The only reason I can come up with is that in 1959 Olympus came out with what they called a Half Frame camera. This used the same 35mm film cassettes readily available but gave twice the shots i.e. 48 shots on a 24 shot cassette. It also resulted in a smaller camera body and lenses than the usual 35mm cameras. Strangely though 35mm film cameras were NEVER called Full Frame cameras as far as I can find out.

Also in the days of film photography - YES there were indeed frames in both movie and still cameras – the frame produced a good clear sharp border around the 36mm x 24mm images and the half frame 24mm x 18mm Olympus versions.

So why, I ask, are present day 35mm format digital cameras called Full Frame when there is NOT a frame anywhere within their innards full, half, or otherwise? Nor are there any frames in APS-C or M4/3 or any other digital cameras! Even smart phones don’t have frames.

There’s no logical reason for it as far as I can ascertain but my guess is that the advertising media are the culprits as using the word Full in an advert implies very strongly that one can get nothing better! The same issue has occurred with monitors and TV’s with the media still promoting Full HD as the best one can get.

So so wrong and in no way beneficial in any way shape or form to any aspiring photographer – how often do new users ask questions about full frame/crop sensor etc as they are confused by all the meaningless terms. (Crop sensor another misused and misconstrued term used mainly to denigrate and demean smaller sensor cameras! – but I won’t start on that bag of worms today!)

Anyway – Photographers of the World – please start calling a spade a spade as it will help promote photography as the precise technology it is.

Cheers JohnR

A few days ago I was literally on the verge of buying a Nikon D500. . .BUT just as I was about to go ahead with the purchase a friend (?) told me I better research the murky future of XQD cards before I buy. He says XQD cards are going away and a camera like the D500 is going to have problems when those cards are discontinued by everyone. I have to say, this has caused me to pause and reconsider. I'm wondering if there are any experienced D500 users here who are also concerned about this. He also said Nikon will have to come up with a firmware update to try to make the XQD card slot on the D500 work with the new cf-express cards. . .He says the cf-express cards are the future of card technology. He says there is no way to know if such a firmware update would actually work, or work very well. So now I'm thoroughly confused about whether to invest in this camera or not. It's the right price range for me and has the features I want, but I can't afford to spend this much money only to have an ongoing card problem to deal with. I was so excited to make this purchase but now I'm kinda depressed about the situation. Are there any D500 users who have any thoughts about this? And, of course, the thoughts of any shooters using a different camera model that also uses XQD's would be appreciated. Thanks for reading, and thanks for any ideas you might have about this!

Back in the analog days I used a simple light meter here and there mainly to save film. Once again, I've started looking at light meters and now have a question. (Actually I thought about this years ago.)

If you weren't in a hurry, why couldn't a modern camera be used to get a light reading by holding the camera directly in front of the subject/model and pointing it to where the camera will be taking the image from? I doubt a flash could be used but ambient seems like it could be.

Yes, I know the camera attempts to get an 18% gray but regular light meters go for a similar look.

This is just something I was wondering about.