I Said Something Interesting on the Internet

From time to time I hear from readers who are pleased that their comments were featured here on TOP. Well, now I know how they feel! Something I said got chosen for Thom Hogan's "Interesting Things Written on the Internet" series.

Turning it around, here's an interesting thing Thom said: sensor progress happens in ticks and tocks. Were you ever assigned something in school that you felt you understood when you read it even though you probably didn't? I somehow I feel I understood this; but I sure hope there's not going to be a test. My main takeaway is that Thom knows a whole lot more about sensor technology than I do or ever will.

Personally, I keep being tempted to say that sensors have been good enough for me for a while now, but then, each time, I remember that I'm not familiar with the entire 45- to 60-MP class of FF cameras, nor am I familiar with the large format digital camera sphere. So maybe I don't know what I'm missing.

Re that subversive "large format" descriptor I just slipped in there, here's my take on sensors (based on what I've seen, not necessarily used). This is just how I think about it in my own mind, mind you—I'm neither saying there's any sense to this nor suggesting that other people should agree.

—Micro 4/3 corresponds to 35mm, a.k.a. 135.
—FF 24x36 (confusingly, the old 35mm size), especially that 45- to 60-MP category, corresponds to medium format, a.k.a. rollfilm, a.k.a. 120/220
—Any camera with a sensor larger than 24x36: corresponds to large format

Of course, within each category there's a whole range of shadings. As with 35mm, Micro 4/3 is handy and light to carry (chiefly because of the smaller lenses), good enough for most purposes, yet it rewards careful craftsmanship with better—and quite good—results. FF these days is overkill for most people (but we like overkill); yields beautiful results even without especially careful use; and can give you the best of both worlds in terms of small/handy/reactive and big/ponderous/complicated. But the culture at the moment prescribes lenses that are over the top in size, weight, and cost. 

Micro 4/3 allows lenses to be smaller and lighter; it gives more "effective" telephoto reach without alarmingly big and expensive lenses (the paucity of ultrawides being largely solved now); gives better effective depth-of-field; and it prints great at reasonable sizes. When Olympus was still making cameras and before Panasonic moved to FF, it was the most fun from a lens nut's perspective, too, as there were all sorts of lenses available for it. There still are, but new lenses have slowed to a trickle like a small crick in drought season.

Digital large format—or "medium format" if you insist—is a small niche like LF was, requiring a lot of sacrifice from the photographer (not just from their wallets, but that too). They make d.o.f a headache, sometimes, and require more optimization and hence more devotion, but yielding the ultimate in enlargement size, detail, and color.

FF (24x36mm) splits the difference, but in my view a little unsatisfactorily. It's the standard these days, and I use it, but it's kinda neither fish nor fowl. The cameras mostly aren't small or portable or nimble, but the image quality isn't quite up to that of LF sensors. That's the one that deserves the sobriquet "middle."

Marvel of sharpness
Despite the above, I conceive of my current 24-MP monochrome Sigma FP(m) as a 4x5 view camera. Pretty strongly. My opinion is that a stripped sensor is visually equivalent to a sensor having about half again more pixels, since it doesn't have to devote pixels to the color array. My 24-MP monochrome sensor looks a whole lot like a sensor with a 36-MP Bayer array. I marvel at the sharpness again and again. I have never once been struck with yearning for more. I work with the FP(m) the same way I once worked with 4x5-inch cameras—often doing more visualizing up front, even to the point of researching locations and returning to specific locations several times; deploying the camera more carefully and using a tripod more often; factoring in the extreme amount of detail I'll get; and generally working more slowly, deliberately, and contemplatively. I seek out subject matter similar to what I looked for with 4x5. Most of all, the results look quite similar to me. My monochrome files look a lot like, and print a lot like, 4x5-inch Ilford HP5 Plus. Except the camera is hugely more convenient and maneuverable, each exposure nearly infinitely cheaper in cost.

I've always thought, and still think, that 4/3 is the ideal digital format...if it were mainstream and the beneficiary of the lion's share of development, which it is not and does not. And the ideal size with film? For me it was 645 (it was cooler in the old days to say 6x6cm, but I always made those into a rectangle), but I never was able to find a 645 camera I even liked, much less loved (not for lack of trying; I was the official medium-format camera reviewer for Darkroom Photography magazine). So I mostly shot with 35mm.

Sensors are good enough now. In conjunction with state-of-the-art software, they're really good. They'll get better, of course, but will people really need them for actual work? I just can't believe there are a lot of people out there whose work is being held back by a sensor that isn't good enough. That might have true for much of the past quarter-century, but not now. If your work isn't good enough, it's unlikely the sensor is to blame.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Luke: "Weren't the early 35mm cameras called 'minicams'? It's all relative."

Mike replies: Yes, it was known as miniature format. And, very early on, a 50mm lens for it was considered wide-angle. The 40mm lens on the Ur-Leica (Oskar Barnack's prototype cameras—there were two, one of which is lost) was perhaps considered radically wide? I've never read anything to that effect, but then, prior to the 1990s when Malcolm Taylor was entrusted to service the Ur-Leica, even Leica didn't know that the lens was a 40mm; it had been assumed that it was a 50mm. The again, the quality of 35mm in those days was not what it was later on, so it was "more miniature," if you will, at the time.

Kenneth Tanaka: "Digital image sensors have unquestionably made remarkable strides during the past twenty years, and they still have some develoments ahead. But the real heavy-lifting behind the rapid refinement in digital imaging has been due to the signal/image processing circuitry and firmware that actually delivers images from the sensor. It's breathtaking to see the quantum leaps these partly-proprietary systems have made across all sensor sizes and form factors."

John Camp: "I got myself a new photo printer that lets me print (without effort) 19" images, and having looked at prints of both Lightroom-treated Nikon Z7II FF and APS-C Fuji X-T5 images, I'll be damned if I can see any difference. I think there may be some, but I'd have to go bigger, but I won't be doing that, so....

"Something else gets tangled up here, and I don't think it gets enough attention. I finally decided I had to get on top of Lightroom, and I've been working hard at it for a couple of months. Lightroom Classic is a marvel, maybe too much of a marvel. Without actually seeing it, it's hard to explain what the denoise feature now does. Maybe the best explanation is that while there are some other issues, there's very little noise in prints shot carefully at ISO 12,800. The program can also be disturbing, especially the masking features. Auto skin smoothing? It's actually eerie. You can take a photo that's mostly a piece of crap and in twenty or thirty seconds, make it into something quite beautiful...and also, somehow, wrong. We're no longer talking about documenting the world as it is, but the world as a photographer wishes it were. Man, the things you can do for a bride...."

Rob L.: "Everything you said is true—if you shoot in daylight. Full frame has a marked advantage the darker it gets, over smaller and larger sensors. More light gathering over APS-C and Micro 4/3, and faster lenses than the larger sensors. Resolution-wise I really wasn't super concerned even with my 6-MP Digital rebel, and then the 10-MP  Nikon D80 was fine, and by the time we hit 16 MP I was reasonably chuffed. But the difference in a 16-to-24-MP 'full frame' at 3200–6400 ISO with an ƒ/1.8 or ƒ/1.4 lens at night in a city, theme park ride, in a cave, or in the woods by a campfire (I have a very specific set of experiences dictated by being a parent and Scoutmaster) make up for the bulk and weight. I dearly loved my Fujis, but Nikon full-frame 24-MP sensors see in the dark."

Stéphane Bosman: "Re 'Micro 4/3 corresponds to 35mm, a.k.a. 135.' Well, there was this:

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/03/when-will-micro-43-equal-medium-format-film-we-have-the-definitive-answer.html

"To appreciate the equivalence, I think we have to take into account two things: 1.) Comparing digital and film is akin to comparing watercolours and oil paint. Neither is better. It is all a matter of taste, really. 2.) The means of exploiting film with what is easily available today. High end scanners are gone. High end enlargers are gone. High-end enlarging optics are gone. Some can be had on the used market, but that is full of uncertainties. My take on the technical side:

• With Micro 4/3, one can do anything one did with medium format.
• FF 45-MP and more are easily at the level of 4x5" film used with today's easily available scanners. That is the Epson V850; I don't know any other that would be better.
• Digital so-called medium format is an improvement over the best FF. I have no idea what the point is at this stage."

Mike replies: I was wondering if anyone would remember that old article you linked! Then I thought, nah, no one remembers old stuff....

Mike Ferron: "I’ve not had much to say on T.O.P in some time, but am still influenced by ideas presented here. I having been long suffering by using an antiquated iMac 24 circa 2015. Slower than slow. Before that a laptop with a non-retina screen. Anyway, when you mentioned the Mac Mini M4, I decided that was the route I needed to take.

"I could not be happier. Very easy to set up even for a non-techie like myself. So when Thom replied to your featured comment and mentioned not all needed the extra speed? Well, trust me ,I did. Thanks for the heads up.

"P.S. I was having the same problem, or so I thought, with the computer not waking up, but found my impatience was the problem. Mine takes about 10–15 seconds after moving the mouse or tapping enter to awake."

Richard Alan Fox: "Yes that is it, the sensor is not to blame. The output of the sensor is the input to the computer; in turn the output of the computer either becomes the input to the printer or to the web or both. It is the computer and software and user determination that processes the sensor output and makes the sensor size almost irrelevant. The answer to better photography is a better photographer."

Comments

[Craig Yuill]

I used to shoot 35mm, 6cm x 6cm, 4in by 5in film images. To my mind 1-inch sensor cameras are equivalent to 35mm film cameras, micro 4/3 and APS-C cameras are equivalent to 6cm by 4.5cm film cameras, and full-frame-sensor cameras are equivalent to 6cm by 9cm or even 4in by 5in film cameras. Whatever the format, digital cameras nowadays are very very good.

[Jeff]

I didn’t buy a faster computer (Mac Studio M2 Ultra) to replace my old Mac Pro tower because I needed faster results (though faster processing is obvious), but in large part because the software I use (Mac O/S and other) keeps improving and ultimately will require hardware that can support all of it. These fancy Macs are no longer internally upgradable, and paying now will save in the long run. My Mac Pro lasted 14 years by continuously upgrading internals; and I hope the M2 will have similar longevity as spec-ed out of the box.

[StephenJ]

"If your work isn't good enough, it's unlikely the sensor is to blame.”

Mike, I do not consider myself a particularly good snapper, but I agree with this, though somehow in reverse.

I have a Foveon powered Sigma Quattro (apsc), and a Leica Q2(ff). I rarely use the former, and I love the latter.

However the camera, that I made my favourite snaps with, required hardly any setting up, it just required me to spot a great composition. As I said, not a great snapper, and that is completely down to me, so my Hasselblad SWC was pretty much wasted on me.

My point though is that the simplest camera was my best camera.

Unfortunately I was lured by Leica into buying the Q2, for all the reasons you state, but sort of the reverse, apart from the weight thing.

The Sigma is really fiddly, the Leica makes wonderful files, that print really well, but the SWC is point and shoot, and that’s it… job done, it really shows me up.

[ugo]

Are you sure that digital full frame corresponds to 120 film? I've seen a lot of prints done from 120 film and they are very far from what my cheap aps-c Pentax gives me when my cheap Tamron zoom nails focus (rarely). I have the impression that digital full frame has the resolution of sheet film, 5x7 or larger, but without the depth of field limitations. That is, much more than needed.

[Tom Burke]

So where would you place APS-C? Lot of APS-C cameras out there - older DSLRs and newer mirrorless.

Looking back, I have a feeling that the 24MP APS-C sensors were perhaps the sweet spot for that size sensor. Any more (e.g Canon's 32 MP sensor as used in the 90D and now the R7) and you run into issues with the photosites being very small.

[Dave Millier]

As someone who shoots m4/3, aps-c, FF 35mm (60MP) and 44x33mm medium format, I can say in practice I don't really find any image quality difference between them. I'm sure that if I were printing 50" wide prints, I'd find small differences, but in my favoured size of 12"x12", I find the image quality indistinguishable. This is still true when I print 150MP square stitches from my Fotodiox Rhinocam Vertex rotary stitch adaptor and Pentax 645 lenses. There is only so much real detail a printer can lay down on paper per inch, and that seems to be the limitation. At the 12" tall print size, all my cameras out-perform the printer/ink/paper.

I use MF camera primarily for long exposure work and it is excellent at this. The MF camera has the ability to shoot multi-minute exposures without needing LENR (which would double exposure time), it has shutter speeds to 1 hour and doesn't need a cable release or Bulb mode. A great convenience in an inconvenient genre.

My m4/3 has mostly been supplanted by my A7Riv which is an oversized m4/3, aps-c and FF camera all in the same body - a body which is smaller than my m4/3 camera. I particularly enjoy using it in FF mode with my 85mm f/1.4 and in m4/3+ mode with a 18-135 superzoom. I do love a good superzoom for handheld work. I even have a superzoom for the MF camera, an adapted Tamron 28-300mm Canon EF mount lens. I find it useful, even if MF purists would throw up their hands in horror. What works, works.

I agree, sensors are good enough these days for almost everything. People worry too much about the quality of gear, it's all good.

[Dan Khong]

I am old school who grew up during the era when 35mm (24x36) format was considered "miniature".

APS-C is nice but that makes my vintage lenses built for 35mm photography longer in focal length by 1.5x.

Now with a relatively cheap FF Canon camera like the EOS-RP, and with the right adapter, I am able to use my vintage lenses all over again at their designated focal length.

[Speed]

Doesn't choice of format depend on how the camera will be used -- what the final product will be with respect to print or "on line" for example? Posters or 3 x 5 keepsakes?

[Albert Smith]

Left out of this posting, any mention of APS-C. I use(d) full frame when I could afford my first model the Nikon D700, after using the 18-24mm APS-C Nikon cameras, which I always looked at as inferior, probably as a carry over from decades of film shooting where size really mattered.

I went back to APS-C with Fujifilm based on size and weight, but also the improved sensor and processor which gives me better image quality than that 12mp Nikon D700 camera.

If razor thin selective focus is not needed, I'll pick APS-C as the ideal digital format.

[Stephen S.]

It is often said to be a limitation of Micro 4/3 that is harder to achieve shallow depth-of-field with it than FF, but during the days of shooting 135 film, most lenses for 24x36 weren't all that sharp until stopped down to f/8 I find Micro 4/3 lenses are quite sharp at f/4, which gives the exact same depth-of-field, so it's definitely a corresponding format to me. Add in image stabilization that is so good I can leave my tripod at home for most things, and things sure are better than they used to be!

[Rene Theberge]

Mike, Where does APCS fit in this framework?

Rene

[Dave Levingston]

I sort of agree with your designations of digital vs film formats...however, M43 is vastly superior to any 35mm film. "Full frame" digital seems to me to be at least equal to 4x5 film. So I guess I'd move them all up a notch for equivalency.

Of course, this only applies to image quality. I always considered the shallower depth of field of medium format as an advantage, not a problem. I don't think even the "larger than full frame" digital cameras get anywhere close to the shallow focus of medium format film, let alone view cameras.

[SteveW]

Agree regarding sensors, my Nikon D750 sensor (2014) was plenty good enough for me. I have no complaints with my Fuji X-T5 sensor, 40mp is more than I need and I'd be happy with 24-26mp.

"My monochrome files look a lot like, and print a lot like, 4x5-inch Ilford HP5 Plus."

Do you add grain? (Just curious)

[No, but you can't see grain with 4x5 HP5+ at normal print sizes. --Mike]

[Adrian]

Famous quote: “if your photographs are not good enough, you’re not close enough.” Capa didn’t say anything about sensor size.

[Jeff Markus]

Mike, I find that your comparison of digital sensor formats in relation to film formats aligns pretty much with my own rough approximations. It is quite extraordinary just how good digital at its present state of the art can be. And that even extends to older digital hardware when it is paired up with current processing software.

During the covid lockdown I became curious about the Fuji X sensors, and in order to keep expense to the minimum, picked up a Fuji X20 compact to play with. Loved the image quality the camera was capable of producing when given lots of light; it was very pretty from the front, and to my eye looked like a mini version of a screw-mount Leica. The idea of a Leica in my pocket, with a very versatile zoom to boot, was enticing. The lens seemed to be up to the challenge. But I didn't like the optical eye-level finder at all and the rear finder was fixed rather than being of the tilting variety, which I find to be a great knee-saver for us old guys.

Did my research and found out that Fuji had replaced that model with the X30, which had an excellent evf and a tilting rear finder. The lens and sensor were unchanged. Eureka! Took a couple of years to track down a clean copy at a rational price, but worth the wait.

Earlier this year I decided to find out just what this lens/sensor combo was capable of achieving under optimal, but real world, shooting conditions. I chose a couple of images from 2022 shot at base ISO (100), at the sharpest aperture (f/4.5), and at a very fast shutter speed (1/1000 and over) to eliminate any possibility of motion blur. The images are very sharp, with no evident noise and good gradation. One image was at an equivalent focal length of 54mm, the other at 89mm, within the broad sweet spot of the 28-112 f/2 to 2.8 zoom. The 12 megapixel sensor is a 2/3" type, which is 1/4 the area of a m4/3 sensor, which is in turn 1/4 the area of a full frame sensor. So quite small.

I proceeded to attempt a 2x uprez, trying out the several different algorithms available for output in Iridient Developer. In each case there was much juggling of sharpening, contrast, and noise reduction at both the input and output stages. Iridient offers a very broad range of controls for these factors. The files then went back to PhotoNinja, from which they had originally come, and more sharpening-contrast-noise reduction adjustment was done.

In the end the experiment was successful. Both files were sufficient to print, at very high quality, a 21x28 image area @ 300PPI. At 240ppi, which would be quite reasonable for this print size, the result is a 24x32 printed area; given a 3 inch border top/bottom and 4 inches on the sides for handling purposes, you have a 30x40.

To me that's mighty impressive result for a camera that weighs one pound and can be carried in a small pouch hung on my belt. In the mid-1980's I was involved in a project to produce a suite of 30x40 gallery quality prints from 35mm B+W negs. The logistics and technical problems that arose were surprisingly difficult and the costs were extremely high.

My understanding of the relative quality of the images created by small vs large sensors is that the differences that can most readily be seen at the print stage are primarily the size that can attained by a given file, more pixels = larger print. The quality of the X30 image is quite good, but small. Some of that difference can be made up by uprezzing the small file without giving up any print quality. I expect that using state of the art AI uprezzing, which I have not yet tried, would enable even larger prints without a perceived loss in print quality. The fact that more pixels = more detail would be a limiting factor, but it is my understanding that AI is able to somewhat mitigate that problem even now, and at this early stage of its development is improving quickly. The latest full frame sensors have the advantage of several stops more dynamic range than the X30, but I believe that even the 12 year old Fuji tech has more range than the color films that it replaced.

One important factor for me in comparing sensors is the size of what I would describe as their exposure sweet spot. Other commenters have touched on this as well. With the little Fuji, for my typical usage case, that sweet spot is f/4 to f/4.5 at base ISO of 100. Changing the aperture by even a third of a stop goes outside of the optimum range and a decrease in resolution can be easily seen when viewing the file at 100%. Increase the ISO by one stop to 200 and noise will pop up in the shadows. This sweet spot is pretty much as restrictive as it could possibly be. Jump over to an APS-C size Sony sensor and it takes four-thirds of a stop aperture change to see an appreciable difference in resolution and a three stop
bump to ISO to see much noise come into play.

I've seen examples of full frame and larger camera output that truly amaze me with their capability to produce very large prints, but I have no personal experience with them. I shoot primarily out on the streets, so compact size and minimal weight are important to me. Also, at many of the locations where I shoot here in LA it would be very foolish to be carrying thousands of dollars worth of equipment. My collection of smaller sensor cameras, (1", m4/3 and APS-C), some of them now ten years old, have been sufficient. The Fuji, with its ability to punch above its class, has been added to the rotation.

[John McMillin]

After using the Pentax K-1 for years, I got a K-3lll. Then, recently, an Olympus OM-1. I haven't mastered the OM-1 yet, with all its computational modes. All three cameras are nice in their own way, but here's the sensor-related differences:

Detail- With high quality Olympus Pro lenses, this Micro Four Thirds camera has this aspect of image quality nailed. They're sharp at 100%, and very good at 200% view in LR. With the Pentaxes, I judge equivalent sharpness at 300%, but difference is nothing any ordinary person would see online

Dynamic Range - This is where the Pentaxes shine. They give a perfectly malleable RAW file that allows me to use 100% of highlight reduction and shadow lift with no ill effects. The exposure latitude is hemispheric. The Oly will blow highlights on winter ice or cloud highlights if I'm not careful.

Noise - The K-1 is best of the three, of course. The OM-1 can be noisy even at three-digit ISOs... or not. I've had stage performance around 1600 that showed almost no grain, but evenly-lit indoor scenes can show grain as low as 640. Current Adobe noise reduction is an effective leveler here, if you take the time.

There's one other difference between these camera systems and formats that matters to me: aspect ratio. My K-1 offers OVF crop lines for APS-C and square format. I find that quite useful, especially with primes. The K-3lll has 1.3x crop lines intended for video, and 1:1. But none of them have crop lines for 4:3, which is my most favored aspect ratio. I ran through too many orange boxes of Agfa 8x10" paper, back in the day; that shape just looks more like "art." Other makers have avoided the 4:3 shape since it's become a trade name for their Micro 4/3 competitors. Most of my 2:3 images get cropped to 4:3, especially the verticals.

The OM-1 shoots in any common aspect ratio. Most modern mirrorless cameras do too, I suppose. But it's the one that does 4:3 as a native format, using all the lens' capabilities and viewfinder real estate. That could be the tie-breaker for me. Having three systems does't make much sense to me. If I were to sell one, it would be the APS-C K-3lll, keeping the FF and MFT because they're so different. In film terms, FF is print film, accurate and forgiving, and MFT is slide film: punchy, colorful, demanding.

[Hank]

As an addendum to the discussion: Stephen Shore did a series on the (then) new Hasselblad X1D (50MP). He said in several interviews that he felt the 50MP sensor was the equal of 8x10 film.