jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks. That's a good one.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Barely bigger than a booger.

Seriously, the “1/??” naming conventions are all from early TV tube standards. They measured the TUBE face diameter. That was MUCH larger than the usable part of it!

The result is a misleading mess. Marketers love it!

jederick Loc: Northern Utah

Thanks, Bob...this really shows the sensor size comparison, and dimensions, with their associated cameras exceptionally well!!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

It is TINY. A FF has a diagonal of 42 to 43mm.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format

While there are much smaller sensors, 1/2.3" is pretty darned small.

It's typically 6.7mm by 4.55mm for a total of 28.5 square millimeters.

For comparison, so-called "full frame" is 36 x 24mm for a total of 864 square mm.

Or, APS-C that's commonly used in DSLRs and mirrorless cameras is typically about 23.5 x 15.5mm to give an area of roughly 365 square mm.

Camera makers often use tiny sensors to leverage the telephoto range of the zoom lenses they install on some of these cameras. Take the P1000 for example. Nikon claims it has a 24 to 3000mm equivalent zoom lens. The key word there is "equivalent". They're equating the zoom on the camera with one that would give you similar angles of view on a full frame camera. But, by using a tiny sensor, they are leveraging a zoom lens that actually has a 4.3-539mm zoom range. This is still a pretty impressive achievement in a lens, although it's probably pretty darned hard to hand hold a steady shot at "3000mm" (even with built in image stabilization).

It's common practice in cameras like the P1000... digital cameras with a non-interchangeable lenses... to cite the "full frame/35mm film" equivalent in the manner described above. This is done to allow comparison across a wide range of different sensor sizes that are used in those cameras, although it's also most certainly a marketing ploy. I'm sure many people don't look all that closely at the specifications and are impressed that they're able to buy a "3000mm lens", when in fact they're buying one that's a little over 500mm actual focal length.

Tiny sensors come with some potential problems... or perhaps it would be more fair to call them "limitations". To have resolution like people expect in digital cameras today requires packing an awful lot of extremely small individual pixel sites onto those small sensors. For example, in order to have 16MP resolution, the P1000 has to have way more than half a million pixel sites per square mm. In comparison, a 45MP full frame camera has a bit over 50,000 pixel sites per sq mm.

The tightly packed and very small pixels on the P1000's sensor will effect image quality and seriously limit how high ISO can be used before digital noise becomes an issue. Since higher ISOs with the P1000 are likely to produce unacceptable results, that limits the camera's low light shooting capabilities. It also makes for slower shutter speeds that make it more difficult to take those hand held shots, even with the help of image stabilization. The full frame camera's far less crowded sensor with nearly 3X the resolution will produce greater detail and be able to make usable images at much higher ISOs.

In order to counteract the digital noise caused by heat and cross talk between the extremely small and tightly packed pixel sites on that 1/2.3" sensor, they probably apply rather intense noise reduction to the images. While noise reduction has steadily improved quite a bit over the years, but when applied heavily it "robs" images of some fine detail and makes for a softening effect. Sharpening is then applied in an effort to recover some of the detail, but can make for artifacts and halos around objects in images. All in all, images made with small sensors get some pretty intensive processing either in-camera or in post-processing. (The P1000 can be set to save RAW files that the user can post-process later on a computer. It also can be set to save JPEGs. Some of these types of cameras only save JPEGs, which are always processed in-camera.)

Another factor is depth of field. The P1000's zoom lens has a variable aperture. At the 24mm equivalent, it's maximum is f/2.8. At the other extreme, the 3000mm equivalent, it's only f/8. But in comparison to a lens of those focal lengths on a full frame camera, as far as depth of field is concerned the small sensor will make for much, much more depth of field. For example, if the P1000 is set to f/4 and 53.6mm focal length (equivalent to 300mm in FF) and focused on an object 100 feet away, it will produce a sharp shot from about 80 feet to a bit over 130 feet... 50 feet depth of field. Now if you instead use an actual 300mm lens on a full frame camera, set to the same f/4 aperture and focused to the same 100 feet distance, the area of sharpness will be from about 96 feet to just over 104 feet... or a little more than 8 feet total.

So this is a good thing if your goal is to have lots of depth of field. However, if you're trying to blur down a background to make a subject stand out... a popular technique for wildlife, portraiture and other types of photography... it will be next to impossible with the P1000 because it's lens apertures "act" like they are much, much smaller as far as depth of field is concerned. You would have a much easier time producing creamy background blur effects with a full frame camera.

On the other hand, this does NOT effect exposure. As far as exposure is concerned, f/2.8 still admits the same amount of light regardless of sensor size (it's the same, relative to sensor size).

flferg Loc: Driftwood, TX

The attached pdf file shows the math.

Attached file:
(Download)

User ID

Howboudat.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

I often remind myself that the "crop factor" is in relationship to the 'field of view' compared to the reference of a full-frame sensor and that it does NOT imply magnification. The sensor is responsible for the field of view and the lens (along with other factors) affect magnification such as extending its distance from the sensor with a bellows or extension tubes.

Iron Sight Loc: Utah

Thanks. Printed in sections at full size the when I measure the printed the results with my digital caliper they correspond very closely with the mm specifications.

Onward to crop factor 😃

epd1947

No, it’s length x width

kmielen Loc: Eastern NC

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format to see a comparison of the sizes and formats of most. The 5.6x is not included in it.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Huh?
.
.

(Download)

User ID

Recite that every night before beddybye.

User ID

Excellent approach using an attachment, so our arithmophobes don’t see anything unless they self-abuze by clicking on the DL. Nice touch.