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Anyone who has tried to photograph welcome swallows in flight will understand how challenging it can be. The Canon R5 enables me to do it even with a kit lens, in this case the RF 24-240mm. Good luck trying to do BIFs with a kit lens in any other camera system. |
I started using cameras in 1953 at the age of 10. At that time most cameras for amateurs used “Rollfilm”. It was thus named to distinguish it from the cut sheet film used by professionals in their 4x5 inch view cameras.
Rollfilm was usually 60mm wide giving an image size of 56x56mm, 56x69mm or 56x85mm depending on the camera used. It was usually known as “120” film.
In due course rollfilm was replaced for most professional and amateur camera users by 35mm double perforated film in cameras specifically designed for that film format.
35mm film has its origins in the latter part of the 19thCentury when it became widely used for movies. The film was 35mm wide giving an image size of 24x16mm or 22x16mm with an optical sound track. The long side of the frame lay across the run of the film.
People realised that 35mm film could be used for still photos. For this purpose the image area was enlarged to include two of the movie film frames plus the gap between them giving an image size of 24x36mm, with the long side aligned with the run of the film. This arrangement worked well for still cameras.
This image size has a diagonal of 43.3mm, let’s call that 43mm for practical purposes.
In 1934 Kodak introduced this film commercially with the designation “135”.
135 film which came in cassettes usually holding 36 exposures went on to become the most popular film size throughout the second half of the 20th Century.
Most cameras which used this film were of the single lens reflex type (SLR). At the time nobody called these cameras “full frame”. They were 35mm SLRs.
I used these cameras for 40 years. I had various brands including Ihagee Exacta, Asahi Pentax and Canon.
When digital sensors found their way into consumer cameras around the beginning of the 21st Century the logical thing for manufacturers to do was to keep the existing architecture of the SLR with its mirror, pentaprism, AF module, accessories and the whole gamut of existing lenses and replace the film with a digital sensor the same size.
But there was a problem. At the time 43mm diagonal digital sensors were very expensive so camera makers fitted their consumer digital SLRs with smaller sensors. Canon went with a 27mm diagonal size, Sony and others with a 28mm size. These were somewhat inaccurately referred to in the industry as APSC size or more generally just “crop sensor”.
In 2008 an even smaller crop size appeared in the form of Micro Four Thirds (M43) which uses a 21.5mm diagonal imaging sensor.
In due course the cost to make 43mm diagonal sensors fell to the point they could be used in consumer cameras which came to be referred to as “full frame”.
My first DSLR was a Canon EOS 20D in 2005. This used the Canon 27mm diagonal crop sensor and EF or EF-S lenses. This was followed by a 40D then a 60D but as the pixel count of these cameras increased with successive models, the deficiencies in Canon’s DSLR autofocus became more painfully obvious.
At the same time Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens cameras (MILC) were coming onto the market and I could see straight away that this type of camera would displace the DSLR sooner or later.
For Panasonic and Olympus it was sooner, with Sony switching to MILC a few years later.
For ten years I used mostly Panasonic M43 with a mattering of compacts and bridge models and occasional forays into Canon M-series and Sony Crop E models.
I was reasonably happy with the various crop sensor models I used but none of them was really outstanding. Their image quality was…OK….., their high ISO noise levels…..manageable,,,,usually……but the busy backgrounds were a constant issue.
Nikon was late to the MILC party but eventually did come on board with crop and full frame mirrorless models.
Canon already had the M series crop sensor mirrorless models and eventually entered the full frame mirrorless market in 2018 with the EOS R and a bunch of RF mount lenses.
There are endless arguments on user forums about the merits of crop sensor vs full frame camera systems.
It seems to me that the ongoing but unsettled nature of these arguments tells us that there are pros and cons for each and that either can be used to make excellent pictures with a good user experience.
The critical factor which has influenced my decision to go (back to) full frame is my assessment that most manufacturers are not committed to any significant development of their crop sensor system offerings.
Indeed the only camera maker which appears to be directing substantial R&D resources to the crop sensor is Fujifilm, for the simple reason that at this stage their catalogue consists mainly of crop sensor bodies and lenses (plus some medium format models) with no full frame models to be found.
So let’s take a look at Fujifilm.
Over the years I have bought, owned and used several Fuji cameras, starting with some fixed lens medium format and interchangeable lens panorama models in the film days then more recently an X-100V compact. I have also had the opportunity to use and evaluate the original X-100 and also an X-T1.
The more I used these Fuji cameras the less I liked them. None of them stayed long in my camera drawer.
The main problem for me has been ergonomics and the user experience. I have written at some length about this elsewhere. Briefly I regard most Fujifilm crop sensor cameras as pretentious things with a confused and confusing control layout, unable to decide what they are trying to be, retro-chic or modernist electronic.
The second issue is image quality. Although good for a crop sensor I never found the Fuji image quality as good as that from most full frame cameras. And I remain an X-Trans skeptic. My tests on X-trans vs Bayer sensors show that the advantages of X-Trans are offset by the disadvantages, particularly for Photoshop users of which I am one.
The third issue for me is the size/mass/price equation. I somewhat belatedly realised that the main reason crop sensor bodies and lenses are in some cases smaller and less expensive than full frame equivalents is that the crop sensor offerings are not really equivalent at all.
By way of example consider the Canon EOS R with RF 24-240mm lens vs the Fujifilm X-T4 with XF 18-150mm lens pictured below.
Photo courtesy of camerasize.com
The only reason the Fuji kit is a bit smaller and modestly less expensive than the Canon kit is that it offers less.
Less of everything.
Smaller sensor, fewer pixels, smaller focal length range and smaller equivalent aperture across the range.
If Fuji were to make a 15-150mm lens, the aperture would need to be f2.6-f4.2 in order to achieve equivalence with the Canon. Such a lens would be at least as large and cost at least as much as the Canon.
On my assessment crop sensors simply deliver no actual benefit if their body/lens formula is configured to achieve equivalence with full frame.
In fact all the benefit goes to the full frame kit as it is capable of delivering better images.
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Darter. EOS R5 with RF 100-500mm. |
What about Canon ?
Canon released the first EOS-M model in 2012. This was very much a low spec model for amateur happy-snappers and that is pretty much where the M system has remained ever since.
Over the last few years, I have seen a steady decline in the number of M bodies and lenses available for purchase.
It is rather clear to me that Canon is starving the M line with lack of support and lack of product and will likely at some stage in the not-too-distant-future quietly cease production. Already I notice the M6.2 is not being offered by some vendors in Australia and several of the lenses are very hard to get.
Sony
Sony made a big splash into the mirrorless crop sensor market with the NEX line in 2010. This morphed into the successful a6000 in 2014.
But Sony had introduced the FE full frame a7 in 2013 and from that time onward, directed most development to the FE full frame line. The crop sensor a6xxx line received a few incremental upgrades but to this day the current crop of E 6xxx bodies look, feel and operate much like the old 6000 of 2014.
I bought an a6500 and a brace of lenses some while back and used them for a period. But I never liked the ergonomics or user experience of the Sony cameras and was never moved to linger longer with that system.
It is rather clear to me that Sony is doing to the crop E mount line what Canon is doing to their M mount line……subjecting it to slow but steady starvation.
Nikon
Nikon released the M50 crop sensor mirrorless body in 2019 together with two very decent consumer kit lenses and then…………went out to lunch……………….or had a meeting with creditors…………or something…………….but whatever Nikon’s product development people have been doing lately it has not produced any more crop sensor (DX) product of any description.
I actually bought a Z50 with the two kit lenses and used it for a few months. I rated it as quite a nice little camera which took very good pictures and provided a decent user experience. The main downside was the annoying propensity of the M50 for attracting dust onto the sensor. It would do this even without changing lenses.
In any event it is clear that Nikon is not much energised by the mirrorless DX project or the prospect of losing potential DX customers.
The rest
Ricoh/Pentax, bless them, are staying with DSLRs. I have little doubt this is due to a lack of available R&D funds to invest in a mirrorless project.
Leica is doing its own idiosyncratic and ridiculously expensive thing which finds no favour from me.
Panasonic has pivoted to full frame for still photography and hybrid still/video products. They have released a GH5.2 which is a mild upgrade to the Micro Four Thirds GH5 and have announced the “development” of a GH6 which will be strongly video oriented.
Olympus has sold off its camera business to Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) an entity with a history of buying and asset stripping failed businesses.
Summary
I have been using crop sensor interchangeable lens cameras for the last 15 years. There is no argument that most of them are perfectly capable devices for most photographic purposes.
But it is very clear to me that most R&D is currently going into full frame, and in the case of Fujifilm, a substantial amount is going to medium format.
It is also clear that this is an accelerating trend, the outcome of which will likely be extinction of crop sensor systems from the main manufacturers.
My response to this prediction has been to move up to full frame.
Why Canon ?
Two main reasons:
1. Ergonomics. The only camera which I currently own is an EOS R5. I rate this as having the best ergonomics and user experience of any camera I have ever owned and tested.
2. Buying into any camera system is in effect a bet on the future of the manufacturer and the system. I doubt many camera owners want to be stuck with a make model or system which is no longer receiving support.
My assessment is that Canon and Sony appear to have decently solid future prospects in the camera business. As for the rest……………..I really don’t feel confident enough to invest in any of them.
Conclusion
I am very happy with my decision to move up to Canon full frame mirrorless and particularly the R5 to which I mount some excellent RF mount lenses. I am finding that the ergonomics, user experience, performance and results are at a level which I have not experienced with any crop sensor kits.