The Return of APS-C : Is It All Just Hype?
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Remember when DSLRs were most all APS-C sized sensors? The reason was consistency of sensor quality vs cost. Making larger sensors that were of consistent quality was a problem. That’s the whole reason APS-C, as well as the short lived APS-H existed.
Then technology improved and consistent full frame sensors could be made at a reasonable cost. This caused a bifurcation in delivery. Pros or those desiring to be Pros spent more for full frame, and APS-C was for amateurs.
Moreover, because the big makers of the day, Canon and Nikon, decided to have two ranges of lenses, confusion reigned as to what focal length numbers actually meant which engendered the entire “full frame equivalent” sack of nonsense.
As the transition to mirrorless started for those builders, they focused their efforts on full frame sensors. Nikon did build an APS-C sensored mirrorless in the Z50, but it’s party was poorly communicated and no one came.
Now, the less useful photographic media is all aquiver because Canon has released the R7, an APS-C mirrorless camera as if this is a momentous occasion.
It’s not.
Those who live in the Canon/Nikon worlds may not be aware that there are other brands. Sony does place most of their attention on full frame, but have maintained their APS-C lineup for years. Not a lot of innovation or new models, but also never killed off.
Fujifilm has used the APS-C sensor since forever and to their enormous credit, never got involved in that whole full frame equivalent bag of bafflegab. Panasonic and Olympus leapt into the micro four thirds space and have never looked back. They don’t talk about full frame equivalent either, that is left to pundits who feel the need to treat everything not full frame as its less capable and dumber distant cousin.
That folks is toro-poopoo.
Benefits of APS-C
In theory, the smaller sensor should mean a smaller lighter camera. In the case of Fujifilm, this is true, but less so in the case of Canon, although the Nikon Z50 is physically smaller and lighter. As the photography enthusiast population ages, size and weight become greater considerations and if you cannot see a difference in image quality, that’s not a bad thing.
For companies like Canon and Nikon who persist in naming their lenses with full frame focal lengths even when they are for APS-C only, it means that when you actually mount a lens built to deliver an image circle appropriate to a full frame sensor, when projected on a smaller sensor, you see less of the image circle and thus get the perspective of more reach from these lenses. It’s not actually reach, it’s cropping, but that semantic doesn’t matter if you get something beneficial from it. I have personally mounted long focal length full frame image circle lenses on an APS-C sensored body to get more apparent reach. In my case that body is an older Canon 7D Mark II, which I personally find to be less useful to me than its predecessor ever was and certainly has no boost in image quality from the earlier generation. So perceived additional reach can be a benefit.
Despite being physically smaller, the all so irrelevant pixel count can be maintained. So for those who still mistakenly believe that megapixels matter in general, they can have the joy of still having a camera with 24 megapixels on a smaller sensor. Big whoop, but this matters to people.
For that small population who shoot video on their stills camera, the smaller sensor is closer in size to a full video sensor. That means less data is thrown away, and there may be less pixel binning and line skipping. APS-C sensors are excellent for video
Downsides of APS-C
Camera makers who do multiple sensor sizes still treat APS-C sensor cameras as lesser cousins. All the cool stuff goes first into the full frame sensor bodies so if you are seeking innovation, you will get to wait for it, or perhaps never get it at all.
Smaller sensors with equivalent megapixel counts mean that the surface area that gathers light of each pixel is smaller. This means each pixel is gathering less light than a pixel on a full frame sensor having the same megapixel count. Sensors have improved and you may not care however it is a fact of physics that the makers must push more power to the smaller pixel to maintain its sensitivity and this can have a negative impact on the overall signal to noise ratio. I have shot the Z50 but not the R7 and until I see differently, I will still stand by the evidence that this means an APS-C sensor at any given ISO is noisier This matters in still photography and the six or seven folks shooting video on an APS-C sensor will not see the noise regardless.
The full dynamic range of the APS-C sensor is typically less than that of the full frame sensor. In fairness though, the dynamic range of modern sensors is so awesome that only the specification heads actually care.
Hype or Not
Of course it’s all hype. The goal of the maker is to convince you that you are missing something. This is only true if your current camera cannot do something that you absolutely need. Most often touted is the greater reach when using a full frame built lens. But wait, there is this thing called cropping, and many full frame cameras even offer an APS-C mode so why would you care?
Pundits will say that when you crop on a full frame sensor you reduce the number of pixels contributing to the image. This is factually true, but never seems to take into account what this means in the real world. Does the image quality really suffer because there are fewer larger pixels contributing instead of more smaller pixels? The answer of course is it depends on the light, how high the ISO needs to be and how much cropping is taking place on the image. It’s a statement without qualifiers, and so mostly bogus.
In Summary
A camera with an APS-C sensor may do exactly what you need. I have shot most of the Fujifilm cameras and love them. Fuji glass is superlative and no one is going to be able to tell the difference between a shot made on a full frame sensor vs a shot made on an APS-C sensor when looking at a high resolution print from a proper viewing distance. The reality is that regular viewers cannot tell the difference between an image made on a full frame sensor from an image made on a micro four thirds sensor when looking at a high resolution print from a proper viewing distance. This was proven unequivocally by photographer Scott Bourne when a health issue forced him to switch to the smaller and lighter micro four thirds format. Ignore the hype and get (or keep) the camera that best serves your needs. The rest of it is just noise.
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I'm Ross Chevalier, thanks for reading, watching and listening and until next time, peace.
