Everything you need to know about your camera's sensor size explained

Wow! Great explanation. Thank you so much. Cheers from Canada!

Great explanation! i have a D7200 and will eventually get a full-frame camera :)

Brilliant explanation thanks.

How many brothers do you have?
Fantastic explanation!

Awesome! Keep up the good work.

Excellent video, thanks!

Most people who know what they are doing only go for a ff over a crop due to button accessibility as the body is larger, weather sealing or because they shoot portraits and or landscapes. That's their real advantage. If you shoot other things or carry a camera all day, a good crop is a far better choice. In reality a ff is big, heavy and expensive. If people want to upgrade, money is better spent on a decent lens or two. FF shouldn't be an aspiration, getting better photos should be!! Get a camera and lenses that suit your photography.

I am sorry but a lens dos not work like you explaned it!

You found the best and simplest way to explain all of it. Excellent tutorial. Thanks!

my Fujifilm aps-c X-pro2 has better low light performance than Canon full frame 5d markiii and also better dynamic range.

Comparing a low end mft with a high end fx seems to be a bit unfair. Especially when you compare also different resolutions :-( That could be done better an in my opinion is not on the high level you usually show here

Why don't you test with out with the same brand, same mp and same lens from a Aps C & Full frame, Canon have such models. The practical difference is the crop size, the distance from you and your subject, the rest is pretty negligible. This is digital-SLR we shoot raw and hv to process it anyway. Nevertheless you explain it nicely in one of the most creative way. 👍 from me but still... the pratical test between those two camera is absolutely flunk to me.

amazing!

Best explanation that i have ever seen

What an excellent explanation. Great job.

Wow! Thank you so much!

yeaha! subscribed! thanks for the wisdom ! ya Jedi! :'D

there are great tutorials..and there are the great ones,nowdays photographers/videographers are pushing the boundaries in style in wich knowledge is passed..i knew this day will come,but man..you are the first one to make me coment about it..bravo!

There is a fatal flaw in the logic of this video. It assumes lens aperture is kept constant across sensors of different size. A more reasonable assumption would be to keep equivalent aperture constant across sensors. In other words, it is wrong to say that the sensor captures light. it's the lens which gathers light and focuses it on the sensor. If you take two lenses which gather same amount of light, but focus it on sensors of different size, the resulting images are going to be way more similar than what the video demonstrates.
So the good news for small sensor cameras is that you can buy very fast lens (wide aperture) and get the same result as big sensor camera.
The bad news is that fast lenses are big and heavy so you can have either better image quality or compact size, not both.

Can you please compare Nokia 808 and Lumia 1020 with RX100 and APS-C sensors Image Quality and Dynamic Range and Low light photography because Nokia fan boys post and Some paid websites post wrong information and Praise Pureview

great video. I've got a lumix g7 and felt inferior to full frame dslr users but this clears up the debate. I know to be careful of low light now. I'd look forward to the next video explaining about the resolution differences when it comes to printing sizes vs distortion and clarity when looking at micro4/3 dslm vs full frame dslr

keep up the great work.

Watched this video two weeks after buying my first "proper" camera (DSC-H400) which while it's a really good camera compared to what I'm used to, now I understand why it was so cheap.

great video!

Great way of explaining, thank you :)

as the technology is advancing, it will not matter how big is the sensor. a 36mp or 50mp full frame has pixel density all most identical with 24mp crop size

Big thumbs up for practically explaining the difference!

very nice video with lots of effective illustrations for better understanding.

What about 2 cameras with the same full frame sensor but one has larger megapixel? Does it mean that the one with larger megapixels has smaller megapixel therefore creates lower quality image?

Thanks Bill Nye the photo guy. Nicely done.

Great video... explains the arguments crop v full frame very well. Thx

If you use a smaller sensor with a lens which is designed for that sensor i.e. magnification, you will have the same image projected as the bigger sensor. However if everything is scaled down and you would have the same amount of pixels in the end result, the ONLY difference is the pixel to pixel distance hence worse SNR, crosstalk etc. i.e. electrical disadvantages from scaling down the geometry = pixel size

Excellent explanation....you are dead on. I shoot with both a M43 and a full frame and you can't beat the weight and size of a M43. When it comes to the quality of the image (Dynamic Range, Noise etc. ) the full frame is a clear winner. But keep in mind, the camera doesn't take pictures....people do.

I see now big differences comparing a Nikon 5600 and a Panasonic G81. Panasonic Image (Aperture 5,6 and Nikon 6,3)much more sharper und reaches full sharpness in the corner of an Image then the Nikon. Was surprised myself. I own an A7 and a G81 and i think that the 4/3 cameras don't need to hide for the Aps-c Cameras. Just Fuji and the A6300/6500 but especially Sony has not a good Lens lineup for me. And also most FF Sensors have min 24MP and the Mft most 16MP. The new G9 smokes many Aps-c Cameras beeing able to create Pictures with a 20th of a second shutter speed without a tripod with a tele zoom and stay low in the ISO (when subject stands still) instead of a 80th of a second or above by a only lens stabelized Camera. So you have to look from different angles. Ff to Mft is a difference, Mft to Aps-c not so much. Greets

Very informative and knowledgeable, thanks

I could care less about blurring a background, I just like taking low light pics, and I like a wide angle. IN GENERAL, I like to have my backgrounds in focus.

For low light, it is the PIXEL size not sensor size that affects noise and DR. SONY makes a 2 MP sensor that has extreme low light capability. It is used in robots and manufacturing.

what BS, what were the lenses on those 2 cameras, what focal length & f stop? FF lens has a lens 30 times larger then the compact camera. try using similar lenses next time.

Sorry but that was a very fiddly video with an insufficient explenation.

Also the DOF does not change with sensor size, it changes with Focal length. An APS-C sensor and a full frame using the same 50mm lens at the same distance and the same appeture will get you the exact same DOF. You only get a different crop. So no sensor size won't change your DOF. If you want the same composition by moving further or closer, that will change your DOF. So sensor size wont change it, moving further or closer will.

Wow! This is a very creative way to explain the differences! Thanks for creating this vid!

What I want to know is, instead of a RGGB pattern on the bayer filter why don't they use a neutral/yellow/cyan pattern. So Neutral (no filtering), -R (cyan) and -B (yellow). RGGB yields 4 units of light whilst a YNNC pattern would yield 2+3+3+2=10 units of light. You would get the same colour information although maybe chroma noise might increase a little bit (I guess).

WOW! This video is noting short of amazing! The explanations and illustrations were comprehensive, yet easy to understand. The production value was outstanding! I've been shooting a long time and watch TONS of tutorial videos, but I still learned a few things from this one. Well done!

what a fantastic explaination...!!!! really you have done a great job brother... basically I need a logical explanation to understand things.. that u did exactly... especially that small bottle of water for light observed.. thanks a lot bro... untill today I was thinking that higher pixel resolution gives good quality images.. but now I understand it is proportionate with the size of the sensor... I like your teaching...

I've seen good explanations elsewhere on the effect of sensor size on noise, but this video has the best illustration of the effect on dynamic range. Other videos say the small sensor collects less total light, but your clearer explanation says that the smaller sensor collects less light per pixel, requiring more amplification, and amplification amplifies noise as well as signal. Your video could have used a bit more elaboration on why collecting less light per pixel results in less dynamic range, but your demonstration was excellent.

I like the analogies and explanation but it got me thinking: is there a HUGE omission in this (and many other) explanations about sensor size? To the point that the explanation for the conclusion are a bit misleading. Physics 101 to the rescue. The sensor only "sees" the light image the lens provides. So when comparing a large vs small sensor one should also factor in the amount of light coming through the lens to the sensor. For example: in the watering can sprinkling into the large vs small jar analogy is that an accurate representation of what is happening with the large vs small sensor cameras in the church? Do BOTH sensors get the same amount of photons? Here's the pink elephant in the room that is NOT discussed: the difference between aperture in full frame lens vs crop lens. Holding constant the aperture setting at f/2 does NOT let in the same amount of light in a full frame lens vs crop lens. Just like with focal length one has to apply a crop factor. The absolute area of the lens aperture opening letting in photons for f/2 full frame is actually bigger than f/2 crop. So for a 2X crop factor f/2 full frame aperture area is equivalent to f/4 crop aperture area. Put another way, if both are set at f/2, the crop sensor is getting 2 stops less light i.e. only 25% of the photons. This the real reason that when the resulting photos are blown up to the same dimensions and examined there is less DR, more noise etc.. There is less light exiting the lens and hitting the small sensor to begin with, and then it has to be amplified more to produce an equivalent photo for comparison. Yes, the smaller sensor camera's photos are worse than the full frame in reality, but it's not an apples to apples fair comparison. The discussion of pixels is a red herring. The real explanation is in the lens. Of course camera/lens manufacturers don't talk about the aperture crop factor at all. It's not good for business to widely advertise that their expensive prime f/1.8 crop lens actually only lets in as much light as f/3.6 full frame. And if you are envious of your friend's new full frame f/1.4 lens, good luck trying to find the crop equivalent at f/0.7. In theory crop sensor cameras could be almost as good as full frame, but in reality of how manufacturers market and sell equipment they are not. The more cynical would say that manufacturers actually want to perpetuate the myth that small sensor = crap because they push consumers to buy more expensive bigger sensor cameras.

Superb video, thank you so much for laying this out in an easy to understand way. The various illustrations and analogies were brilliant!

Practical is practical.....
This is your........ quality

anybody know which cameras were being compared in his last study with the ISO sensitivity and dynamic range?

Best explanation I've ever heard about camera sensor. Two thumbs up for you.👍👍

Best explanation so far.

Does this apply to video as well thank you for the info