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What is the Difference Between Full Frame and Crop Frame?

Lesson 6 from: SLR Lounge Live Q and A and Image Critique

Pye Jirsa

What is the Difference Between Full Frame and Crop Frame?

Lesson 6 from: SLR Lounge Live Q and A and Image Critique

Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

6. What is the Difference Between Full Frame and Crop Frame?

Lesson Info

What is the Difference Between Full Frame and Crop Frame?

I'd love to move on to some gear questions about that. All right, So first from Kay Simpson photography, what is the difference between a full frame format camera, FX and a digital and DX? And when would you want one Over the other. Okay, um, repression. So let's just draw. I gotta think about this while I'm writing. They I keep selling things on crop frame. Okay, so, Thies I kind of miss numbers the full frame versus crop frame. These are formats that were developed back with film, right film, 35 millimeters film for a whole variety of reasons. Mainly, being it was the best balance between quality and cost, right, that became the size format. So let's just say this is 35 millimeter. So it just became known that 35 millimeter is considered a full frame. Okay, there's a whole really cool history behind it. But you said this is rapid fire, and I'm pie and I like to talk, so I'm just gonna skip the history behind this. So 35 millimeter is just known as full frame now, crop frames and it c...

an vary between cameras. So some canon cameras are called a 1.3 crops summer 1.6. Some are a two time crop, but what it means is that a crop frame is simply a smaller frame. Okay? It's just it's just that the sensor size So when digital. So this is 35 millimeter film, right? When we transition in digital, all that happened was your frame of film became a small sensor that was the same size as that film. So a full frame digital camera is a camera with a sensor that's equal to millimeter size. Okay, So, crop, if you were to go inside of this brain, looks like this. OK, so this is one side of prop, right? This might be another size. So we're just talking about the sensor size in relation to full frame. But the tricky thing is that it has a play on everything else. Okay, so if you imagine, let's say we're gonna talk about a lens now. Right now, I'm gonna use an easy number, 100 millimeter lens. If you were to use a full frame sensor and I'm gonna do some drawings, Here's my mountain. It looks like a mouth, not a mountain is anywhere talking about accents. Earlier, you can hear my Utah accent. Here's my family. We need to Mom, here's their car. Perfect. So this is, Let's say that this is 100 millimeter lens on a full frame view, right? If this is what you're seeing on a full frame camera, then if you put that same 100 Miller lens onto, let's say, a rebel. A rebel is called at 1.6 crop, so that means the center sizes smaller and what we're seeing is actually a subset of this. So we're seeing this. So guess what? This 100 year lens all you do to determine what the field of view is. You take that and you multiply by the crop factor, so this becomes, ah, 160 millimeter. That's a dramatic change, right? Like if you take the same 100 your lens and you put it onto a crop brain, it becomes 100 60 millimeter field of view. That makes sense. What if you put it on a micro 4/ now? Generally like these camera mounts, they don't they don't correspond with each other, right? Like you can't take a cannon 100 millimeter and go put it on a micro 4/3 like Panasonic GH four without using an adapter. But let's say you have an adapter and you put that lens on it. And let's say that the crop factor is too well. Your now just became a 200 millimeter. So the crop frame is changing our field of view, basically in our images. And so you can imagine that when people say by a camera, if you know you eventually want a full frame camera, you're better off buying a used full frame camera and then investing in full frame lenses that you'll keep over the course of 10 years, then going the other way. Because if you buy a crop grain camera investing a bunch of lenses that are designed for crop and then you move to a full frame camera, you gotta re by a lot of those lenses because now the field of use air not designed for full frame. So thank you a couple of follow up questions regarding the family because they're doing well. Yes, yes, family vacation. So what you're saying is that you cannot put a Krupp frame lens on a full frame designed sensor or camera, whereas you can do it the other way. You can put a full frame lens on a crop frame camera. Generally speaking, yes, the people confused cannot with, like physically. Yes, you physically like if you buy a cannon system right there all E F Mount lenses. So if you buy a yes Mount lens that's designed for a rebel a crop brain camera, you can still physically put it on to a full frame camera. It'll still mount to it. Fine. What you end up seeing is on your rebel like, let's say this happens a lot with fish Islands is like, Let's say you buy ultra wide field of view lens that has this field of view and you're seeing this. It's designed for rebel, right? So it's a fish islands, and you see this on a rebel. When you put it onto a full frame camera, you actually see this. So in camera, you actually see all the edges of the frame of the lens. That makes sense. So when you put a crop frame onto a full frame camera, a lot of times you seal the edges of the lends itself, which means that if you wanted to, you could shoot it on your full frame camera and you could crop it in post just to see this So you can do it. It does. Trying to stop talking so and again just to clarify it. Sounds like you're saying that the lenses will actually are a better investment because they will last you longer, whereas the body itself might technology changes so quickly that that you might need to replace. And I think that's, ah, something that people don't always get at first. Lenses are always gonna be the best place to put your money in terms of I mean, I would say lenses and good lighting gear over everything else.

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Pye is an awesome instructor! He explains everything in a way that you understand it. He is a wealth of information. Love all of his classes!! I love Creativelive and SLR Lounge! Continue doing the great work that you do!!

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Pye is an amazing teacher! I've learned so much from him over the years - both in person and through his tutorials. What's even more amazing is that he is able to do it LIVE! He is able to clearly explain complicated concepts through easy to understand lessons. I highly recommend his courses to learn everything from the basics to advanced topics!

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Wow! Pye is an awesome instructor! I've learned SO many things - nuggets of gold!

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