Moving to full frame...

the_director

the_director

the_director

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Thinking of moving from my Sony A6000 to either the Sony A7 or A7 mk2 as they seem good value at the moment - £599 and £999 respectively.

I mainly do nature photography so I guess I like the extra length the 1.5x crop factor gives you, but I only shoot legacy glass and would love to use lenses at their true focal lengths - wides and compact primes etc. The IBIS of the A7ii would be great for this.

I have 300 2.8 and 400 f4 lenses, but they'll feel short on full frame now.

Any thoughts from people who shoot full frame?
 
I moved to a Full Frame in February, albeit an old 5D MK1. I wouldn't go back though. I can't explain why, but it seems right, the FOV is wider and takes a bit of getting used to, I have compensated by getting closer to the subject.
 
I move from full frame 5D mk1 to Nikon crop D7000, now a D7200.... All gain no losses.
Think the crop vs FF These days is largely irrelevant with the latest sensors and amature use.
What's more important, reach, weight, cost .... Or is the very last bit of shallow depth of field all that matters..... Ie isolating people at weddings etc.

I had thought I would add a D810/750 but I'm struggling to see the point now after being impressed with the results from a crop D7200
 
I have the cash waiting for the FF upgrade. I'm just waiting now for the new Canon. It can't come soon enough. Damn ISO 400 and above on my camera makes the luminance slider the most used feature in LR for me :(
 
9designs2 said:
I move from full frame 5D mk1 to Nikon crop D7000, now a D7200.... All gain no losses.
Think the crop vs FF These days is largely irrelevant with the latest sensors and amature use.
What's more important, reach, weight, cost .... Or is the very last bit of shallow depth of field all that matters..... Ie isolating people at weddings etc.

I had thought I would add a D810/750 but I'm struggling to see the point now after being impressed with the results from a crop D7200
Click to expand...

Subject isolation is pretty important for some. Especially when shooting people full length.
Sure it's not ALL that matters, but shooting with a nice big viewfinder and having that extra DOF control makes for a nicer experience and arguably slightly more pleasing pictures. There isn't really much difference between crop or FF, but I would rather shoot FF given the choice.
 
Better IQ, better low-light/high-ISO performance, shallower DoF, bigger & brighter viewfinder.

The gap may have closed but crops still don't match FF in many ways. As for the "very last bit" of DoF, you may not be that bothered but, in that case, you can potentially save on lenses as FF will produce similar effects to crop but a stop slower.
 
the_director said:
Thinking of moving from my Sony A6000 to either the Sony A7 or A7 mk2 as they seem good value at the moment - £599 and £999 respectively.

I mainly do nature photography so I guess I like the extra length the 1.5x crop factor gives you, but I only shoot legacy glass and would love to use lenses at their true focal lengths - wides and compact primes etc. The IBIS of the A7ii would be great for this.

I have 300 2.8 and 400 f4 lenses, but they'll feel short on full frame now.

Any thoughts from people who shoot full frame?
Click to expand...

Do you have the budget to replace the teles with longer lenses? Do you want to carry much bigger heavier lenses?can you even source rm for the A7?

If you like 400mm on crop then you are going to to be wanting a canon or Nikon 600mm to maintains the same subject magnification.

The lack of effective reach is pretty killer on FF. If you can get a FF camera with a good,pixel density then do don't take a step back at least. I would look at A7R
 
You can find the A7 at most good camera shops for £799 and Sony are offering double cashback at the moment, giving you £200 back on the A7 and A7ii.

I only shoot manual lenses, which gives me the choice of Canon FD 500mm f4.5L or Nikon's various 600mm lenses. The Canon FD 800mm f5.6L isn't that expensive. I also have the matching 1.4x TC for the Tamron 400mm f4, making it a 560mm f5.6 lens.

I've had a long think about this and will probably stick with the A6000 for now. I think, eventually, I would like a full frame body purely for using my old wide angle lense with, I'd keep the A6000 for the extra reach.
 
An Exception said:
Subject isolation is pretty important for some. Especially when shooting people full length.
Sure it's not ALL that matters, but shooting with a nice big viewfinder and having that extra DOF control makes for a nicer experience and arguably slightly more pleasing pictures. There isn't really much difference between crop or FF, but I would rather shoot FF given the choice.
Click to expand...


Vertigo1 said:
Better IQ, better low-light/high-ISO performance, shallower DoF, bigger & brighter viewfinder.

The gap may have closed but crops still don't match FF in many ways. As for the "very last bit" of DoF, you may not be that bothered but, in that case, you can potentially save on lenses as FF will produce similar effects to crop but a stop slower.
Click to expand...
+1

I own canon 6d and very happy with it. I like the benefits of it in the low light situations. Also shooting people with a better dof is a big plus. Only reason I will ever use a crop is for wildlife to get that extra reach. Otherwise FF always.
 
the_director said:
You can find the A7 at most good camera shops for £799 and Sony are offering double cashback at the moment, giving you £200 back on the A7 and A7ii.

I only shoot manual lenses, which gives me the choice of Canon FD 500mm f4.5L or Nikon's various 600mm lenses. The Canon FD 800mm f5.6L isn't that expensive. I also have the matching 1.4x TC for the Tamron 400mm f4, making it a 560mm f5.6 lens.

I've had a long think about this and will probably stick with the A6000 for now. I think, eventually, I would like a full frame body purely for using my old wide angle lense with, I'd keep the A6000 for the extra reach.
Click to expand...

A wise decision the only time I've regretted going full frame was when we went on safari in sri lanka I rented a 100-400mm as I had on a previous trip with my 30D but definitely found myself wishing for the crop factor!
 
I also shoot almost exclusively manual lenses and I couldn't wait to get away from a subframe sensor. One thing to bear in mind is that old wide angles wider than 24mm tend to get very ropey in the corners on digital. (something to do with the way the light lands on the micro lens array IIRC) My Tamron 17/3.5 is superb on film and rather poor on digital, similar story with my nikon 24/2.8. I had an olympus OM zuiko 24/2.8 that was remarkable on both. Old contax zeiss lenses seem to be very consistent but they aren't exactly great value unless you get lucky.

Technically you can just crop back to APS-C in post and hey presto you get your crop factor back. On lower resolution cameras you sacrifice a fair bit, but at 36mpx you still get just over 15 when cropped which is enough to still print at least 24x18". I just work on the premise that if I can't get it with 6-800mm effective FL, it really is unlikely to be worth bothering with as atmospheric conditions are likely to sap most of the detail anyway.
 
The problem is if you compare say a 24MP D7200 to a 24MP D610/D750, if you a re used to the former then the latter is a long, long way behind. Getting a 36MP and cropping is OK but you are still looking at 15MP vs 24MP

I agree that more than 600/800mm FL and you are liekly wasting your time, not only atmospheric distortion but everything becomes so challenging, even just finding the subject through the viewfinder. 600mm on FF is about optimal for birds but the tricky thing is you can get to 300mm with some reasonable apertures (f/4) and 400mm with a workable aperture (f/5.6). That works out OK on crop but ON FF it is still behind. OK, the aperture is now decent but the FL is too short. The new round of 150-600mm and the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 lenses are making a change here though but it is still a compromise, you get the reach but at f/6.3.

When I got my D800 I was upgrading from a 12mP D90 so a 15.5MP DX crop was actually an upgrade and there was no decent 24MP DX body, the D7200 has had a huge impact to the wildlife community. If i was making the same decision today I would have gone for the D7200 without doubt
 
I've gone from a D7100 to a D750 and love it, but I pretty much exclusively shoot portraits.

The Mrs has the D7100 now, for wildlife or anything you need reach a high mp crop makes a lot of sense. For most other things? Not so much.
 
Some interesting thoughts. From what I'm reading elsewhere in most circumstances you can't tell much difference in image quality between full frame and crop. I would like my wider manual lenses to be there actual focal lengths, the original A7 is good value, maybe two bodies is the solution here.
 
Kei said:
Technically you can just crop back to APS-C in post and hey presto you get your crop factor back. On lower resolution cameras you sacrifice a fair bit, but at 36mpx you still get just over 15 when cropped which is enough to still print at least 24x18". I just work on the premise that if I can't get it with 6-800mm effective FL, it really is unlikely to be worth bothering with as atmospheric conditions are likely to sap most of the detail anyway.
Click to expand...

As DP pointed out, there is a large range of 24MP and up to 28MP crop cameras with very good/excellent IQ and no need to crop.
 
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