andymac

I have purchased the Nikon Z8 for my first jump to mirrorless. The camera is Full Frame with the op to put it into crop frame mode. Knowing that wildlife photographers - especially bird photographers - often use a crop frame camera for extra "reach" with their prime lenses: my question to owners of high megapixel full frame sensor cameras that have a crop mode is - in your experience is the ultimate resolution / sharpness of an image (using the same lens) better shot FF then cropped or shooting in crop mode for an equivalent bird image size? For some of you - you have enough understanding of the math to analyze this in those terms and ultimately it may show this to be a mute question as you may end up with the same file size (before processing) in either choice. Then again, the sharpness of the lens may be advantaged in one choice or the other. I do not think I'm technically knowledgable enough to analyze this correctly. Thoughts, knowledgable analysis or real experience testing this would be appreciated. My Z8 is to arrive today so I may run my own empirical tests soon. Thanks

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

The quality should be the same, but shooting in full frame and then cropping has the advantage that you can choose exactly where the crop should be, or if it should be cropped more or less than crop mode would give you.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Shooting full frame lets you have a little better situational awareness through the viewfinder.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Z8 is 19.4 MP in crop mode VS most APSC are 24 MP so you take a real hit in detail. Some crop have 40 and 32 MP nearly double and over double to the Z8 in crop mode.
Perhaps shoot FF and if cropping is needed do it sparingly.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

I have a Z9 and the only reasons to shoot in crop mode are if you’re using a DX lens and are forced to or if you’re shooting JPEG’s for a special purpose and what to reduce the file size. I never do either. I’d much rather crop in post where I control the crop.

neillaubenthal

In addition to cropping…in which case you might crop to something bigger than DX and thus more than 19.4MP…it's a lot easier to keep the BIF in the frame in FF. I tried using DX and found it more difficult on my Z9 than using FF and cropping as needed later…and my Z8 is a gripless Z9 essentially…so I mostly leave it in FF. I might consider DX if I was having card space issues…or if I wanted or needed longer bursts for some reason and FF was choking a bit. OTOH, I don't shoot 20FPS much and slowing it to 15 essentially makes it a bottomless buffer for me.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Switching to DX or one of the other "smaller" formats results in a significantly deeper buffer on every full frame Nikon I own or have owned in the past.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

True, but buffer has never been an issue on my Z9.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

Beat me to my point. Crop mode eliminates the contribution of more than half the pixels! That hurts detail.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

True, but I crop images from 20mp cameras and still get good prints. My D40 was 6mp and I have 16x20 prints that are excellent. I still don’t use crop mode because I prefer having the full frame and doing my own cropping.

Archiefamous Loc: Manhattan

DX allows for better autofocus in distant or dark settings

Archiefamous Loc: Manhattan

DX allows for better autofocus in distant or dark settings

george19

The reach is artificial in that it just reduces the area of the sensor that is recorded. Better to do that yourself from a full frame image.

Back when, cameras were advertised with ‘digital zoom’. Same thing. No need to waste time going there.

The only time I ever went to cropped sensor in my Z7ii was to minimize storage size of images on a property I was documenting.

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

Also is DX mode you are using the sharpest part of your lens, the middle part, not the edges.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Much of the discussion is moot, if we realize that AI deNoise, Sharpening, and resolution increasing during post-processing works wonders unimagined a decade ago. Using burst frame video to capture a 1/60th of a moment is a great advantage. Too easy to fall into the classic mpix hype of the mpix race battle between camera brands. Our photo world has changed significantly and one must revamp thinking just as we did when digital knocked on our photo door, who and what was that stranger to diehard darkroom people?

Cameras with 1" sensors are lightweight, which is important when on a field trip. Zoom lenses replace multi lenses. Traveling light is important. Ms Stokes discusses the virtue of lightweight cameras in her professional work. The Canon SX50 she used, was much better than allowed for a small 1/2.3 sensor camera~! amazingly so.
http://stokesbirdingblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/canon-sx-50-hs-for-bird-photography-i.html

Does sensor size really matter?
https://capturetheatlas.com/camera-sensor-size/