Full frame vs Crop Sensor is the most heated debate going on right now. While both have their own pros and cons, we are going to lay them out in this article to give you the clarity to Choose what’s best for you.
The first thing you would notice when you compare a full frame sensor with the crop sensor is the size of the sensor and it is a huge factor which determines the quality of the image that is being formed. The size of a full frame sensor is 36mm*24mm and anything smaller than that is a crop sensor but the commercially available crop sensor cameras usually have a 1.5x crop. What this essentially means is that if you divide the diagonals of both the sensors, the result will be 1.5.
Full frame diagonal/Crop sensor diagonal = 1.5
While a bigger sensor obviously produces better quality images, the most concerning inconvenience is the price tag that comes along with the camera and the lenses,
Whereas the crop sensor cameras and lenses come in with decent price tags.
And when you go for a crop sensor camera, One thing you should definitely factor in is the Equivalent Focal length. What is this?
Let’s say that you have a full frame camera with a 24mm lens. The focal length of the image obtained will also be that of the same 24mm.
But let’s take a crop sensor camera with a 24mm lens, since the image gets cropped, the complete 24mm will not be used, Only a part of it will be used and this is determined by multiplying the focal length with the crop factor.
So for a crop sensor camera with a crop factor 1.5, the equivalent focal length would be 24*1.5 = 36mm.And this should be factored in when you’re buying new lenses or even framing the shots.
Today, with the exponential technological advancements, crop sensor cameras perform so much better and sometimes on par with full frame cameras in well lit situations. So if budget isn’t an issue, you can go for the full frame lineups, but if it is, go for crop censored cameras and focus more on buying quality lenses and good lights as that can help you close the gap between crop sensor cameras and full frame cameras.
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