Juy Loc: Delaware

I see and hear all the time that if you have a so called crop sensor you have more reach or magnification with a given lens.
From everything I have read or appear to understand, this is not the case. The thing that changes is the field of view. The object or subject does not get anymore magnification nor enlargement you simple get a narrower field of view.
Yes when compared to a full frame sensor the crop appears just that a crop of the full frame.
Am I wrong in my thinking ? It just gets me that people keep posting my 600mm has an effective focal length of 860mm leading everyone to believe you have greater reach.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It has the field of view equivalent of an 860mm full-frame lens.
You'll have more success changing the world, or at least maybe more satisfaction ...

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

You know why - the image it takes has as much "reach" as a lens longer by crop factor. Field of view defines "reach".

BlackRipleyDog

This notion drives me nuts as well. Kind of like this belief in Russian Collusion. Irrational but it makes sense to some people.
For example - project an image onto a white index card. Then lay a white business card down onto the index card. The business card shows only the center portion of the image being projected. It is not magnified or enhanced in any way. Just a smaller surface. The same with sensors of different sizes.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

You have been here long enough to know better than to insert politics into discussions. Take it to the Attic.

Mike

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

In practice it is a distinction without a difference.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Print a 4x6 from a full frame camera with a 50mm lens and print the same shot from the exact same place with an APS-C sensor camera with a 50mm lens and tell me that the print from the crop sensor does not give the impression it was zoomed in. Ergo, greater reach.

A 100mm lens on an APS-C crop sensor will give the same field of view, and look like, a 150mm used on a full frame.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

If you have followed the advertising for crop sensor cameras over the years, you will have noted that the "crop factor" was invented by and promoted by the manufacturers. As far as I can tell, it was originally intended to accomplish several things, but ended up doing it in a way that confused many and over-complicated the issue for many others. The focal length of a standard lens for these cameras is somewhere around 35mm, rather than the old standard of 50mm (or 40 or 42mm, in the minds of some) for full frame cameras using 135 film (24x36mm images).

All that should have been necessary was to simply state this simple fact. But as is often the case with advertising directed at "nerdy" groups, instead of reason, the advertising developed into a big hoopla in order to try to generate enthusiasm in a group not necessarily given to enthusiasm where raucously artificial enthusiasm wasn't really even needed. (Ever been to a robotics meet?) It also sort of covered up a pretty significant shortcoming early in the life of crop sensor cameras...the absence of effective and affordable extremely wide angle lenses, which has been pretty hard to accomplish there until fairly recently.

The result is that something whch should never have even been a "thing" has become a major stumbling block and point of confusion for a large number of folks. I continue to maintain that all discussion of crop factor is an unnecessary waste of time and energy. Especially since there are multiple sensor formats and therefore multiple different crop factors when trying to compare them. All that is necessary is to know what the focal length of a "normal" lens happens to be for the format that you are using. Anything less than that is wide angle and anything longer is telephoto. It's as simple as that.

BlackRipleyDog

Like I said, irrational. This issue of reach is the same.

BebuLamar

Who thinks so?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

All the cool kids in the wrong crowd ...

BlackRipleyDog

The argument comes from using the same FF lens on both a DX and an FX body. That is where the fallicy of "reach" comes from.

You have to compare a DX lens on a crop body and a FF lens on a FX body that are equivilants in focal length and field-of-view to get reasonably identical images.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

If you use Windows; select a JPEG file; right-click and select "Preview"; then put the cursor in the picture; and scroll the mouse in (forward), are you cropping, zooming, or mousing(/s)? Changing the field of view maybe?
Same effect with a crop sensor.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

If if you have only ONE lens that works on both cameras, what do you call the difference in the images for the same focal length? Cropped? Zoomed? Optically adjusted? Which one looks like it has more reach into the scene?

Which has more reach: a 100mm lens or a 150mm lens?

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

In my experience, when an object fills more of the frame on a smaller sensor, the camera captures more detail. Maybe the autofocus is more accurate, but for whatever reason, this seems to be the outcome. I have experimented using the same lens and target and distance and settings with a FF, DX, and CX sensor, and the smaller the sensor, the more detail is captured. The DX captures more detail than the FX, and the CX captures the most detail when the images are cropped to the same view in post processing. The equivalent focal lengths for the three sensors with a 300mm lens are 300mm, 450mm and 810mm respectively. I've found this to be true with birds, with a small flag stuck in the grass and with the full moon.