ralphc4176 Loc: Conyers, GA

I have both APS-C cameras and FF cameras. Unless you are making huge blow-ups, you won't notice the difference between the images/prints from either. If you don't need FF, there's no need to go to the expense (and extra weight) of FF bodies and lenses.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

NO comment.

MikeMck Loc: Southern Maryland on the Bay

Thanks for your comments. I nearly had myself talked into selling my Canon 5D MK III and getting the new 5DS. Now I'm not so sure. I hope this GAS will subside.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

For the example shown here, nothing. However, try making a large print from a smaller sensor camera. Better yet, make a large print of the same scene with a small vs. large sensor.

Since most folks are simply posting to the web, emailing, etc., crop sensor images are fine. I prefer to print my work, the larger the better.
--Bob

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

I'm already here.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Here I am - MFT for several years - current professional work - compiling a pictorial travel guide with 60+ photos - size - you've guessed it 4x3!
If I needed bigger (much bigger) I might think bigger - there again I might not! My private albums are 5x7 or 6x4. What I do is about composition, clarity - a word not often used on the Hog, interest and reality. I discovered that 8x10 is too large for comfortable album viewing.
Too many mediocre photographers become pixel peepers and technofads and spend too much on equipment that will not lift them out of their mediocrity.
Someone in this debate said a portrait was out of focus - many portraits are deliberately de-focussed?
Nikanon are laughing all the way to the bank.

oberuwe Loc: Willowbrook,IL

Hmm that popcorn is goood.......let see how many pages this will get to.

picturesofdogs Loc: Dallas, Texas.

Mirrorless here too.
Anybody got extra butter?

authorizeduser Loc: Monroe, Michigan

My 7 year old Nikon D300 @ 12MP can do a nice 11x14!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I talk about Composition all the time -- ignored most of the time. And yes, portraits are often shot soft or made soft PP. In the film days some photographers put Vaseline on a filter to soften a model's skin. We are not taking medical pathology shots, well most of us aren't anyway.

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

Yes Del, I said it was out of focus.
I'd stop trying to pass yourself off as an expert if I were you Del.
God knows, it took us three years to drag you kicking and screaming backwards out of the SOOC jpg club and now, less than 12 months out of that club and all of a sudden you are a "several years medium format professional" ranting against mediocre pixel peeping photographers???????
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-192301-1.html
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-229172-1.html
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-265510-1.html

Fotomacher Loc: Toronto

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. I am using my "twin sisters" - a D300s and a D700. Some outings I take the DX body and sometimes I take the FX body and sometimes I take both. It depends on where I am shooting, and what I want my final images to look like. I shoot RAW and PP with LR 6 and PSE 13. The only answer that makes sense is that the sensor is a matter of personal preference. All sensors have technical merits and deficiencies. The most imortant part of image capture is the nut holding the camera. Any debate is moot and wastes electrons. JMHO.

jgordon Loc: Boulder CO

I wonder what percentage of images are ever printed -- at any size. My gut tells me that the vast percentage of images these days are viewed on computer screens of various sorts. In any event, that is true in my case. For viewing on a screen, image quality differences between full frame and crop frame cameras might not be a very big deal.

In my youth I made black and white prints in a home dark room and loved the process. The largest prints I made then were 11 x14. I have an urge to get back into making prints but I can't image making any larger than 11 x14 at this point because of the limitations on wall space in my house on which to hang new images. So, for me the potential image quality benefits of a full frame camera don't mean much.

Still, based on reading threads like this one, I think I understand that there are other potential distinctions between full frame cameras and those utilizing crop sensors. Depth of field can be effected by changes in perspective and the ability to crop extensively might be impacted. Maybe the ability to utilize higher ISO values could be a distinction. (I hope I got some of that right -- I am definitely not a techie!} And of course, the ability to make giant prints is impacted. But I haven't found those to be deal breakers for the photography I have done so far.

So here is my not very astounding conclusion: If the use of crop frame camera is getting the job done satisfactorily for a particular photographer, it is a fine tool for the job.

And yet, we all seem to be attracted to threads like this one. Why is that?

WAL

If sensor size doesn’t have a relation to image quality why not just stay with point and shoot cameras?
The variables make these comparisons meaningless.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

Heck, 99% of my stuff is shot with a canon g10 and it is just fine. I go to street fairs and see all these photos of stuff no one buys printed as big as billboards and say to myself: That photographer needs a good art appreciation course and about a year's worth of courses in composing a shot!

I don't print anymore just send stuff via the magic machine so that the family can put what they want on their cell phones!