crappiefever Loc: Central Pa

My preference full frame , shorter lenses , scenerys and landscapes and a good crop sensor for wildlife and longer lenses . Just my opinion !

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

The main benefit of the FF sensor is not that the overall size of the sensor is larger, but that the increased area (about twice on a FF chip) allows larger photosites on the chip - think bigger eyeballs (24 million of them on a D7200/D750) instead of a bigger window which is an incorrect analogy. So, each photosite/pixel is like an eyeball with a tiny lens - in loose terms the FF eyeball has a f/1.2 and an APS-C has a f/2.8. More signal less noise on a FF sensor under same conditions. But, IMHO, the difference is negligible especially at lower ISOs below 3200. I don't know if the increased weight, cost, and lower agility is worth it. Take a look at a site like pixelpeeper.com and compare images taken by FF and APS-C cameras ... I don't see much of a difference if at all. Unless you are making mural sized prints or billboards in Times Square you won't notice the difference either.

crappiefever Loc: Central Pa

Agreed . Lots of times there are differences but they not able to be seen by the human eye .

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Crop lets you take advantage of telephoto lens cause of the multiplication factor ( a 100mm lens becomes a 150mm on a Nikon and a 160mm on a Canon). Full frame camera's have the advantage when using wide angle lens ( a 14mm lens on a full frame stays a 14mm, but on a cropped sensor it becomes a 21mm on a Nikon cropped and a 22mm on a Canon cropped). So, if you like landscape, go with full frame, if you like birds and sports, go with a cropped sensor.

SteveTog Loc: Philly

The name of the sensors tell you pretty much everything you need to know:

Crop Sensors are for cheap, talent-less losers who don't have the physical strength to carry a heavy, full frame camera and a bazooka of a telephoto lens. Better you should beat yourself with a riding crop.

Fool Frame cameras are for the fools who don't have the talent and money to shoot medium format. Share images of crap like that and you'll be thrown out of any self-respecting camera club.

Medium Format cameras are for cheepies who only want medium quality results. Results are similar to having a monkey draw portraits with just one broken crayon.

Large Format cameras are for pinheads with large egos, but no photo skills. These are entry level cameras for beginners with no artistic eye or talent.

What you need, in order to get into basic photography, is a Large Synoptic Survey Telescope - it's chip renders a 3.2 Gigapixel image - which is about the minimum you'll need to post selfies and snapshots on Facebook.

BTW, I left out Micro 4/3rds because they aren't really cameras. They are just little boxes with tiny, near-sighted faeries inside that produce poor image quality with horrible focus. They liberally sprinkle every image with ambient noise pixie dust. Here the word Micro is a contraction for 'Might Consider Taking up Golf Instead.'

I hope this helps.

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

Steve LOL ... here's a video which will entertain everyone regarding crop vs full frame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHYidejT3KY

"One person's full frame is someone else's crop, and that ain't crap!"

Rogers

To the experts, my apologies for inserting what well may be a faulty opinion: I previously petitioned this august body for suggestions as to taking (to me) some important pics of my 50th high school reunion. I have had for some years a 12 mp crop sensor Rebel Xi. I was considering getting a full frame as an upgrade. However, I've just received a Canon 77D crop sensor. I arrived at this after a lot of thought. I read a lot of Amazon reviews on the lower tier full frames. I always pay particular attention to the lowest ratings. A pattern seemed to emerge that at least some of the time these full frames don't focus right every time. I decided that no amount of light gathering or resolution or post processing would make up for a bad focus. I read about the 77D as having the precision phase shift focus, and the new DIGIC 7 processor. Therefore, I've rolled the dice in that direction, and will report if I've fooled myself or not.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

To a very .large degree the 35mm full frame is an arbitrary size invented by Kodak as a film size. So many of the things in today. photography can be traced to Kodak. The metering convention(18% neutral grey) for one. Shutter release button on the right and focus ring with the left, for another. In fact the entire mechanical lay out was a Kodak concept. Ergonomically we have been "Forced" to use today's cameras the way Kodak decided. Here is a thought--since the image of a found lens is round why do we have rectangular images. Maybe some camera maker should invent a round sensor and produce round images. Then they would truly be full frame.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

It all depends on what you shoot. In mediocre light situations (and there are lots of these), the extra 1-1/2 to 2 stops of high ISO performance (before noise becomes obtrusive) of the FF, which can be traded for faster shutter speed or increased DOF, can make the difference between good shots and discards. Indoor weddings, sports and events where flash isn't permitted or appropriate are just a few of these...

BebuLamar

Kodak made the 35mm movies film but didn't invent the 24x36mm frame size. It was Leica that first adopt the size for still camera.

Mi630

As simple as I can make it this... Imagine a swimming pool with a brick patio all around it. A full frame would be the pool and the brick patio. A crop sensor would only be the pool area.
Now, if someone was in the middle of the pool, that person would take up a larger percentage of the total "frame" with the crop sensor.
If each camera has roughly the same number of pixels, then the full frame camera has larger pixels to fill the sensor and larger sensors will give a better quality picture and less "noise".
The downside is that an image at the same focal length will appear smaller on the full frame sensor because of that difference in sensor size. I shoot Canon so a picture at 100 mm on the crop sensor would have to be taken at 160 mm on the full frame camera to appear the same size on that full frame sensor. That is why they use a "crop factor" in speaking of crop sensor cameras. Canon's is 1.6x. This is great to make far away images appear closer but hurts you when you want to shoot at wider focal lengths. You can't get as much of a scene at 35 mm in a crop sensor as 35 mm with a full frame. 35 mm with a crop sensor is like about 55 mm on a full frame.
That's how I understand it. Hope that helps some. I am not an expert, however.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Quality wise little or no difference. A big difference in bokeh and noise control.
Crop sensor better for sports and wildlife photography.
Modern crop sensors are doing very well controlling noise.

drklrd Loc: Cincinnati Ohio

Like has been said and the camera manufacturer's claim resolution is found by multiplying the short side of the sensor by the long side of the sensor. True resolution is comparing the two would be to use the a 1 inch square of both and counting the number of light sensors pixels in that 1 inch square and then comparing the results. The real resolution is the same for both sensors but the advantage is with the larger sensor that like in film days comparing a 35 mm neg to a 8 mm neg the 35 neg can be blown up to a larger image with minimum loss of sharpness. With the printers we use I do not know if this really matters anymore because the printer's resolution also comes into play. I have seem prints sent to my printer at 250 mpx and at 350 mpx and cannot tell the difference in the 11X14's printed without using a loupe to look at the pixels. I contend that at this difference between the 24 mpx and the 36 mpx is mostly in our minds and eyes and their perception of sharpness in a digital print and in the manufacturer's propaganda that we are told about them. 1 square inch of sensor should be what we consider as the truth of resolution. One must also consider the camera's programming that also comes into play a newer camera that was just built has better programming than one that was built 5 years ago. Obviously they worked out all the bugs in that 5 year time.
So the common knowledge is that the only difference is that one sensor is bigger than the other sensor and the larger sensor is supposed to render larger images when it comes to sizes that are wall sized such as 20X30 or greater. I feel that my 24 mpx Nikon will make the grade up to 20X30 but when it come to billboard size I would prefer to use a digital view camera or possibly a Hasselblad because their sensors are that much bigger. Then again I would want to know the printer's resolution of that image and take that information into account too.
I regularly print to 11X14 and use a Nikon D7200 professionally. Yes I did a lot of research on this issue and I was an electronics expert before I turned to pro-photography as a profession. Believe me when as an electronics expert we measured resolution in anything we used standards like I mentioned. We did not claim something bigger had more resolution just because it was bigger. The manufacturer resizes the sensor because the smaller sensor costs far less than the larger sensor and the build around the smaller sensor costs less too.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

Well said. Recently I was in a beautiful place that screamed "wide angle". The results on my crop frame were less than stellar--and more importantly, disappointed me. I would have loved a FF with a 20 mm lens.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Billboards don't have to be ultra high resolution because they are viewed at a distance. I have gotten 24x36 prints from a 12 mp crop sensor camera that looked great at a normal viewing distance.