Apsc camera meaning

Full Frame vs. APS-C — Camera Sensor Pros & Cons Explained

APS C Full Frame Comparisons

Full frame vs APS C sensors

The full frame vs APS C sensor debate has pervaded photography circles for decades. Not long ago, it was widely assumed that full frame sensors were reserved for professional photographers. Full frame sensors were heavier, harder to master, and more expensive than their APS C counterparts. But today, the gap between full frame and APS C sensors has dwindled. This next video shows how similar contemporary full frame and APS C sensors can look.

Full Frame vs APS C • What are the Differences?

It’s clear that full frame and APS C sensors are much more similar today than they were ten years ago – but they still offer a breadth of differences that make them better or worse in specific scenarios. We’re going to look at the strengths and weaknesses of full frame and APS C sensors in a bit, but first let’s define the terms.

FULL FRAME SENSOR DEFINITION

What is a full frame sensor?

A full frame sensor is an adopted term for the 35mm image sensor format. Full frame sensors offer a bevy of great features, such as fine-tuned shallow depth of field, immersive bokeh, and crisply-detailed wide-angle photography.

APS C SENSOR DEFINITION

What is APS C?

APS C is an adopted term for the image sensor format approximately the size of the now-defunct Advanced Photo System film negative classic, of 25.1×16.7 mm, with an aspect ratio of 3:2. APS C sensors are cropped sensors that are generally cheaper and easier to travel with than their full frame counterparts.

Full Frame Sensor vs APS C Sensor

What does full frame mean for photogs?

What does full frame mean? Full frame means a camera uses a full 35mm image sensor format. The rule of thumb, “expensive usually means better” doesn’t exactly ring true with full frame sensors – there are great benefits to full frame sensors but that doesn’t make them intrinsically “better” than APS C crop factor sensors.

To better understand the pros and cons of full frame sensors, we have to ask: what is a full frame sensor? Well, a full frame sensor is a digital 36x24mm, (36mm wide by 24mm wide) sensor that is the biggest sensor size relative to a 35mm format; the former standard format for film photography. It can be a little confusing, but hopefully this next video will clear up any confusion.

APS C Camera vs Full Frame • What is a Full Frame DSLR Camera?

Today when we refer to full frame sensors, we’re referring to full frame DSLR cameras. The goal of a full frame sensor is to digitally replicate the 35mm film format. The benefits of using a full frame camera include great performance in low-light, an immersive bokeh effect for portrait photography, and unrivaled control over depth of field.

However, these benefits come with downsides too – particularly in regards to the camera’s form factor. Full frame cameras tend to be bulkier and less mobile than APS C crop factor sensor cameras. So they may perform better in static circumstances, but for capturing images in motion, you may want to consider an ASP C sensor.

APS C Full Frame Comparisons

What are the benefits of APS C sensors?

APS C cameras offer a lot of advantages over full frame cameras. First and foremost, nearly all APS C cameras are cheaper than their full frame counterparts. So, whether you’re on a budget or just getting started with photography/videography, an APS C camera is probably the better option.

For a look at the benefits of using APS C cameras, let’s check out this video that argues APS C cameras are better than full frame cameras for 85% of users.

What is APS C? • APS C vs FF

Nearly every photographer will tell you that it’s not about the size of the sensor, it’s about how you use it. And that point is certainly valid: APS C cameras aren’t inherently inferior than full frame cameras. It’s not like a first generation Xbox squaring up against a fifth generation PlayStation.

These cameras are built with the same architecture, same designs, and same structure for intended use. The only downsides are:

1) They usually don’t capture photos in as great detail in low-light.

2) They struggle to achieve as immersive a bokeh effect.

And that’s pretty much it! Hardcore photographers might suggest some other intricate differences, but for the vast majority of users, low-light shortcomings and mediocre bokeh are the only major downsides of APS C.

APS C Sensor vs Full Frame

Best scenarios for full frame and APS C

By now, you might have caught on that we’ve been referring to the standard issued full frame and APS C formats – but just remember that you can get different effects with different lenses. Focal length changes everything in a picture. Just because you’re using a full frame or APS C camera doesn’t mean you can’t get different effects with prime lenses and zoom lenses. But that’s a topic for another day. For the sake of avoiding confusion, let’s stick with the main sensor sizes. This image might help you visualize.

APS C Sensor vs Full Frame Size • Full Frame vs APS C

Now that we’ve covered a variety of topics relating to the full frame vs APS C debate, let’s take a stance on which default image sensor format works best in popular situations.

Low light photography: full frame
Portrait photography: full frame
Landscape photography: full frame
Sports photography: tie
Street photography: APS C

So, full frame vs APS C: which is better? The differences between full frame and APS C are negligible when taking price into account. Ultimately, you can’t go wrong with either image sensor format – and you’re not locked into shooting at the main sensor focal length. Before buying, consider checking out camera rental options to find the perfect camera for you!

UP NEXT

How to clean camera sensors

No matter which type of sensor you choose to use, you’re going to need to keep it clean! Keeping a sensor clean may sound like a simple task, but it isn’t as simple as wiping dust away. In this next article, we break down some tried and true sensor cleaning techniques so you can keep your sensor in tip-top shape.

Up Next: Sensor cleaning tips →

APS C Camera Definition - What is APS C Camera by SLR Lounge

Most of the digital SLR, mirrorless, and compact systems cameras have APS-C images sensors. This is why the market has such a wide collection of APS-C lenses and camera bodies in comparison to their full frame counterparts. It’s true that the quality of the image produced by full-frame lenses is high, but one must also be aware of when to use the efficient APS-C lenses in place of the full-frame ones. When the lens is turned around, you will find the presence of an imaging circle in the design of the lens. It’s this image circle that collaborates with the sensor, and therefore, lenses are designed in a manner such that they can be paired up with specific sensor sizes. The size of a full-frame lens is about 35mm frame of film, and an APS-C sensor is slightly smaller. When a full-frame lens is mounted on a camera that contains an APS-C sensor, one can witness a crop factor. This entails that the APS-C-size sensor of the camera causes magnification of the scene for the production of an image that matches the full-frame image circle of the lens. The result that appears after mounting a 50mm full-frame lens on an APS-C body with a 1. 5x crop factor is that a field-of-view gets captured which is equivalent to a 75mm on a full-frame body. Therefore, when the image circle of your full-frame lens is bigger than the sensor of your camera, the image is recorded by the camera from the center of the imaging circle. This means that the scene that is being captured is less when a full-frame lens is mounted on an APS-C-sensor camera. The resulting situation could be ideal for portraits photography, but when landscape or sport or wildlife photography is in question, you would want more of the scene around you being captured. One of the main benefits of using APS-C lenses over full-frame lenses is that you achieve wider coverage through the crop lenses during the situations where you want more width in your photos. Something to remember is that when a full-frame lens is used on an APS-C camera body, there will be a visible flare in the photos. The reason behind this is that an APS-C lens is equipped with a narrower field of view. Hence, if in case you attempt to shoot too close to the sun, the light will not receive a proper physical path through the lens. Although, the good thing is that this situation only arises when the shooting is taking place in a highly bright ambience or just adjacent to a light source.

Sony Cameras and Lenses

Sony Announces Two New APS-C Cameras – The “Flagship” a6600 And The a6100

David J. Crewe, 3 years ago 6 min read

Sony makes the news again by launching two new APS-C cameras; The new flagship a6600 and an “entry-level” a6100!

News & Insight

Why You Shouldn’t Apply Crop Factor to Aperture | Crop vs Full Frame

Justin Heyes, 5 years ago 3 min read

There isn’t a day that rises where a debate on the benefits of full-frame cameras over APS-C or micro four-thirds doesn’t rear…

Photography

Sony’s New a6500: A More Powerful Flagship APS-C with IBIS & Touchscreen

Bing Putney, 6 years ago 3 min read

Only 8 months after the a6300, Sony is back with a new feature-rich APS-C contender.

Camera Reviews and News

Canon 80D To Be High Megapixel APS-C Beast? Why Are Cameras Banned From the Supreme Court? | Daily Roundup

Anthony Thurston, 7 years ago 4 min read

The rumor mill is starting to flood with specs and tidbits about a rumored Canon 80D camera. The 70D, while a great mid-range APS-C offering, is a couple of years old now, and by today’s standards that means its about time for an update/upgrade.

Camera Reviews and News

Samsung NX1: The Best APS-C Sensor On The Market? | Camera Store TV

Anthony Thurston, 8 years ago 2 min read

There has been lots of talk about the 4K, the 15fps, and the auto focus on the new flagship Samsung NX1, but the real crown jewel of the new camera has got to be its 28mp backside illuminated APS-C sensor.

What is the difference between FF and APS-C

When choosing a DSLR or lens, it is important to understand the difference between full frame and crop. These differences and what they mean for your photography.

Macro photography, like this photo of a ladybug, is one area where sensor size makes a difference.

Digital SLR cameras have a sensor, which is the thing that takes the place of film. The size of this sensor is of great importance, it determines the characteristics of the camera.

Similar to the days when everyone used 35mm film, when people refer to a full frame digital camera, they talk about a camera with a sensor of about the same size, one full frame of 35mm film.

APS-C

What does APS-C mean? In English Advanced Photo System Type-C.

APS is a film camera format, suffix 'C' means "Classic" option for using this type of film.

And finally, the APS-C digital camera sensor format is equivalent to the “classic” format (type-C from Classic), the frame size of this format is 25. 1 × 16.7 mm (frame aspect ratio 3:2).

How does this relate to your photograph?

APS-C sensor, smaller than full frame sensor. This means that the edges of the image corresponding to a full frame camera are cropped (cropped) by the APS-C sensor. The picture below gives you a rough idea of what it looks like. You can see that the full frame captures much more of the scene.

And since the APS-C sensor is smaller, it has the peculiarity of how much fine detail it can capture, comparable to how an artist paints on a smaller canvas.

The APS-C sensor crops the edges of the frame compared to a full size sensor.

So why isn't everyone using a full frame sensor?

The full-frame sensor is larger than APS-C, and this makes cameras with it more expensive to manufacture and therefore more expensive to retail.

And because FF cameras have a larger sensor, they need larger lens diameters, which precludes buying some of the less expensive lenses made exclusively for use with APS-C cameras.

What are the advantages of APS-C

But first of all, it must be said that full-frame cameras do the same things as APS-C. They work exactly the same. But since they capture different areas of the frame, we may end up with slightly different images, and the differences are more than just cropped edges of the frame.

Increasing background blur allows for the foreground provided to stand out over

Bokeh

Imagine yourself taking a picture of a flower with an APS-C camera. You are standing close to the flower because you want it to take up the entire photo. Now imagine there is some grass in the background. This grass is distracting somehow from the subject being photographed, and therefore you want to blur it further so that the flower is more visible. So you open up the aperture as much as you can to reduce the depth of field, which makes the grass look more blurry than it actually is.

You are now using a full frame camera and looking through the viewfinder. The same lens. Same camera settings. But surprise! This flower no longer fills the frame. And you see all the scenery around it that was cropped by the APS-C camera. Well, what to do? You can take a photo and crop the photo in an image editor and end up with the same picture. Or you can get closer to the flower.

Moving closer makes it bigger and the flower fills the frame again. Because you are now physically closer to the flower, the perspective on the flower seems a little more extreme, maybe a little more dynamic. And now you are focusing closer again. And when you focus closer, something really important happens, and the depth of field becomes smaller.

And the background of the grass suddenly became even more blurred, which means that the flower stands out even more.

So you have the same subject, same lens, same aperture, but full frame resulted in a completely different photo! In this case, you may prefer a full frame camera.

Close-up

You get excited when you see an insect on a flower that you didn't notice before.

You have a macro lens and now you want this insect to fill the photo.

At this point, an APS-C camera might be more useful because you don't have to be as close to the insect as possible to fill the frame. This can be used to reduce the chance of scaring him.

But that's not all. Since getting enough depth of field is notoriously difficult in macro photography, you'll probably also appreciate the slight increase in depth of field that comes from photographing your insect at a greater distance.

Depth of field increases as you move further away from the subject. This can give an APS-C camera. In view of the advantage when shooting macro photography, because they fill the frame with the subject from a greater distance.

A sensor that captures only the center of the scene can sometimes work to your advantage.

Crop factor

Canon APS-C cameras like the 70D and 7D are often said to have a crop factor of 1.6. Nikon APS-C cameras (also known as Nikon DX format) have a crop factor of around 1. 5.

The crop factor is sometimes called the multiplier factor because when you multiply it by the focal length of the lens, you see a difference in how the lens frames your subject.

Mount a 100mm lens on a full frame camera and it behaves like a 100mm lens. But if you mount the same 100mm lens on an APS-C body at a factor of 1.6, the focal length will be 1.6 × 100 = 160. And a 400mm lens on an APS-C camera will frame the scene like a giant 640mm telephoto lens. at full frame. So using an APS-C camera kind of makes your telephoto lenses longer in focal length. You see, an APS-C camera doesn't really zoom in on anything more than a full frame. Another benefit of crop is that the pixels of an APS-C sensor are small enough and packed tightly enough to capture more detail. In other words, the combination of a cropped sensor plus "pixel density" can actually result in some benefits!

An APS-C camera and a full frame camera with identical lenses will see different amounts of the same scene.

The above phenomenon can be important for things like wildlife photography, where most of your subjects will be very far away. But it's not so good for wide angle shots. Because full frame cameras have full advantage over wide angle lenses, since APS-C crops all the outer parts of a wide angle image, which means that the lens is not as wide as it was on full frame. For example, a 20mm wide-angle lens would be 32mm on APS-C. and a correspondingly smaller viewing angle.

I mentioned the artist's canvas analogy earlier, and I want to get back to it right now.

We now know that full frame sensors are larger. So imagine that you are an artist trying to paint as many small details as possible on a canvas. It makes sense that the larger the canvas you are working on, the easier it will be.

APS-C sensors may try to regain some advantage they have lost in size by reducing the size of the pixels. This is equivalent to how the artist, using a smaller canvas, is forced to use a thinner brush. However, a 35mm sensor will still benefit in terms of detail, especially with more camera megapixels (the pixel will also be smaller).

So now we know that full frame can be the best in terms of image detail. So what if you want to print a giant poster with enough detail? In such a case, you full frame may be the best choice.

Specialized lenses

Some lenses are designed to work only on crop sensors. Therefore, if you have a full frame camera, you may not be able to use some of the lenses available for APS-C models. Of course, if you're buying a lens, you'll need to make sure it fits your camera. However, some people with APS-C format cameras choose such lenses, only such lenses will work at full frame with 2 times less resolution. This is a personal preference, of course, and in my opinion erroneous and not rational.

Will a full frame lens work with an APS-C camera?

Yes. Even if our photographs are in the form of rectangles (the shape of the matrix is rectangular), the image projected by the lens is actually circular. If the image circle is large enough to completely cover the camera sensor, then you have no problem.

The image projected by a full frame lens is more than large enough for a small APS-C sensor. Thus, you will lose parts of the image around the edges.

Can you use a lens made exclusively for APS-C cameras on a full frame body?

A lens made only for APS-C format cameras projects an image that is not large enough for a full frame sensor.

Lenses made for APS-C cameras probably won't work with Canon full-frame cameras because the mount is different, in case of Nikon and Pentax the lens will fit, the photos will be cropped at the edges and 2 times lower resolution or have significant vignetting .

For these reasons, I personally wouldn't recommend using an APS-C lens on a FF camera

Benefits of full frame

making full use of wide angle lenses
allow the photographer to move closer to the subject and reduce depth of field than
great for landscape photography, art photography, real estate photography, or pre
The large sensor has an aperture ratio - an advantage in low light.

Disadvantages of full frame

more expensive than APS-C
more difficult to take a picture with a distant subject, more difficult to photograph birds and animals that can be scared.

Benefits of crop

Cheaper APS-C cameras
Cheaper lenses because they contain fewer elements and smaller diameter lenses
Great for sports/wildlife and macro photography

Crop disadvantages

wide angle lenses lose some of their wide angle effect
less background blur
as a general pattern, smaller sensor means more noise in images less fine detail, less dynamic range
if you decide to go full frame later on, you won't be able to use your APS-C lens collection.
In some cases, the light sensitivity of the matrix is less - a small drawback that manifests itself when working in low light.

Now you know how, simply by changing the size of the sensor, more possibilities open up in photography. Remember that both kinds of cameras do the same things, but in slightly different ways, and these differences are used to the maximum by photography professionals.

APS-C cameras: why the crop sensor is your new best friend

February 6, 20160175 APS-C cameras: why a crop-sensor body is your new best friend

APS-C cameras: why a crop-sensor body is your new best friend landscape photographer David Clapp explains why photographers must not lose sight of the potential that cameras with APS-C sensors have to create great images.

Many photographers will remember the days when the first APS-C format cameras became available on the market. I personally remember their appearance at the beginning of my journey into the world of photography, when shooting on film began to gradually decline.

I was lusting* after the new Canon EOS 10D appeared in my local store and was in a state of confusion, but after years of shooting with my favorite EOS 5 film, I couldn't make up my mind.

Both of these 35mm film cameras could be considered "full frame" and the idea of selling cameras with a 24mm sensor was still unattractive.

Reason? These were originally wide-angle lenses that were an essential tool for landscape photographers. Moving to an APS-C sensor meant changing my favorite focal length of 17mm to a rather uninteresting 27mm.

The only way to get around this problem is to move towards the extension: the 10-22mm EF-S lens gives 16mm on the crop sensor at the wide end, so this problem has been solved for me.

But if I had bought a 6.3 megapixel 10D that day, all my fine lenses with their particular focal lengths would have become uncomfortable focal lengths (24-70 = 38-112mm, 70-200mm = 112-320mm).

So I resisted until 2006 when I could afford a full-frame 12MP Canon EOS 5D and kept my lens collection intact. Afterwards, if you entered the world of photography “through another door”, then your experience would be completely different and different from mine, which, for example, entered photography through an interest in wildlife.

Wildlife photographers have embraced digital cameras and crop sensors. The 500mm lens became an incredible 800mm monster, giving extra 'reach' in equivalent megapixels.

So let's take a look at the landscape camera, the Canon 7D.

This is the camera that changed everything for wildlife photographers. It was an affordable 1.6x crop sensor that had an excellent resolution of 18MP with a huge frame rate of 8fps.

Was this camera excellent quality? Excessive noise at low ISOs (even at ISO 400) and that's the reason why everyone will remember this fact when giving advice to their friends when 'going to full frame'.

So the starting point of this article is that APS-C cameras suffer from quality issues because there are too many pixels packed into the 24mm sensor and it doesn't match current development technology.

Those days are long gone and my message is simple - the quality is there and crop sensor cameras are very competitive.

We will explain the basic things you need to know about camera sensor sizes: Four Thirds, 1 / 1.7, full frame and APS-C format

shooting with cropped cameras along with full-frame cameras and lenses. This is something that many of us overlook, especially in the world of landscape and decorative photography.

Here's why the APS-C format is worth your time:

1. Depth of field

A 1.6x focus multiplier means a lens displaying equivalent composition on a full frame camera will require a much longer focal length on an APS-C camera.

Back to my wide-angle analogy, 28mm on a full-frame camera gives the same composition on a 17mm in APS-C.

Using a 17mm lens means that a much greater depth of field (DOF) is available, as even if the images are the same frame by frame, there is a huge difference in depth of field.

F11 at 17mm has a huge increase in depth of field compared to F11 at 28mm.

Look at this photo of the lighthouse - it was taken on a Canon EOS M3 using an 11-22mm lens at 11mm.

The available depth of field at 11mm is so huge that I was able to photograph the interior from a few meters in front of the lens to the top, 70m up at f8!

The only way to get this image in focus, from the bottom steps to the top steps, is to use a full frame camera with a 17mm focal length and f/22 aperture. An APS-C camera has a big advantage here for the following reasons -

At f8, the sensor receives more light and the shutter speed on the camera becomes faster.
Longer shutter speeds will require a still camera using a tripod.
At f22 on a full-frame camera, the image around the edges of the frame will have diffraction, loss of contrast, and sharpness.

As is often the case, tripods were not allowed in this building due to the density of stairs, so the only solution was to use an APS-C camera.

Here's another similar example - the EOS M3 needs a 110mm focal length at f11 to get this sunflower shot sharp from foreground to background. To capture the same image, a full-frame camera requires a focal length of 176mm at f22, and even then it was impossible to get sharpness across the entire field of the frame - from front to back. The APS-C cameo wins again, this time with a larger lens.

2. Best ISO settings without quality loss.

Cheap crop sensor cameras had big problems with low ISO sensitivity. Without going too much into technical details, I’ll say that the distance between pixels on a Full-Frame matrix is approximately 10 microns, while on a crop matrix it is 4 microns. This circumstance explains why the noise on the crop sensor is stronger at low ISO sensitivities. But it was like that before. At the moment, the quality of crop sensors and the perfection of processing processes have improved so much that the ISO1600 limit, like the Canon EOS 7D, is exceeded even in amateur cameras.

3. Even more megapixels

Most APS-C sensors hit the 20 megapixel peak and some go well beyond. The Canon EOS M3 mentioned in this article has a 24MP sensor, which is the largest of any camera I own. The delight of this sensor is that I shoot with the quality of a SLR camera without any compromise at all.

4. Camera size and weight

Many APS-C format cameras are incredibly light.

Entry-level cameras like the Canon EOS 1200D are tiny compared to full-frame cameras, but produce amazing 18MP images.

Returning to the Canon EOS M3 once again, I note that the entire set of lenses from 11 to 200mm (which is the equivalent of 18-320mm in full frame) weighs only 1.2 kg!

And you can use an adapter to use these lenses with any full frame camera. Do you see the benefits?

5. Comfort for handheld photography

The last point is related to the camera's handheld convenience. Have you ever heard of the 1/focal length rule? When photographing handheld, you should ensure that the shutter speed is no more than the focal length of the lens in order to eliminate hand shake and get a sharp frame without “blurring”.

Thus, if we take and compare, for example, APS-C 17mm and its Full Frame equivalent - 28mm, the shutter speed will need to be kept within 1/17 sec and 1/28 sec, respectively.

This means that the APS-C camera can take pictures handheld, with a much slower shutter speed, that is, almost twice as slow! If you add image stabilization to this formula, an APS-C camera can shoot at shutter speeds as fast as 1/4 second without loss of sharpness. My personal best is 1/2 sec, which is impossible with a Full Frame camera.

I leave you with this shot that was impossible to take with a full frame camera. This would require a focal length in excess of 400mm, about 480mm to be exact.

I used a Canon EOS M3 with a 70-300mm lens. Without this 24 megapixel camera, I would just crop a 20 megapixel image from a Canon 6D camera, losing resolution and losing the overall image of the image.

In my experience as a landscape photographer and traveler, I'm now left wondering how many shots I've missed without the capabilities of an APS-C camera sensor in my bag.