What's the difference between a half-frame camera and a full-frame camera?

The following answer comes from the personal experience of a non-photographer, 10 years of photography!

What's the difference between a half-frame camera and a full-frame camera?

Thank the questioner for asking such excellent questions. Why is this question so excellent? Because it reminds me of my photography career.

I seriously entered the fantasy world of photography from a half-frame camera. The first camera in life is Nikon D300s, a professional half-frame flagship camera. In the next two years' study and practice, D300s brought me unparalleled photographic experience and a lot of troubles. I still remember that Nikon's full-frame camera at the same time was Nikon's D700. My partner at that time had a D700, which was an excellent full-frame camera. I made a comparison and realized that the difference between D300s and D700 comes from several aspects:

1. Change of focal length. I always like to use a fixed-focus lens with a large aperture. At that time, my lens was 50 mm 1.8f, and I used the 50 mm lens on the D300s for such a long time. On the D700, we found that the viewing angle widened and the bust was taken at the same distance. Judging from the photos obtained, the figure is a little far away from me, and the background behind me was taken from a wider angle. I just found out on my half-frame fuselage that the ability of the lens is "discounted". Originally, the Quan Huafu lens was used on the half-frame fuselage, and the focal length multiplied by 1.5, and the 50 mm lens became 75 mm

2. The change of depth of field. Besides the change of focal length, it brought me an intuitive feeling. I carefully compared the photos taken by different bodies with the same lens and parameters, and the depth of field of full-frame camera is shallower under large aperture. The joy of half a camera with a large aperture lens to take photos with shallow depth of field has given me a deeper experience of Quan Huafu's fuselage.

3. Changes in sensitivity. Soon after I felt the cooperation between the full-frame camera and the lens, which brought me a more profound and pleasant photographic experience, I decided to spend money on Nikon's full-frame camera D800. D800 brings me a better photographic experience than D700, which comes from the continuous improvement of sensitivity. I remember that when shooting a wedding with D300s, in many cases, the sensitivity is set to 800, and noise will jump all over the screen. But in those years when I made a wedding documentary with D800, I decided to adjust the sensitivity to automatic. The lower limit of sensitivity is 100, and the upper limit is 2000 (sometimes 3200). Even if the sensitivity is 2000, the film quality is better than the 800 of D300s. Nikon d800 is a camera that I used four years ago. At present, I use Nikon d4s, and the sensitivity can be easily changed to 6400.

4. The gap in image quality. Let's take the comparison between D300s and D700 as an example. After all, it is inhuman to compare D300s with d4s. The picture quality of D700 is better than that of D300s, but the pixels are lower than that of D300s. Why is the former pixel lower than the latter, but the picture quality is better than him? This question once bothered me. At that time, I just started to contact digital images, thinking that the bigger the pixels, the better. Finally, I found that the bigger the photosensitive element, the better. In fact, the difference between the two cameras is 6.5438+0 million pixels. However, with the same pixel per inch, the larger the sensor size, the better. This technology has not been broken. Therefore, in order to make the image quality change by leaps and bounds, we must constantly increase the area on the sensor, so there are Hasselblad and Freescale, and the price is also the same. ...

5. Breakthrough of half-frame camera. I don't like the heavy professional-grade SLR camera in my daily family life shooting, so I bought myself a relatively literary semi-frame micro-single Fuji XT- 1 with a lens of 35 1.4f (equivalent to 52.5mm focal length) to shoot children. Although the half-frame camera can't break through the focal length difference between the full-frame camera and the half-frame camera, I can feel that Fuji's micro-single lens has made great efforts in controlling the depth of field. The aperture of the 35 lens is fully open, and the focus is smooth and sharp. Jiao Wai's shooting is unique and Ruili. Moreover, the direct color of the photos of Fuji micro-camera is far better than that of Canon and Nikon (many people have this conclusion). In terms of sensitivity, Fuji's full range of half-frame micro-single, the highest available sensitivity reached 1600. Although it is short compared with Quan Huafu's camera, I believe that the improvement of usable sensitivity will definitely break through the size limit of the imager in the near future.

To sum up: in fact, technology is still developing by leaps and bounds, and the gap between half-frame cameras and full-frame cameras is gradually shortening (the invention of back-illuminated sensors is an example). I hope that the concepts of full-frame camera and half-frame camera will become more and more blurred in the future. It doesn't matter who buys it then, whoever buys it cheaply will want it!

I'm Dama Klein from the photography field, and I'm very happy to share my experience and understanding of photography over the years, hoping to help you.

There is a certain gap between half frame and Quan Huafu, so the amount of information obtained by pixels is also different. Small frames will have less information, large frames will absorb more, and the visual observation of photo texture will be different.

I'm Gavin, a photographer, and I want to share my feelings: Quan Huafu and Half Frame (mainly APS-C). I hope I can solve your confusion.

Secondly, Quan Huafu's tolerance and low light environment are more advantageous than half a picture. After all, manufacturers still put cutting-edge technology on full-frame cameras in order to widen the gap between different grades of cameras.

Third, the difference in portability. Half-frame cameras are generally lighter and smaller than those in Quan Huafu, but with the appearance of micro-cameras in Quan Huafu, the gap is getting smaller and smaller. So it mainly depends on the budget.

Finally, due to the difference of frames, the actual equivalent focal length of a lens with the same focal length is different between half frame and Quan Huafu, so you should choose your own lens according to different subjects.

Generally speaking, don't be infatuated with Quan Huafu. Half-frame cameras are fully capable of most shooting environments. With the help of later software, the gap will be smaller and smaller. I think the biggest difference is the user's psychology, professional and non-professional feelings.

I hope to have friends who like photography, pay attention to each other and learn and progress together!

The full-frame camera that photographers usually say is a camera with a sensor area of 36 x 24 mm, which is as big as the 135 film used before.

Sony A7 series, a typical full-width machine.

The medium format camera is actually a 120 camera for film. 120 camera

The width of the film is 60mm, including 45X60mm (commonly known as 645), 60X60mm (commonly known as 66), 60X70mm (commonly known as 67), 60X80mm, 60X90mm, and even 60X 170mm (commonly known as 6 17), which actually exceeds the middle frame. The medium format sensor in the digital age is developed based on 45X60mm, but it is smaller than this specification. But it is three times larger than the so-called full-width machine. The corresponding lens is also bigger and heavier.

60X60mm classic, Hasselblad 503

Hasselblad H6D medium format camera in digital age.

Feel the huge volume difference between these two cameras.

In fact, it is mainly the difference brought by the size of photosensitive elements, and other aspects are not as exaggerated as everyone thinks.

In the photography circle, I often hear the phrase "big kills people", which has many advantages, such as:

High sense is better;

Under the same pixel, the overall single pixel area is larger (not to mention the advantage as a high pixel machine);

Therefore, it is best to have a full picture in one step. Both the lens and the fuselage have advantages over the half-picture. Because the whole picture also has cheap entry options in price, unlike those behind which ordinary people can't afford to play.

But many people say that it is unscientific to earn a bigger perspective in half a frame. The so-called perspective conversion is based on the whole frame. For a better understanding, if you have been using half a frame, choose the lens according to the half-frame perspective. As long as the number of lenses is sufficient, it is not afraid of wide angle, and the photosensitive element as small as a mobile phone still has wide angle.

Thanks to the invitation of the platform, a penny is worth a penny. If you insist that the C-format camera is not necessarily worse than Quan Huafu, there is no way out. If the half-frame camera is very good, there is no need to produce or import it into Quan Huafu. In fact, many people who study photography have gone through a detour from amateurs to fullness at the beginning. Why don't camera manufacturers directly produce Quan Huafu instead of half-frame? To put it bluntly, this is a doorway for small Japan to make money. Let the photographer pay for half a picture and finally have to pay for it. Finally, they must buy the whole painting, half of which is complete. In this case, you can almost buy the lens by paying half the price of the picture. Therefore, I suggest beginners to buy a full-frame camera directly in one step, instead of taking the detour of losing money.

Of course, half a camera also has its advantages. Although the pixels are low and the picture quality is poor, it is faster than some full-frame cameras, such as the king of half-frame cameras, Nikon D500, a C-frame SLR camera. At present, the price of this half-frame camera is higher than that of many full-frame cameras. It is a weapon for shooting wild animals and birds and has a large number of users. Its quality is very good, because it uses AF processor of Nikon flagship machine D6 and its modules. In fact, this C-format SLR camera is equipped with the heart of D6, so so far, the sales of this half-frame camera have been very good. It is said that there will be an upgraded version of D580 next year. Canon's half-frame machine may not be as good as Nikon D500.

(Photo of birds was taken in Baihualing, Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan)

People always ask this question. In fact, this problem is no longer a problem today. If it had been put forward ten years ago, this question would still be a problem.

Ten years ago, low-pixel cameras were really inferior to Quan Huafu.

10 years ago, the image sensor of the digital camera at that time was only 5-8 million pixels, and the size is now half a frame. Suddenly one day, Kodak, the inventor of digital camera, announced to the world that they had produced an image sensor with pixels over1000000, and it was a Quan Huafu with the same film size as 135. Internet and newspapers have reported this news, which is a breakthrough of image sensor. Studies have shown that if the number of pixels of a digital camera exceeds 6.5438+million, it can be comparable to film. At that time, Kodak developed such an image sensor, and the pixel reached an unprecedented13 million.

At that time, 5-8 million pixels, compared with Quan Huafu's130,000 pixels, was really a bit stretched. So it also leaves people with a concept that Quan Huafu is better than half a frame.

With the continuous development and breakthrough of image sensor technology, there are now more than 60 million image sensors in Quan Huafu, and the pixels of half-frame image sensors exceed 20 million, and some reach 30 million. It can be said that the scene where people used to buy cameras to talk about pixels no longer exists today. For photography, pixels are no longer a technical bottleneck. Quan Huafu and half-frame can fully meet the needs of high-quality photography.

But people's ideas have not changed. They still think that Quan Huafu is better than half a frame.

Although more than ten years have passed, Quan Huafu's idea of being better than half a frame has been deeply rooted in people's hearts, forming an unchangeable consumption consciousness.

The only way to compare the advantages and disadvantages of image sensors is to enlarge the images they take to the limit format for comparison. If we are in the usual photographic format, there is no difference between the two. For online submission, the long side should not be larger than 65,438+0,000 pixels. Even if the number of pixels is so low, how can Quan Huafu feel? We participated in the film festival, and the largest photo is 25 inches. This screen size and half a frame pixel are more than enough to meet this requirement. If there is a large advertisement, 10 meter or 20 meters, I will tell you that such a large picture does not need a picture with high pixels, and half a frame is enough, because the pixels are too large, on the one hand, the computer of the advertising company cannot calculate, on the other hand, the advertising inkjet printer does not have such high resolution. Many advertising companies' large-scale advertisements are actually low-pixel pictures downloaded from the Internet.

Of course, there are also Quan Huafu users in Quan Huafu, but for photographers, a half-frame camera is enough, because the number of pixels in the present half-frame camera far exceeds that in Quan Huafu in the past.

As for problems such as low light and high sensitivity, you will know where the gap is when you use it.

In a word, both full-frame cameras and half-frame cameras can meet the needs of high-quality photography, and there is no substantial photography difference between them except the size difference.

I use a very simple example to illustrate the difference between a full-frame camera and a half-frame camera, which makes many people who misunderstand a half-frame camera think that the focal length of their lens is 1.6 times longer, which seems to be profitable. Is that so?

A very popular example, the main difference between full frame and half frame is the size of CMOS sensor. I compare Quan Huafu to a basketball court and a half-frame camera to a basketball court. The pixels on a Quan Huafu and a half-frame camera are the same. I compare each pixel with a person. If there are 10000 pixels, it is 1 10,000 people. If 10,000 people are in a basketball court, there should be no problem. Zoom in, everyone can still be good. Then we know that the contrast between Quan Huafu and half-frame is mainly in the image quality, with the same brand of cameras.

Then the same brand of Quan Huafu and half-frame and their prices are also different. Quan Huafu is positioned as a quasi-professional and the price is relatively high, while the half-frame is positioned as an amateur and mid-range camera, and the price is lower than that of the brand Quan Huafu. Of course, in the meantime.

The important difference between a full-frame camera and a non-full-frame camera lies in the size of the photosensitive original. Quan Huafu digital camera means that its photosensitive original is the same size as the traditional 35mm film camera. However, CMOS with film size less than 35mm belongs to a non-full-frame camera. The most common half-frame camera is APS-C, and the original size of full-frame camera is 22.3 mm x14.9 mm. ..

Compared with non-full-frame cameras, full-frame cameras have great advantages in imaging quality and lens application. Full-frame camera has good imaging and excellent noise reduction, and the exposure latitude is bigger.

The truncated camera has developed to the present and is very mature; I have used Canon 6D and Nikon D 810; Starting with Nikon D80. At present, I work in M6 Canon and own Fuji X-H 1. Because the sensor of truncated camera is smaller than that of full-frame camera, the focal length ratio is larger; Moderate pixels, convenient post-processing; Can meet the print output of 350 lines, and can be competent for taking pictures of most commercial printed matter; And the video has also been greatly improved. At present, the mainstream shearing machines are Sony A6400, Canon M5/6, Nikon 5600, Panasonic GH series and Fuji X-T3/30.

Full-frame camera sensor is larger (same as 135 film area, so it is called Quan Huafu), sensitivity tolerance is larger, image quality is more delicate at high sensitivity, background blur is better when shooting with large aperture, and depth of field is deeper when shooting with small aperture; Of course, the price is also more expensive, and the price of the lens used is also more expensive. Especially in recent years, the number of pixels of full-frame cameras has generally increased to about 50 million, which requires the use of higher-equipped computers for post-processing.

Personally, for photographers and ordinary business users, an excellent cutting camera is enough.