Re: New Image

At 11:32 AM 1/14/2008 -0800, David Young wrote:
1) The sensor is full frame and for what I do (90% wildlife work) that is a major disadvantage. The effective boost in focal length (crop factor) saves my buying much longer lenses.
This is a false thought. It's like saying that I'll use an APS film camera over a 35mm film camera because my long lenses appear longer on the smaller film format. Or my 270mm LF lens gives me a longer look when I use my 645 or 67 roll film back on my 4x5. Going even further, why not use Minox film in a 35mm camera so that one's long lenses appear to be astronomically long and 'really' use the lens sweet spot - dead center.
Several 35mm camera makers made 1/2 frame cameras. When using the camera system's long lenses on those cameras, they got an apparent focal length boost. But not really. They were only using half of the film. You get exactly the same image when using a full frame 35mm camera PLUS more around the subject so that there was more to work from in the darkroom. The only economy was saving money on film. 72 frames rather than 36. This is not a problem with digital.
The middle of a 5D sensor is as good or better than the whole of smaller sensors.
So by using an APS sensor, you are cropping in the camera rather than cropping on your computer screen.
I personally like having more stuff around the image on film (or digifile) so that when I print or present the image, I have a lot to work with. I can either tightly crop the image (APS it) or I can place it properly in the frame and leave in meaningful ancillary stuff that makes for a great composition. It's always better to have more stuff to choose from, than less. Especially since it is of the same (or even higher) resolution.
Boiled down, your APS size sensor is simply the middle of a full frame sensor in size. Full frame sensors are far more difficult to make and thus go through a far more rigorous testing procedure. I personally believe (and have seen) that the APS section (center) of current full frame sensors is better than actual APS size sensors.
And... by packing smaller pixels into a space (roughly half the full frame space) creates pixels with less dynamic range capability and that are more noise prone. The small pixel problem. A FF 5D sensor has larger pixels than 20/30/40D cameras and therefore exhibits exemplary low light and dynamic range raw performance.
I personally don't think that you should continue to think about the sensor size in a 'bass ackward' way. And since the GG screens in Canon DSLRs are removable, you can engrave the APS size right on the screen so that you'll never know that you are shooting with a larger sensor. Then when you sit down at your computer, there's all of that cool stuff around the subject that you can introduce in order to make stunning compositions. I personally like to see some of the environment where the animal is living/feeding/whatevering...
Plus... when you use the camera in a normal mode (landscape, trips, etc.) rather than as a wildlife camera, it's performance will definitely be a cut above the smaller sensor cameras. 

IMHO,

:-)
Jim 

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