nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

You've seen all the answers. Now may I correct your (common) misconception?

Crop sensor camera DOES NOT give you "added length and scope". It DOES NOT lengthen a lens. What it DOES is give you a center portion of the image the lens is transmitting, so you get LESS of the scene. The camera then magnifies the image to fill the viewfinder. A crop body CROPS the image a full-frame body would capture with the same lens.

LittleBit Loc: St. Louis, MO

For me it is how well the Composition is focused, and the capability of the camera to capture the colors.

garrickw Loc: Wyoming Mn.

right on

BlackRipleyDog

From Nikon - RAW files are 16-bit files whereas JPEGs are 8-bit files, so a RAW file can contain as many as 65536 levels of each color whereas a JPEG file can contain only 256 shades of each colour. When an image is saved as a RAW file, the digital camera actually captures 12-bits of colour and steps it up to 16-bits.

Sensor size is irrelevant.

LittleBit Loc: St. Louis, MO

So, are you saying for my understanding that: a 50mm lens on a Canon camera doesn't give you the length of 80mm (50mm x 1.6 = 80mm) but in doing so, doesn't capture all of the scene in the photo? But a 50mm lens on a FF camera has the true length of 50mm and captures all of the scene?

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

"Professional photographers" don't necessarily choose FF over Crop Sensor. I would wager that many pros use crop cameras.

I have both FF and crop, but primarily shooting sports and I use crop upwards of 90% of the time. If I were a wedding photog, I'd probably do the opposite. If I were shooting landscape or architecture, I might instead use medium format.

A lot of the time you have no idea what pros use. Many don't reveal the gear they've used to take images.

One reason that pros buy high-end cameras (of any format) is because those usually include the most advanced features and are updated less frequently. Besides the cost involved in upgrading, it also involves a learning process that a pro may not want to have to deal with. Pros aren't quick to give up a familiar, comfortable and highly reliable tool in their arsenal.

A pro who is a staffer of some sort probably has to use what their employer buys for them to use. I bet a lot of the photographers at the Olympics will be staffers using pool cameras provided by their employers. Others on assignment... hired specifically for the event... will use their own gear and won't want to be breaking in a new piece of gear!

Independent photographers use whatever tool gets the job done well, with minimum cost and fuss. It's not uncommon for successful pros to be business people first, photographers second.

Travel photographers might opt for the smallest and lightest kits they can get.

It's a five or six year old article, but every bit as true today as it was then: https://petapixel.com/2014/09/08/pro-camera-really-need-shoot-like-pro/

This article is more up to date and makes an interesting read (if you can get by the frickin' ads!): https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/the-best-cameras-for-professionals

EDIT: A lens on a crop sensor camera doesn't change focal length.... 50mm is still 50mm, regardless the format it's used upon. In fact, 50mm would be an ultrawide on large format 4x5 film camera, wide angle on medium format, while being a "standard" lens (not wide nor telephoto) on a so-called full frame camera, and will act as a short to moderate telephoto on so-called crop sensor cameras such as APS-C and M4/3. Same focal length "behaves differently", depending upon format.

Shooting sports with an APS-C camera my 100-400mm can cover a football or baseball filed pretty thoroughly. If I were using a full frame camera, I'd need a bigger, heavier 150-600mm or an ultra-expensive 200-400mm 1.4X (built in teleconverter to make it a 320-560mm f/5.6).

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The lens has the same 50mm focal length always, on all types of camera. The lens does not magically change when attached to a different camera. The lens projects the same size image circle onto every film size / sensor size within the camera body to which the lens is attached. Again: the lens does not magically change when attached to a different camera.

The only 'magic' is how much of that image circle is captured / retained by the camera from the focused 50mm lens. The resulting image, when compared to the image captured by reference to a 35mm frame of film, the image is cropped by some percentage aka the crop factor. That result is an equivalent field of view. No more, no less.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

It doesn't matter what brand of camera. A crop body will not capture the whole scene as will a FF body, when using the same focal length lens, and shooting from the same position.

(I have used both full frame and crop bodies when shooting digital).

LittleBit Loc: St. Louis, MO

So..what does the 80mm refer to? I'm confused?

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

The crop body CAPTURES the portion of the 50mm field-of-view of the scene that a full-frame body would capture with an 80mm lens. The crop body CROPS OUT scene away from what the wider lens sees.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

It refers to the equivalent field of view.
See CHG_Canon's post - Jan 15, 2020 10:50:38

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

That result is an equivalent field of view. It can be quite tiresome to need to repeat the same response ....

LittleBit Loc: St. Louis, MO

Aw okay!

BebuLamar

This is the reason why you should have FF camera. Saving you the trouble of misunderstanding.

photoman43

I have both FX and DX as my photo needs benefit from the different features of both sensor types already mentioned above. And some FX bodies can be set to DX image area when you need the benefits of a crop sensor. It all comes down to what do you need for your photographic needs? My wife is satisfied with just her cell phone!