
APSC SENSOR VS FULL FRAME ISO
They therefore have more light-gathering potential and can capture more information, with less image noise or grain, particularly at high ISO settings in low-light conditions. Other things being equal, the individual photosites or light receptors on a full-frame image sensor will be physically larger than those on an APS-C sensor with the same megapixel count. One further advantage of a full-frame sensor relates directly to its larger size. This is often ideal in still life and portrait photography, and in any other shooting scenario where you want to isolate the main subject by throwing the background out of focus. Shooting with an APS-C format camera also saves the time and effort of manually cropping images at the editing stage.īecause a full-frame sensor has a wider field of view, a full-frame camera is ideal for sweeping landscapes, ultra-wide architectural interiors and astrophotography, and for creative effect when you want to exaggerate the perspective between foreground and background areas.Īs a general rule, especially at wider apertures (lower f-numbers), full-frame cameras can produce a narrower depth of field than APS-C cameras, meaning that a smaller part of the image is in sharp focus and more of the background is blurred. You could crop images from a full-frame camera to create the same effect, but the megapixel count would be reduced, so the resulting images would be smaller and hence less sharp when enlarged again. You'd need a larger, heavier and more expensive lens to give the same reach on a full-frame camera. The comparably-priced RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM lens gains an effective focal range of 160-640mm on an APS-C camera. Using a high-performance yet affordable lens such as the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM on an APS-C camera gives an effective zoom range of 112-480mm, taking it into super-telephoto territory. This can be a major advantage in genres such as wildlife, action and sports photography. The crop factor of an APS-C sensor makes smaller or more distant subjects larger in the frame, which in effect increases the effective focal length of any lens by 1.6x. Since a smaller image circle is required from a lens designed for APS-C cameras, the lens can be smaller and lighter, and consequently can be more affordable. EF lenses can be used on the EOS R7 and EOS R10 with any of the range of EF-EOS R Mount Adapters.īecause APS-C sensors are smaller, cameras can be made more compact and lighter, which is ideal for street and travel photography.
APSC SENSOR VS FULL FRAME FREE
If you want to work this out when you're using an RF, EF, RF-S, EF-S or EF-M lens on an APS-C camera, you can use the Effective Focal Length calculator in the free Canon Photo Companion app.Ĭrop factor applies to all full-frame lenses used on APS-C format cameras, including both EF and RF lenses. For this reason, crop factor is also sometimes known as "focal length multiplier", telling you the effective focal length of the lens you're using. In the same way, using a full-frame 100mm lens on an APS-C camera gives the same field of view as a 160mm lens on a full-frame camera. This means that shooting with a 50mm standard lens on an APS-C camera gives you the same field of view as shooting with an 80mm telephoto lens on a full-frame camera (50 x 1.6 = 80). In effect, compared to the image on a full-frame sensor, the image is cropped.īecause the APS-C sensors in Canon cameras are 1.6x smaller than the sensors in Canon full-frame cameras, the "crop factor" is 1.6x. If you use the same lens on an APS-C format camera, the smaller image sensor will utilise only a smaller region in the centre of the same image circle. All lenses produce a circular image, which means that a full-frame compatible lens needs to have a large enough circumference for the image to overlap the corners of a rectangular full-frame image sensor. This physical size difference between the two sensor types determines what the camera "sees".
