Fascination with full frame?

[dickgrafixstop]

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Can someone give me a coherent explaination of this fetish for "full frame"? It would seem

that there's something - other than nearly 80 years of film production - that makes 24X36

some magical ratio. I can understand it in the film world where developing reels, printing

frames etc. needed to be standardized but I'm sure my computer doesn't care what the

initial pixel dimensions are.

Leica certainly broke new ground with the S series and it's new "negative" size, but it seems nothing else has broken with tradition. (I know some p&s cameras have a

"panorama" setting, but it's not a frame size, just a mask from "regular" 35mm ratios)

I think I'd like to see a native 16X9 quality camera since many of my photos only see life

on the large screen display.

Any comments?

[stunsworth]

I can understand it in the film world where developing reels, printing frames etc. needed to be standardized but I'm sure my computer doesn't care what the initial pixel dimensions are.

 

Pixel dimensions have no relationship to a sensor being full frame or not.

 

Sensor size has a very important bearing on sensors having the same number of pixels. A 16 mp full frame sensor will produce a better image than a small sensored p&s camera with the same number of pixels.

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[pico]

Can someone give me a coherent explaination of this fetish for "full frame"? [....]

 

For very many years I tried to shoot strictly full-frame in part because it was 'the thing to do' in 35mm. I'm sure you recall those who even filed the negative carrier in an attempt to demonstrate the picture was full frame. I feel it was a useful exercise for myself, but editors were pretty unhappy with the habit so I loosened up.

 

IMHO there were/are some photographers who shoot full-frame with serious intent and with outstanding results. Danny Lyon would be one.

 

One day, David Vestal (I think) wrote "You can crop the square anywhere" and I felt a bit of an epiphany. He's a wise man and had a lot of other great quotes, one relating to the largeness and smallness of prints being unrelated to goodness."

Edited March 1, 2012 by pico

[-ph-]

I don't think there is anything magical about that exact format. For many years it was the smallest film format widely used - vs. medium and large format. It became very successful as it allowed small cameras and long teleshots for its "small" size. Today the role has reversed - its the largest format commonly used in digital (ignoring the expensive medium format digital cameras). For general photography, APS-C or 4/3rds offers good quality. So what is left to make FF desirable?

• DOF control - if you want thin DOF, you want the largest sensor you can get. Interestingly, until Leica makes a very fast lens for the S2, a M9 will be able to reach thinner DOF for its fast (f/1.4, f/0.95) lenses.
  
• High ISO - larger Pixels usually are more sensitive. But I would say that most modern sensors have enough of that.
  
• Existing lenses/tradition - plenty of lenses designed for FF sensors means a lot of demand for cameras which have a matching sensor. Just observe the success of the M9 vs M8.
  
• Its the "best". As everyone "knows" that FF is the "best" (once again ignoring medium format), demand is created beyond technical considerations.
  

 

Peter

[peterbengtson]

Since virtually all 35mm cameras used the same aspect ratio (24 x 36mm) we have become used to using the focal length of the lens as a kind of shorthand for the angle of coverage, which is really what we mean. Cinematographers who have to deal in a number of aspect ratios and film sizes are more prone to refer to a lens by its angle of coverage than it's focal length. It is interesting that what a still photographer refers to as a full frame is really and was originally referred to as a double frame because it is 2 standard cine frames (8 perforations as opposed to 4 for a standard 35mm cine camera).

[pgk]

Can someone give me a coherent explaination of this fetish for "full frame"?

Any comments?

Its what I grew up with using and am used to. I've tried smaller formats and whilst the 1.3x crop factor was ok I still prefer full frame because it all makes perfect sense to me. There has got to be something special about a format which has survived so long and is still going strong.

[SJP]

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In terms of image quality, much less than full frame meant "not very good" I still remember my 110 film thing I once had (Agfa). Negative = too small.

 

If the film is much bigger than the equipment tends to get unwieldy - in fact the exact reason that Leica came to existence.

 

Furthermore if you want the same depth of field (3D isolation) then the size of the lens (diameter of the the front element) is the constant factor. So you would need to fix a 8 mm focal length lens with 50 mm diameter front element to your iPhone. This would defeat the point, while also being technically an insurmountable opportunity.

 

There is no replacement for cubic inches.

[earleygallery]

There's no fascination, but it's a format that has been in use for 80 years and many photographers are simply used to 'seeing' in 35mm format, are used to the lenses and it provides an excellent compromise between size and quality.

 

One day digital sensors will offer quality improvements we can't imagine, and even the smallest P&S will surpass today's FF cameras. Until then, however, most serious photographers will want to use a FF camera, especially Leica users with so much expensive glass.

[250swb]

Can someone give me a coherent explaination of this fetish for "full frame"?

 

It may be a fetish for people with nothing else in their life, but I think for most people it is simply a datum point based on the historical evolution of the miniature camera. In a sophisticated world that datum point is used as a benchmark to judge everything else in the miniature camera lineup. It means you can judge how much you gain against a P&S, or loose to a MF system, when all things are considered like portability etc.

 

Steve

Edited March 1, 2012 by 250swb

[Michael Tyler]

In terms of image quality, much less than full frame meant "not very good" I still remember my 110 film thing I once had (Agfa). Negative = too small.

 

I think this could go a long way to explaining what the OP called "the fetish" of full frame. The mentality of "smaller is lesser" had been carried from the old days of 110, Advantix, et all. Then in the 2000s, the APS-C crop cameras (Canon 20D, Nikon D70, for examples) were shown to be wildly outclassed by full frame variants (Canon 1Ds, 5D, Nikon D3). Today's cameras still show that tendency, even the M8 v. M9 comparison when speaking of high iso.

 

I also agree with another poster mentioning how many of us grew intimately familiar with what certain focal lengths looked like. We knew 35mm, we knew 50mm, and we didn't like the multiplier effect, academic though it may be.

[Jager]

When I mount a lens of a particular focal length to my Canon AE-1, my Nikon F5, my Leica M6, or my Leica M7 - I know exactly what it will do. Decades of imagery using that 24x36 'sensor' format has embedded in my vision the interplay of field of view, aspect ratio, perspective, and depth-of-field-at-a-given-aperture.

 

Full-frame digital, more than anything else, simply gives me that same way of seeing the world.

 

It's not a fetish at all...

[Manolo Laguillo]

"fetish"...

For the same token we could ask ourselves why we are used to count time in decades, or centuries...

Full frame is a convention, only that, but then most of what we humans do is ruled by convention...

For the outsider a convention is arbitrary. Ok, you call it "fetish".

[jaapv]

Funny. The term full frame suggests that this is the ideal large sized nagative. When the format started penetrating on the market "real" photographers with plate cameras and 6x9 folders were scathing about the low quality, grainy, deep DOF "miniature" 24x36.

Sounds familiar compared to the current opinion about small sensor cameras and cellphones?

[pico]

[since virtually all 35mm cameras used the same aspect ratio (24 x 36mm) we have become used to using the focal length of the lens as a kind of shorthand for the angle of coverage, [....]

 

Have you ever watched Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin made in about 1916? He used many different crops/formats throughout the movie, as well as some of the first close-ups that actually upset some viewers accustomed to stage imaging.

 

Radical cropping is very old hat. I don't know when it went out of fashion but with more common occurrences of panoramic and other deviations from the typical camera-given aspect ratio perhaps we will return to such creativity, at long last.

[Messsucherkamera]

35mm negs are small enough to begin with. Cropping them compromises the quality of the final print. For example, if you print full frame to 9.33"x14" dimensions, you will have a higher quality print if you print full frame than if the neg has been cropped.

 

If the full frame print has a magnification factor of roughly 10x to get that print size, a cropped print that has had to be enlarged an additional ten or twenty percent (or more) to get to that size will be of lesser quality, all other things being equal

 

A print exhibit where all the prints are full frame will have a more cohesive, unified appearance than an exhibit comprised of prints that were made from negs that were cropped and arbitrarily enlarged to different magnification factors in order to fill a given set of print dimensions.

 

In addition to the above, being able to print full frame simplifies the printing process, at least for silver based printing.

[erl]

35mm negs are small enough to begin with. Cropping them compromises the quality of the final print. For example, if you print full frame to 9.33"x14" dimensions, you will have a higher quality print if you print full frame than if the neg has been cropped.

 

If the full frame print has a magnification factor of roughly 10x to get that print size, a cropped print that has had to be enlarged an additional ten or twenty percent (or more) to get to that size will be of lesser quality, all other things being equal

Technically true, but in the real world(?) who actually notices this? I suggest it would only be the 'technocrats' who possible will not notice the creative content either way.

 

 

A print exhibit where all the prints are full frame will have a more cohesive, unified appearance than an exhibit comprised of prints that were made from negs that were cropped and arbitrarily enlarged to different magnification factors in order to fill a given set of print dimensions.

This possible only true if the cropping has been severe. Let's face it, cropping starts the moment you view through the VF of a camera. Subsequent cropping of the film or file is only an extension of this and presumable because it is decided as an improvement. I see the plusses of cropping as outweighing the minuses of same, when judiciously applied of course.

 

 

In addition to the above, being able to print full frame simplifies the printing process, at least for silver based printing.

I have never viewed printing as a target for short or simplified cuts. The objective is to achieve the ultimate result, whatever it takes. If that involves more work, do it.

[lars_bergquist]

In film days there were lots of formats, ranging from Minox (8x10mm) all that way up to view camera formats up to 18x24cm or even larger. There was no 'full format' then. The expression was and is relevant only in comparison with what became the '35mm format' or Leica format' of 24x36mm. There were crop formats on 35mm film, like 'half format' (18x24mm) or the Robot format (24x24) and that was what we compared the 'full format' to.

 

Today a camera sensor can have just about any format or size. What we are comparing to now is a class of cameras traditionally made to handle the classical 35mm format. If the format is less, it's not 'full format'.

 

And generaly speaking, I don't give a damn. If an APS-C camera gives me a satisfactory image, it does, and that's enough. What is 'satisfactory' depends on my purpose. So there is no 'fascination' or 'fetish' here. But there is obviously a lower limit where pixels become too small to collect enough photons and store enough electrons to achieve a satisfactory dynamic range. But dynamic range is not measured in millimeters.

 

Remains the fact that if I have invested in a number of Leica M lenses engineered for an image circle of 43.3mm, then I want to use them with a sensor of appropriate size. The M8 did underutilise the M lenses. My wide angle lenses became less wide and my 135mm lens became useless. I had to buy additional lenses of 28 and 75mm focal length to achieve the '35mm' and '90mm' image angles I liked to work with. So I would have preferred a digital M with a 24x36mm sensor. Now I have it. And the satisfaction is practical, not of a religious or erotic nature.

 

LB

[skinnfell]

I think the fascination is more with a size of the sensor than necessarily with the ratio 36x24 AKA "Full Format".

 

This format came to be because Oscar B took 35mm movie film and turned it sideways.

Why the exact dimensions came to be what they did, perhaps others on this forum can elaborate on.

 

The larger the sensor the "better" the image looks in regards to the relationship between the sharp and unsharp areas. There is typically also less magnification needed, hence the image appears sharper and better defined.

Anyone who have seen a 8X10 contact print you will know what this means.

 

Photographers who are not dependent on portability traditionally have gravitated towards as large format as possible. Economy is also a factor with film but magnitudes more with digital sensors of course.

 

However, a summilux lens on, say a a S2 sensor could be very hard to focus because of the extremely shallof DOF that would occur.

 

So, the "Full Format" is a pretty good balance between a sensor that is large enough to really create washed out backgrounds, yet at the same time is not too difficult to focus, and not too heavy to carry or slow to shoot.

 

Then of course, there is the subject of the lenses performing at their intended focal length... Many M shooters relish the opportunity to use a modern camera with lenses that are more than half a century old.

 

 

 

That said, all lenses draw a round image, and a square format is the one which makes the most out of the imaging area. Also, many photographers find it easier to compose in the square format because you dont have to worry about portrait/landscape orientation, and you can always crop afterwards. Others find it harder for the exact same reason.

 

Then there is the issue of the golden ratio (google it if you dont know what it is)

"Full format" is closer to this than 16:9.

Golden ratio: 1.618

Full format: 1,5

HDTV: 1,777

8x10 large format: 1,25

4x5 large format: 1,25

fourthirds: 1,25

15x9 postcard print: 1,666

 

fourthirds was invented precisely to make the most out of the imaging area. (it is also the "old" TV and monitor ratio)

 

As of now, IMO the M9 is still the best camera in regards of sensor size vs camera size.

 

BTW, Leica M9 and Leica M8 have DIFFERENT ratios:

M9 = 1,50288

M8 = 1,48671

Edited March 2, 2012 by skinnfell

[azzo]

As someone who started photography with a digital SLR in 2005 and has never used (nor ever will) 35mm film, "full frame" is an entirely foreign concept in which I have no interest.

......

 

Full frame digital cameras are of minority interest, and as photographers who grew up with 35mm film disappear, ...

 

 

Thanks!

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Hallo,

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[pgk]

So, in conclusion, the existence of full frame today is largely driven by a previous generation of photographers, and its niche position reflects the ageing demographic of this group.

I think that you are forgetting the massive legacy of full frame lenses. Optics are the final limitation on sub full frame cameras and full frame still best represents the compromise of relatively affordable cost to image quality ratio;). Mind you it IS relative.