I'm Having A Hard Time Making A Case For Buying Full Frame Digital Cameras

Beartown State Park, West Virginia (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1; 12-40mm f/2.8 lens @ 40mm; 1/13th sec. @ f/8; IS) 200 (handheld)

Last week, while recovering from my eye surgery, a thought hit me.  I was thinking back to my wife's and my road trip in September/October of last year, to the Rocky Mountains and the desert Southwestern U.S.  That realization that I had was that most of the "keeper" images I made on that 5700 mile (9200 km) road trip turned out to be made with my Olympus E-M1 Mark II with the Olympus 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens attached.  I had my Fujifilm gear with me but ended up using it less than the Olympus camera.  Hmmm?

The reason this thought came to light was that the three images I am having printed, matted and framed are from the Olympus on that trip and from a previous trip when I was using a Nikon D800E.  When selecting three images to go together for the wall hanging, even at 100% on my large, high quality monitor, I couldn't tell a difference in resolution, detail, noise, color, etc. between the two different formats.  I felt entirely comfortable that I could hang the micro4/3 enlargements directly next to the full frame enlargements.  

Now that the three photographs are hung, I'll bet anyone that no one will tell the difference when not only viewing them on the wall, but even if you look at them from 10 inches away!  The two formats are indistinguishable.  That being said, the three images have been enlarged to 12" X 16" (30 cm X 40 cm).  I know that is not huge but how much room do you have to hand three matted and framed photographs side-by-side?  These will span about 60 inches.  If I had only one print to hang, it could have been larger.

Continuing on with these thoughts, I came to the conclusion that, in reality for my kinds of photography, I'm perfectly happy with the quality of the images produced by my Olympus camera and lenses (my Panasonic gear as well).  I can think of only a couple of occasions going back to May, 2012 when I first bought an Olympus E-M5, that I have been less than pleased with an image's quality.  Those occasions were when I had to use a high ISO, the light was bad, I cropped heavily and was looking for fine detail in a subject.  The files just didn't give me what I wanted.  But, those were only a couple of images out of over 37,000 images I made with micro4/3 cameras.  Really?  That few.  

My problem is that I let those few images that lacked what I wanted in my final photographs skew my thinking into believing that micro4/3 could not serve my purposes despite the evidence to the contrary.  Those thoughts sent me on many wild goose chases to find the "perfect" camera system that would never let me down.  Now I see what foolishness I practiced.  I let my emotions override logic.

But the debate continues.  Can most of us still make a case for needing a full frame digital camera?  Yes and no, is my answer.  Let me explain.

I believe, with very narrow exceptions, there is no case for buying a full frame digital camera for the vast majority of us enthusiasts and most professionals as well.  I think a case can be made for those who routinely "photograph in the margins" or "around the edges" or under some very specific circumstances under what we would call everyday photography.

I think full frame can still makes sense of you, as a photographer, find yourself routinely  photographing in:

a) very low light and need to use really high ISOs
b) you find yourself photographing the fastest, most erratic action and need the absolute best follow focus, lock on and focus tracking
c) you regularly use and need lenses that are only available from a FF manufacturer
d) full frame is your personal preference;  nothing wrong with that
e) you are into brand loyalty; that's okay as well
f) the situations under which you find yourself photographing are normally very high dynamic range and only the 14-15 stop dynamic range of (Sony and Nikon) FF will work and blending images through bracketing can not work

g) you find yourself having to produce extremely large prints
h) you need the narrowest depth of field as that will only work with your photographs, and

I) you can’t afford long lenses and find yourself having to heavily crop to improve your compositions so a 36-50mp camera is necessary to accommodate your cropping needs

There is now little difference in image quality between full frame, APS-C and micro4/3 sensors when practicing what people would consider average photography, in my opinion.  The manufacturers would like you to think there is a major difference as their profit margins for full frame are the largest.  Hmmm.

Needing the fastest lenses is no longer an issue since f/1.2 and faster lenses are now available in APS-C and m4/3.

Lack of professional features is a non-issue since APS-C and m4/3 cameras are now full featured.  In fact, many have features not available on FF cameras.

Noise reduction in editing programs have gotten extremely good and, although don't fully equalize noise reduction between the three formats in some images, has advanced to the point that in all practicality, digital noise is no longer an issue for most all of us.

With the exception of the shallowest depth of field, APS-C and m4/3 cameras can produce images with very shallow depth of field if you understand the physics of how depth of field works.  Most people don't.  Besides, I can pretty much create shallow depth of field in Photoshop with its tools.  It's only when you have a shallow depth of field in your image file and you want more DOF that you run into trouble.  One of the benefits of the smaller sensored cameras.

The number of frames per second that can be fsired off in an APS-C and m4/3 cameras has exceeded FF.  You have to move less data, the sensors are smaller which means that the electronic and mechanical shutters can actuate more quickly.

I could go on but you get my point.  As I started this post, I really have a hard time making a case for me to buy a FF digital camera.  The only real case I can make is if I really, really want one!  A want versus a need, in my case.  

As many of you know recently I did buy the Nikon Z7 with the 24-70mm f/4 lens for a couple of reasons.  Mostly, I bought it to use for my extensive project to copy all of my slide and and negative archives.  That project is going very well and I'm finding, in this case, the FF gear is giving me the quality I want.  Also, there was some curiosity as to what Nikon brought to the market in the way of a mirrorless camera and a desire to compare its images to the images I make with my Fujifilm and Olympus gear.  The Z7, I think, is a terrific camera and the lens is excellent as well.  However, I'm not seeing enough of a difference in my images to say that FF is worth buying or keeping after the project has been completed.  We'll see.  As I said before, the cameras with the smaller sensors are so good today that the differences have been largely erased.  It is the emotional part of the decision-making process that has not changed.

For those who decry they will only accept the best quality in their images, why then are they hampering themselves with FF?  Shouldn't they be moving to medium format?  A hollow argument.

What about you?  Are there other circumstances I missed that you think would justify buying FF cameras?  Can you logically make a case under conditions which I did not mention here?  Leave a comment and let us know.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2019 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.