Is APS-C the best all round sensor size?

It’s a debate as old as time: what sensor size should I go for? In my opinion, sensor size is a more important choice than what make of camera you go for, because sensor size has a significantly larger impact on the images you’ll produce than who made the camera. As someone who has experience using full frame, crop sensor and micro four-thirds cameras, I’ve developed some ‘in the field’ opinions on the matter. In this blogpost, I’ll talk through some of the pros and cons, the opinion I’ve formed over my years of varied use of these sensors, and my conclusion.

Llynnau Cregannan, Eryri

This image was shot on the Canon R7, which has an APS-C (crop) sensor.

The Pros

Quality to size ratio

Image quality on modern crop sensor cameras is very high. Even in side by side comparisons, it’s practically impossible to tell whether a well executed photo was taken on a full frame or crop sensor camera. In times past, crop sensor cameras have been associated with beginner or budget photographers, who want to take photos without really being serious about it. However, over the last 5 years, crop sensors across the board have excellent sharpness, colour replication and dynamic range. There are very few situations where a crop sensor just can’t cut it in terms of quality (I’ll mention the few situations it might not be the best in the cons).

Balance this with lenses that tend to be quite a bit smaller than their equivalent full frame counterparts, and you get a very appealing package for someone whose looking for excellent quality without having to carry huge amounts of gear.

Crop Zoom

For wildlife and sports photographers, crop sensors can be an excellent way of getting some more reach from smaller lenses. Crop sensors do exactly what their name suggests: they “crop in” on an image. For most, this is 1.5x crop, and on canon it’s 1.6x. This means that on a canon crop sensor, 250mm of reach is actually the full frame equivalent of 400mm. This does come at a cost, however, in reduced background blur if that’s something you care about. This brings me onto my next point.

Depth of Field

Compared to full frame, you don’t need to reduce your aperture as much to achieve good sharpness throughout your photo. On a full frame camera, you may need to reduce your aperture to f/11 for a sharp image front to back. However, on a crop sensor, you may only need to reduce it to f/8.0 for a good, deep depth of field. This means that, generally, you can let more light into your sensor through the lens, offsetting many of the issues you might get in low light.

Affordability

I’ve left this until last because this is becoming less and less true as time goes on. In times past, crop sensor cameras tended to be significantly cheaper than their full frame brothers. However, now that manufacturers have been releasing excellent cameras for a number of years now, second hand full frame cameras can be bought in excellent condition for relatively affordable prices.

Captured on a 1.6x crop sensor at 250mm, equivalent to full frame at 400mm.

The Cons

Lens Choice

Depending on the manafacturer, lens choice can be much reduced for their crop-sensor range. All of the necessary lenses will be available to you, but full frame systems tend to have a wider choice, from a number of manufacturers.

Depth of Field

So, this was also a pro on the list above. However, if you’re looking to do something like portrait or product photography, you may want to produce a very shallow depth of field. This, in turn, produces a much blurrier background. Because the image is “cropped in” on an APS-C sensor, the background blur is much less pronounced on this format.

Features

Most manufacturers produce full frame models as their “flagship” models. Because of this, FF cameras tend to have the most advanced features and technology. With crop sensor cameras traditionally being aimed at beginners or amateurs, for a long time, some features were limited. However, these days, many manufacturers are including the same features in their crop sensor cameras as their FF models.

As technology has progressed, the capabilities of crop sensor cameras have practically overcome many of the technical hurdles they faced

My Experience

Over my years of doing photography, I’ve been able to use 3 formats properly: full frame, crop and micro 4/3. In that time, the opinion I’ve personally come to is that they all have their merits, but crop sensor is the sweet spot. I specifically went out to buy a Canon R7 when I decided to upgrade my camera, mainly because I already had the lenses that could fit it, but also because I knew that a crop sensor camera would still really suit my style of photography. I don’t need the super blurry backgrounds that can be produced on FF, nor do I really need the ultra compact lenses of the m4/3 system. My crop sensor camera really is exactly what I need, and I’ll be using for a long time to come.

Having said that, there are occasions where I still use my FF camera (Panasonic S5) for photography. In very low light situations, or when I’m doing portrait photography, I prefer the look of my FF camera. This doesn’t mean that I couldn’t do it with my R7, it’s just that because I own a FF camera, I might as well use it for the purposes it was created for.

In some situations, you just need the right camera for the job. Capturing the northern lights was much easier on a full frame camera

Conclusion

For 95% of my photography, crop sensor is the ideal format. The benefits of the system far outweigh any drawbacks for me, and I don’t see myself daily driving another format for a while yet. Having said that, I wouldn’t want to be without my full frame Lumix S5. For those 5% of situations where a FF camera is needed, I’m so glad I have it. If you really want the best of both, I’d recommend spending the greater part of your budget on daily driving a crop sensor camera that you can use for the vast majority of the time, then using part of your budget to buy a cheap, second hand FF camera (like a Canon 5D Mkii) with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. This will cover you for pretty much any type of photography, and you’ll find that almost nothing is out of your gear’s abilities.