least based on them.
For example, information I've seen on the D100 in a few places refers to the D80 film body. I'm guessing they didn't want to redesign the shutter for saving a few mm of space. The lens mount had to stay the same size in any case. The viewfinder in the D-70 (and most other DX bodies) is pretty disappointing compared to most of the full-frame bodies.

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

A crop sensor, by common agreement, is a sensor smaller than the old 24 x 36 mm standard of film days. It has nothing to do with body dimensions. The APS-C standard is about 16 x 24; m4/3 is about 12 x 18.

Bill_de Loc: US

The D100, D200 etc., were much smaller than the D1, D2 variety. The D70 was an entry level model that was much lighter. Many entry level models used mirrors instead of pentaprisms for the viewfinder. So I would agree that the viewfinder of entry level models were disappointing. The higher end models weren't bad at all.


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GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

I wonder how they would compare, size wise, if the D1/D2 bodies didn't have that extra battery compartment on the bottom. The viewfinder in the D300 still looks like I'm looking through a tunnel compared to my D810 but it only takes a minute or so to get used to the view. they are both bright, but they are glass prisms, not porro prisms like the D70 etc.
I hope to look at a D500 sometime this weekend.

kennedyjm

Lenses for DSLRs are based on their ability to deposit a full image on the standard 35mm film plane. The actual size of a 35mm frame of film, like most things related to photography, is as confusing as it can be and some think this is just to make certain people feel superior; actually it is a product of evolution. Perhaps someday some courageous genius will force the world to use a new set of numbers from f stops to film sizes that actually mean something to the average person.
But for the moment, back to lenses and crop(ped) sensors. A lens is designed to place the full image of whatever it is pointed at onto a 35mm bit of film. If you used that lens with a film that was smaller than 35mm – for example approximately half that size of, say, 17mm - it would deposit the center of the image of whatever the lens was pointed towards. This means that roughly 25% of the image would spill over each of the four sides of the smaller film frame, effectively making the lens a 70mm lens; the image would be cropped by about 50%.
The same holds true in digital cameras – the sensor size replaces the 35mm film plane. So if the sensor of the camera is smaller than the 35mm image the lens delivers, you will capture only that part of the image that is actually on the sensor – the rest spills over the sides. Think of a tablecloth that is 4 feet by 6 feet – if you put it on a table that is only 2 feet by 3 feet, a bunch of it hangs over the sides. Now if there was a picture on that tablecloth that was the full 4 feet by 6 feet, what you see on the 2 foot by 3 foot table would be like you had zoomed into the center part of the picture.
There are DSLR cameras on the market that are roughly 36mm x 24mm and these are referred to as “full-frame” cameras. Then there are the cameras similar to the Canon T5i or Nikon DX that, while excellent cameras, are somewhat less than half that sensor size. Anything less than a full frame camera is going to give you a cropped image.

BebuLamar

I disagree with this statement although I know most people think that way. If a camera which has a sensor smaller 24x36mm is a crop sensor camera then how about the one that has sensor larger than 24x36mm? Besides, I've doing photography for almost 40 years and I didn't hear or read about crop format until the introduction of the DSLR. In fact way later than the introduction, about several years after the introduction of digital cameras. We did have format of all sizes from the tiny disc format up to 8x10" and even larger and nobody is calling any format as crop.

kennedyjm

Bebu, I cannot say I have heard of it much in still photography either - I am used to seeing this issue when it comes to video cameras. In the early days video cameras used a 1 inch sensor (actually a 1 inch target plate in a tube camera) so video lenses were designed to deliver a full image to a 1 inch pick-up device (sensor). Later, they started making CCD and CMOS (chip) cameras but the lens mount stayed the same – it was a C mount based on the 1 inch lens. This is the same lens and mount, by the way, that was used for 16mm film cameras such as Bolex.
So as sensors became smaller such as one-half inch, one-third inch, and so on, the old lenses were still out there and they still fit the unchanged C mount in the camera. So you wound up with the effect seen below (the same effect you will get if you use a full-frame 35mm lens on a camera with a somewhat smaller sensor).

(Download)

Leitz Loc: Solms

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imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

All early and current SLR digitals were designed predicated on using available and already owned full frame lenses ! - which necessarily meant full frame mirror boxes !

BebuLamar

In this case I agree with you 100%. The same C mount and the same lenses used for different sizes of sensors then the smaller ones are the crop. The same goes for Nikon DX because it uses the same F mount as the FX sensor. The M4/3 is not cropped because its mount was designed only for the 4/3 sensor size. So the term crop is only accurate if the sensor is used in a camera that uses lenses designed for a larger format. In this case something like the Hasselblad H6D is a crop because many of its lenses were designed for the 6x4.5 format.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Good catch! I meant N80/F80 film body.
Link HERE.

Leitz Loc: Solms

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Wow do I agree with this. Why not call the 24x36 an "oversized" sensor and the aps-c as the standard. Or better yet, let's take the 6x4.5 as the standard. Or the 4x5 (There are digital backs for 4x5. I just couldn't accumulate the $239 thousand to buy one.) Perhaps I'll buy a Hassie next.

All of these words are products of some marketing genius's mind. All they do is confuse people. If I wanted to print 40x60 prints all the time, I might go to the 35mm size sensor.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

Referring to sensors as being "cropped" seems to cause much confusion.