Canon Photography
Camera crop factor
I’ve been on this forum for a few months now and have also browsed several other wildlife and bird forums. My main interest is in photography of birds rather than birds per se, although I have always (since childhood) had a soft spot for them
I am fairly knowledgeable about digital camera’s and have been involved with CCD’s for the last 15 years.
Whilst perusing different sites, something has struck me. Several people seem to prefer the smaller chips of cameras because it gives them longer reach or equivalent longer focal length. For example, I have a full frame Canon 5D and a 500mm F4 lens that I mostly use for bird photography, then I hear some preferring a 20D/30D with the same lens because of the 1.6 crop factor. They believe they are using a 1.6 x 500 = 800mm focal length, so much better than my system.
Is this a common belief here or does every one realise this is not the case?
Here is a quick question: Which is better for achieving more resolution, 400D or 1DMkIII assuming same lens and same shot conditions?
Adrian
[QUOTE=Photovisions;1008676]I’ve been on this forum for a few months now and have also browsed several other wildlife and bird forums. My main interest is in photography of birds rather than birds per se, although I have always (since childhood) had a soft spot for them
I am fairly knowledgeable about digital camera’s and have been involved with CCD’s for the last 15 years.
Whilst perusing different sites, something has struck me. Several people seem to prefer the smaller chips of cameras because it gives them longer reach or equivalent longer focal length. For example, I have a full frame Canon 5D and a 500mm F4 lens that I mostly use for bird photography, then I hear some preferring a 20D/30D with the same lens because of the 1.6 crop factor. They believe they are using a 1.6 x 500 = 800mm focal length, so much better than my system.
Is this a common belief here or does every one realise this is not the case?
Here is a quick question: Which is better for achieving more resolution, 400D or 1DMkIII assuming same lens and same shot conditions?
Adrian[/QUOTE]
Hi Adrian, I think that most people know that the 1.6 crop factor just gives you a different FOV (field of view) as opposed to a different focal length (a 500mm lens will always be 500mm regardless of the camera).
But there are some advantages in this for bird photography IMO - to crop a full frame camera shot, from say the 5D, to the same FOV as a 1.6 crop factor you will be left with less than 5MP, this in turn gives you less cropability.
I agree with Roy that most people realise you are simply changing the field of view, giving an apparent increase in focal length.
I use a fullframe camera, and regularly crop in quite heavily. Yes this does reduce the megapixel count, but it really depends on what you are outputting - for web and 6X4 prints, 5Mp is more than adequate, for A3+ prints, clearly not.