[SA Chris]

So Pentax have finally caught up and released the K1 Full Frame. Contemplating upgrading from my K7 (released 2009) and wondering about material benefits. Reviews so far seem fairly favourable, and things like great low noise at high ISO, and built in Astrotracer function really appeal for night time stuff, but hard to swallow circa £1.5K pricetag. Almost all my current lenses are full frame (except the kit 18-135 which I will probably keep on my K7) so won't need to invest in a lot of new glass.

Interested to hear from people who made the move , and if there was a big difference in quality.

Thanks

[Paul B]

I thought so but went from a 550d to a 5dII.

The size and weight currently make me long for something lighter. At a wedding, shots from Stu's 7d with the 18-55 EFS lens were perhaps one ISO stop lower for the same quality when compared with my 5dII.

My little Fuji is outstanding at high ISO; shame I'm not getting on with the 35mm lens and not being able to focus and recompose.

[dave]

One thing to bear in mind if you shoot any wildlife is that if you go full frame all your long lenses just got 30% shorter (guessing as I don’t know what the pentax crop factor is).

[SA Chris]

Cheers guys. Yeah Dave, it's about right ratio wise. I've got a Sigma 120-400 I try and use for wildlife shots, but it rarely makes it out of the camera bag, guess I can crop the higher resolution shot a FF will produce to get a similar result if I want to.

[SA Chris]

I thought so but went from a 550d to a 5dII.

The size and weight currently make me long for something lighter. At a wedding, shots from Stu's 7d with the 18-55 EFS lens were perhaps one ISO stop lower for the same quality when compared with my 5dII.

So;
550d - crop
5dII - full
7d - crop?

[kelvin]

I've had a Canon S95 for the last few years but just bought an old 5D Mk1 with a few lenses. Had so much spare time on the trip, I figured next winter I may as well use it to try and learn how to take a quarter decent shot. £350 didn't seem so bad but flippin' 'eck it's heavy.

Totally a newbie. The S95 spends most of it's life on AF, I know nothing about Lightroom other than I need to get it but I'm quite excited.

[Paul B]

So;
550d - crop
5dII - full
7d - crop?

Correct. I can point you at some samples if you care (nudge me via PM or FB).

[cheque]

guess I can crop the higher resolution shot a FF will produce to get a similar result if I want to.

*Looks up K1 resolution* Yeah, I think you can get away with cropping! Jesus.

[Johnny Brown]

There is no big difference in quality. Just lots of marketing to make you think APS-C is amateur and FX pro. The differences now depend as much on model and generation as sensor size, and are only likely to be visible when pixel peeping.

So going from an old crop body to a new fx body, yes, you're going to see a big difference in quality. And the K1 does have done interesting cutting edge features like the pixel shift.

What lenses have you got?

[SA Chris]

I've got the kit 18-135, a sigma 120-400 (ff), sigma12-24 (ff) the old Pentax manual 50 prime 1.4, and an old Pentax manual 24 prime 2.8 (both ff, obviously). Given that current kit is 7 years old it's not just the ff that is of interest.

Sent from my SM-A300FU using Tapatalk

[Lund]

+1 to what Johnny said - in your case, the dominant factor will be the age of the camera and the features/quality of the software/processor.

However, science means that with a larger sensor, there is less noise.  So the signal-to-noise ratio is better with a larger sensor, and that means that the full frame camera will do better when the ISO is pushed really high in low light conditions.  You can offset this to some extent with processing and software, but when it comes down to brass tacks at the extremes - the larger the sensor is, physically, the better the results can be.

That might not bother you.  I have a canon 5d II, and a Leica M8.  I know which one I would sell and it would not be the Leica.  There are many other factors beyond sensor size... or features...

[Durbs]

I recently moved from a 7D to a Sony A7RII, so crop > FF as well as 18mp > *cough* 42.4mp (!!!)

ISO performance is amazing, though in part this is more a case that the 7D wasn't great about ISO 800.
The crop-ability is great - i've just got a single 35mm prime on the Sony and can drop about 25% of the frame and still get very useable results.

However the main thing I've noticed is the dynamic range it can cover - some shots I've taken I've mentally written off; two babies in their rucksacks, one in full sun, one in full shade and the highlights weren't blown, nor the shadows lost - really impressive stuff and wouldn't have been possible on my 7D.

Again, not sure how much of this is due to moving to FF, or (massively) upgrading the body, but it's really nice.
Also enjoying the wider FOV you get on a FF without getting all fish-eye with it. When (if...) funds recover, looking at either an 18mm prime or a 16-35mm as they take great landscapes, but without the stretching I used to get with a 10-20mm on a crop.

[dave]

Also enjoying the wider FOV you get on a FF without getting all fish-eye with it. When (if...) funds recover, looking at either an 18mm prime or a 16-35mm as they take great landscapes, but without the stretching I used to get with a 10-20mm on a crop.

Don't understand this at all. Or at least if you're seeing more stretching at the edges of shot with the 10mm end of a zoom on a x1.5 crop instead of the same shot at 15mm on FF then that surely is nothing to do with the sensor size, but instead to do with the mathematical projection used in the particular lens designs of the lenses you're using. Unless I've missed something here.

[Johnny Brown]

not sure how much of this is due to moving to FF, or (massively) upgrading the body

Well you've gone from a fairly average sensor to one at the bleeding edge of technology. The past couple of years have seen sensor quality accelerate; an A7RII represents an imaging device which is beyond the dreams of anyone who started in the film era. You could crop 80% of the frame out and still have better quality than most of the professionally shot and printed images you've seen in your lifetime.

With the distortion, I'm with Dave. An 18mm prime or 16mm end of the zoom will show just the same 'stretching'.  I use a 21mm prime on my A7, and you have to take care what you put in the corners.

I do feel the symmetrical prime lens designs I use on large format draw the image in a more natural way than my ultra-wide zoom on my DSLR, but I suspect with modern software corrections it might not stand up to analysis. Probably a combination of perspective correction, vignetting and more careful composition.

[Durbs]

I do feel the symmetrical prime lens designs I use on large format draw the image in a more natural way than my ultra-wide zoom on my DSLR, but I suspect with modern software corrections it might not stand up to analysis. Probably a combination of perspective correction, vignetting and more careful composition.

This is probably what I was alluding to... A 10mm on my crop (i.e. 16mm equivalent) has a very different look IMO than a 16mm on a full frame.

[dave]

Is your 10-20 the sigma by any chance? I had one and it did give a very stretched look, at the time I put it down to just being fucking wide. In retrospect I wouldn't be surprised if the projection used was the issue. They're probably limited in that sense when trying to create a reasonably priced ultrawide zoom.

Would be interesting to compare the stretched look of a sigma at 10mm to something like a voigtlander 15mm heliar on a Leica.

[Johnny Brown]

A 10mm on my crop (i.e. 16mm equivalent) has a very different look IMO than a 16mm on a full frame

Can you post some comparisons? I'm not convinced, as Dave said, they are both just fucking wide. My crop zoom goes to 12mm, but I never liked the rendering and don't carry that lens now as a rule. Any wider than 14DX/20FX I prefer to shoot fisheye and defish it 40-60%.

[Durbs]

It was a Sigma, but sold everything to fund the Sony, and don't yet own a wide-enough lens so can't offer a like-for-like of my own.

Annoyingly missed out on a second-hand Voigtlander 15mm with a Sony adapter - sample shots looked really good and not at all "stretched".

Perhaps it's lens-specific then.

Anyway...  ?

[Johnny Brown]

Hmm. I suspect the sample shots you've seen avoided subjects that would look stretched. Parnell used to shoot a Voigtlander super wide on film and they always looked stretched to me. Before such lenses were common they were always regarded as being specialist items requiring a lot of skill to use.

The 35mm/ 21mm pairing works well for me on my A7. Anything wider than 18mm will start to look weird a lot of the time.

[Lund]

Here: http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2013/07/12/question-does-the-voigtlander-15mm-f4-5-work-on-the-m-240/ you can see some images shot with the voigtlander 15mm, on a full frame body (a Leica M240).

Here: you can some images shot with the same lens on an M8.  The M8 has a crop sensor.  http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/the-voigtlander-15mm-heliar-lens-review-leica-m-mount-super-wide/

Compare & contrast?

[Durbs]

Here: http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2013/07/12/question-does-the-voigtlander-15mm-f4-5-work-on-the-m-240/ you can see some images shot with the voigtlander 15mm, on a full frame body (a Leica M240).

Here: you can some images shot with the same lens on an M8.  The M8 has a crop sensor.  http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/the-voigtlander-15mm-heliar-lens-review-leica-m-mount-super-wide/

Compare & contrast?

Nah, I'm saying a 10mm on a crop (16mm equivalent) will look more stretched than a 16mm on a FF... The same lens on a crop won't be as distorted as it misses the outer frame.

Voigtlander on an A7R:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=voigtlander%2015mm%20a7r

Sigma 10-20
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=Sigma%2010-20

Though these don't compare to badly, so maybe I'm talking shite and my photos with it were poorly framed for the lens.

Maybe "stretched" is the wrong word. What's the opposite of pin-cushion?

[dave]

What's the opposite of pin-cushion?

Barrel.

[Johnny Brown]

Barrel. Although sounds like the 10-20 has a variety:

Distortion: Things are a little different for really wide angle lenses. One of the problems that's encountered is unpredictable (or perhaps non-linear is a better word) distortion. At 10mm, this lens has something akin to what's called moustache distortion. At the edges, there's visible barrel distortion while in the center there's almost no visible distortion though there is a small bit of distortion that varies between barrel and pincushion. This is one of the side effects of using quite a few aspherical elements for wide angle lens design. The problem is that such distortions are difficult to remove from the picture. By 14mm, the lens is producing just barely visible pincushion distortion, and at 20mm that has lowered to being essentially invisible. Overall, the distortion handling is much better than you'd expect for such an extreme lens, as at all focal lengths the amount is relatively low. The primary problem is that at 10mm the distortion does become visible at the edges of the frame and is difficult to remove.

Being a prime the Voigtlander should be much better corrected. Sounds like the earlier versions have issues with colour shifts though?

[dave]

Sounds like the 15mm and 12mm heliars have various colour issues on the full frame digital sensors due to angle of light hitting the sensor, but fine on film (hint hint).

[Lund]

Sounds like the 15mm and 12mm heliars have various colour issues on the full frame digital sensors due to angle of light hitting the sensor, but fine on film (hint hint).

This is probably down to a combo of the shots above being on a Leica and the fact that the VG lens needs an adaptor?