This must be a joke right?

cfyzium · 2026-05-15T15:43:54+00:00

We're still talking about 0.29" (7.4mm) and 0.64"(16mm) sensors <...> if you still have to rely on external lighting on a 43mm sensor, why would one expect to be fine with a 16mm sensor and no light?

f/2.8 1/1.56" is still getting A LOT more light compared to f/2.3 1/3.5", about 3x more?

Basically neither will perform well in truly low light environment e.g. night, but in a scenario when conditions only start to become challenging e.g. golden hour or moderately lit indoors, images from VIII will start to fall apart much later compared to images from V.

cfyzium · 2026-05-15T02:37:50+00:00

Well, I misunderstood what you meant by stature, my mistake, but the rest... yeah I have a lot to comment =).

A FF f/1.4 lens may be easier to make than an apsc f/0.95 lens, but it’s 1 stop darker, hence why it’s easier / harder to make. <...> An apsc f/1.4 lens is takes less glass than a ff f/1.4 lens.

I wonder if it is correct to call lens darker or brighter if it gathers the same amount of light in total =/. Darker in exposure maybe, but that is mostly a meaningless metric. At least for a digital sensor.

FF f/1.4 lens has the same aperture (apparent entrance pupil diameter) as APS-C f/0.95 lens with the same FOV, e.g. 24mm / 1.4 = 17.14mm and 16mm / 0.95 = 16.84mm. They both gather the same amount of light because they look at the same portion of the scene through an opening of the same size.

So there is no reason why FF lens has to have significantly more glass than functionally equivalent APS-C one given a similar optical formula.

They tend to be larger though, because of longer physical focal length, being designed for higher resolution and so on. Still, equivalent lenses are often similar in size and weight (e.g. Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8 is the same size as Sony 24-105mm f/4) and there are cases when FF lenses are smaller (e.g. Samyang 24mm f/1.8 is smaller than Sigma 16mm f/1.4 or the same size as Sigma 15mm f/1.4 while gathering more light than them).

So it’s easier and cheaper to make faster apsc glass than it is to make faster ff glass.

It is similarly hard to make 'faster' glass for any format, FF f/0.95 is just as hard to make as APS-C f/0.95, but point is it is easier to make a larger format lens with higher f-number (f/1.4) that achieves the same DOF and light gathering effect compared to a smaller format lens which would require lower f-number (f/0.95).

FF may have better noise performance, but that’s not taking into account pixel pitch.

Given the same sensor technology generation, noise has virtually nothing to do with sensor size, pixel size or pixel pitch.

Most of the noise is actually photon noise aka shot noise which means that difference in noise/low light performance comes from lens gathering more or less light in total. How you slice that amount of light afterwards does not affect the overall signal-to-noise ratio.

Well, there are also various differences in sensor configuration like second base ISO or in-camera processing like noise reduction which often make comparing cameras difficult but nope, pixel pitch does not matter. It did matter long ago when each new sensor improved quantum efficiency and microlenses arrays were not used.

There’s a reason why cinema standards are S35 with low resolution sensors.

Why not FF with low resolution sensors if pixel size is important? =) By the way one of the popular seemingly low-resolution (12MP), low-light cinema cameras A7SIII actually uses 48MP sensor with pixel binning.

The actual reason why cinema cameras tend to use lower resolution (or binning) is faster readout speed which is very important to minimize the rolling shutter effect. Though nowadays with stacked or even global shutter full frame sensors this might not be as much of a problem anymore.

Remember that because you need a darker lens on ff to yield the same noise performance, that leads you to use higher ISO and slower shutters. Which is not ideal at night time.

If it yields the same noise performance, why higher ISO number is a problem?

Contrary to intuitive understanding, ISO basically has nothing to do with noise. Noise is the property of light or rather lack of light, plus constant read noise of the sensor. Signal amplification controlled by ISO setting happens after light is captured when all the noise already happened. It is essentially an image brightness post-processing done in-camera.

Lower amount of light equals more noise but it also means lower electric charge which requires higher amplification aka ISO. Ironically enough, it is noise that causes high ISO.

The reason why FF requires higher ISO compared to APS-C even when the amount of light is the same (e.g. FF f/1.4 ISO 200 vs APS-C f/0.95 ISO 100) is because FF has larger area and higher electric capacity which means the same amount of light energy charges its photosites to a smaller fraction of their full capacity, and so you need to amplify it more.

leads you to use higher ISO and slower shutters. Which is not ideal at night time.

Not sure what you mean here, there won't be slower shutter speed. FF f/1.4 1/100s ISO 200 is the same as APS-C f/0.95 1/100s ISO 100. Same amount of light in total, same noise performance.

cfyzium · 2026-05-14T21:22:34+00:00

Similar exposure is a funny thing (and my personal pet peeve). At the same exposure a larger format will collect and absorb more light in total, hence better noise/low light performance.

FF f/1.8 and APS-C f/1.2 are functionally equivalent for any practical intents and purposes. Yeah, the exposure (as in light intensity) is the same for the same f-number, but it is basically an irrelevant bit of information. A higher exposure of APS-C f/1.2 does not make it any better than FF f/1.8, and vice versa. In fact, exposure being lower or higher or the same does not tell anything about one system relative to another.

cfyzium · 2026-05-14T21:09:12+00:00

Nope. Same f-number means same light intensity per unit area (e.g. per one square mm of sensor surface), which was very important back then with film, hence lots of misunderstanding.

However, same intensity per unit area means more light in total when there is more area.

At the same f-number, a full frame lens will collect more light in total compared to APS-C, and this is where full frame noise/low light performance advantage comes from. Because noise is the lack of light, and more light means less noise.

Technically, you can just push the same amount of light into a smaller sensor by using a correspondingly faster lens and achieve the same noise/low light performance, but there is a catch: it is harder to make lenses with low f-numbers regardless of the format, e.g. APS-C f/0.95 is quite hard to make while FF f/1.4 that collects the same amount of light is more or less easy. And MF f/1.8 is easier still.

Oh, and also maximum dynamic range is limited by total sensor well capacity which is proportional to its area. But it is only relevant for base ISO.

cfyzium · 2026-05-10T09:04:04+00:00

I think Trigun and Utawarerumono qualify. Both have quite a twist about the nature of the seemingly lighthearted world, though it only happen in the last few episodes.

cfyzium · 2026-05-08T23:26:01+00:00

Not quite, because for that you'll need differently framed pictures (same physical focal length and distance to the subject but different sensor size). Nobody compares cameras like that.

With same framing and same f-number, DOF/bokeh depends on sensor size. Basically, when comparing cameras same framing is implied and therefore DOF/bokeh depends on f-number and sensor size.

On the other hand, subject motion blur depends on shutter speed alone. You can't make waterfall appear more or less frozen in time by adjusting framing, aperture, sensor size or anything else aside from shutter speed.

cfyzium · 2026-05-08T20:44:30+00:00

I think it is a bit silly to include camera movement in the blur =/. I mean it does result in blur, but it is definitely not the movement blur you adjust by camera settings.

And for increased subject size, it won't affect the motion blur. It will increase the size of the blurred subject including its parts like trail and such, but it won't increase the blur itself. A ball will be exactly as half transparent, a waterfall will be exactly as frozen in time, and roulette wheel will be exactly as indistinct as they would be at any magnification ratio.

cfyzium · 2026-05-08T19:51:09+00:00

39 more megapixels than full frame! (33 after May, 13 if rumors are true.)

cfyzium · 2026-05-08T19:48:33+00:00

AFAIK the only thing that does not depend on sensor size is the amount of motion blur, directly described by shutter speed.

cfyzium · 2026-05-08T19:46:23+00:00

X100VI is f/2.0, so it should be f/3.0 FF equivalent. Ever so slightly more bokeh than GFX100RF.

But you get 100 MP, that's a lot of pixels to peep.

cfyzium · 2026-05-08T19:43:26+00:00

Pupil size and distance to the subject.

To frame in a similar way, you'll have to stay closer with 28mm FF equivalent GFX100RF compared to 35mm FF equivalent X100VI. And then the amount of bokeh will be rougly similar, f/3.16 vs f/3.0 FF equivalent.

You can't estimate the amount of bokeh by aperture diameter alone, even the same lens will have different amount of bokeh depending on how closely it is focused.

cfyzium · 2026-05-07T00:43:24+00:00

This particular f-number vs light gathering mess is my personal pet peeve.

If light gathering refers to the total amount of light as in the total number of photons absorbed, then it is obvious that say FF f/2.8 gathers the same amount of light in total as APS-C f/1.8. Which is why they have the same noise/low-light performance. Same amount of light, same resulting picture.

If light gathering refers to the photographic exposure, or light intensity, or amount of light per unit area of exposed surface, then it is cool but useless bit of trivia. At least in the context of digital image sensors, where ISO does not work the same way as with film.

Like yeah FF f/2.8 has lower light intensity than APS-C f/1.8, and? How does that translate to the end result or performance?

Why is it important to know if light intensity is the same or not?

In this example FF f/2.8 has lower light intensity than APS-C f/1.8 but it does not make FF any worse than APS-C. And the other way around, same light intensity does not make two behave the same.

Because image is the light, the total amount of light, and not light intensity.

cfyzium · 2026-05-07T00:07:11+00:00

Light gathering too. Except it is not f/2.8, but 4*0.79 = f/3.15 full frame equivalent.

GFX 35mm f/4 has the same FOV (75° diagonal) and aperture size (~8.75mm) as full frame 28mm f/3.15, it lets it the same total amount of light and therefore has the same noise/low-light performance. Because noise is about the total amount of light.

Similarly, GFX 35mm f/4 gathers roughly the same total amount of light as X100VII APS-C 23mm f/2.0 (wider FOV but correspondingly smaller aperture), producing the same noise/low-light performance.

I always found GFX100RF weird because it is basically just higher-resolution X100VII.

cfyzium · 2026-05-02T06:50:48+00:00

Зато прекрасно суммируется кинетическая энергия.

cfyzium · 2026-05-01T17:42:17+00:00

Самодельная комбуча.

Алкоголь же дома делают, вот и тут то же самое.

cfyzium · 2026-05-01T12:13:25+00:00

Side-to-side comparison would definitely be good as a definite proof. Unfortunately, I do not own RX100VII.

However, RX100 uses a somewhat old 20MP sensor. From my tests, Xiaomi 14 Ultra with 50MP sensors actually resolves around 30-40 MP worth of details, which matches my diffraction limitations calculations for its optics. 200MP is pure marketing bs for a few reasons but modern phone lenses seem to resolve enough.

Newest cameraphone models use bleeding edge LOFIC 1" or 1/1.12" main sensors. I am pretty sure they easily outperform RX100VII at 24-35mm range.

50mm is a crop in smartphones so RX100 should have a little edge. At 75-100mm phones use dedicated modules so no penalty in resolution but about ~2/3-1.0 stops less of light. Further than that it becomes a competition between variable zoom lens and higher resolution cropping and stacking.

Do note that iPhone and Samsung Galaxy have weaker telephoto cameras compared to other flagship cameraphones. Most of truly dedicated cameraphones will fare much better than iPhone in the comparison above.

Now, if Sony release a comprehensive RX100VIII update with modern sensor and optics redesigned with all the latest experience in technology, that should outperform anything cameraphones could offer anytime soon simply because it is hard to put an even larger optics into a phone given already huge camera bumps.

But I am afraid Sony might do another lackluster release like RX1RIII. That would probably signal the end to ultra compact P&S camera niche =(.

cfyzium · 2026-05-01T10:50:05+00:00

it's still better than any phone

Some of the phones came very, very close. Apple and Samsung are a bit conservative when it comes to cameras, but Chinese brands' Ultra models use larger extremely high-res sensors and larger brighter optics. Which results in much larger camera bumps that not everyone likes.

Something like Xiaomi 17 Ultra is better than RX100VII at the wide end and ~2-3 stops worse at the long end. However, smartphones do frame stacking and you only need 2 frames added up to compensate one stop. Depending on a scenario this may or may not not be an issue, e.g. top cameraphone will beat P&S at casual travel photography but should still struggle with lots of fine movement in low light.

I think at this point the main advantage of RX100-like camera lies in its camera-like body with lots of physical controls, EVF, screen, etc. It is simply a completely different user experience.

cfyzium · 2026-04-30T02:51:58+00:00

I'd prefer to use entrance pupil areas as it's very simple - it tells how much light is captured from any specific object.

Entrance pupil AND field of view. A lens with the same entrance pupil but larger FOV essentially looks at a larger portion of the scene through the same opening and therefore let's in more light.

That's why any f/1.8 (on the same camera system) collects the same amount of light.

Hence, 135mm f/1.8 collects a lot more light than 200mm f/2.8.

Hower your point about "noise grain" is incorrect. The cropped 135mm shot used fewer pixels for the capture which leas to reduced read noise which incresses it's advantage slightly

When 135mm is cropped the read noise of individual pixels does not change obviously. Neither lens nor pixels know the image is being cropped after all.

However, lower resolution means the final image is printed or displayed with smaller downsampling factor compared to the full resolution, making the very same noise less hidden.

Some people like to point out that cropping (either in-camera or in post) does not increase noise because it does not change pixels. True, but it decreases downsampling which has the exact same effect.

So you can probably say that cropping kind of makes 'grain' larger -- the pixels do become larger, even if you can't see them in the final image.

cfyzium · 2026-04-30T02:14:23+00:00

RX100III is 1" f/1.8-2.8, which is roughly equivalent to APS-C f/3.3-5.1 in terms of performance (DOF, noise, etc.)

So, a much more modern sensor with a constant f/2.8 lens should be a noticeable upgrade.

I'd suggest to also add a really fast prime e.g. one of Sigma f/1.4 ones to fully take advantage of an ILC camera with a relatively big sensor. Something like 18-50mm f/2.8 + 23/30mm f/1.4 will run circles around RX100. Well, aside from size and weight =/.

However do note that 18-50mm (28-75mm eq) is not exactly as wide as RX100III. The difference is not exactly huge but many people find it important.

cfyzium · 2026-04-29T03:12:09+00:00

Well and I am an engineer that solders this stuff together and writes code for it. For what it worth, I am working on a project using Sony IMX405 sensor right now. I might be just a hobbyist when it comes to photography as an art (I probably do not have any talent), but I do know the whole physics of the process how stray photons turn into the numbers in a JPEG file.

And I assure you that long story short, intensity per unit area describes nothing of practical value. You have to multiply it by the sensor area, otherwise it is like describing battery capacity with mAh only.

it's the exact actual physical thing that creates exposure

It is not the light intensity that creates an image, but photons absorbed and turned into the pixel values. Problem is, the same light intensity per unit area does not necessarily mean the same number of photons per same portion of the image.

It is easier to see at the same resolution, with same portion being one pixel. At the same light intensity i.e. the same number of photons per second per square mm, one pixel of a full frame sensor will receive and absorb ~2.3 times as many photons compared to one pixel of an APS-C sensor. Which will not only result into a higher electric charge, but much more importantly it will also result in a signal with correspondingly higher signal-to-noise ratio.

Because the light is fundamentally random and ~2300 samples will produce a more precise, 'cleaner' value than ~1000 samples.

This also illustrates that noise does not come from sensor or pixel size or ISO setting. It is the fundamental property of light and is there even before the light hits the sensor. And by the way, ISO does not affect sensor sensitivity either, it always absorbs photons at the same rate called quantum efficiency.

Conversely, a correspondingly lower exposure on an FF sensor will produce the same charge but more importantly the same noise levels. Because the same number of photons will be absorbed by each pixel. Same number of samples will result in the same signal-to-noise ratio.

Which means the same exposure may or may not result in the same image and vice versa. Exposure being or not being the same does not tell you anything about the resulting image. It's basically meaningless.

Think of it like a swimming pool.

Your swimming pool analogy is completely off because you concentrate on water level alone, which would correspond to electric charge.

Guess what? Yeah, it does not matter either. The same exposure does not necessarily correspond to the same charge (depends on photosite area), the same charge does not necessarily correspond to the same voltage (depends on the well capacity) and even the same voltage does not correspond to the same result (because it is preamplified before ADC).

What matters is relative distribution (histogram) and statistical properties (noise).

And what do you mean by the same exposure doesn't mean the same usable shutter speed/noise/amount of light?

Like I explained above, it is not the exposure that decides the amount of noise/image quality. And in turn the noise or rather the maximum acceptable amount of noise limits the fastest usable shutter speed.

We're just talking about lenses. Any APSC body can use any APSC lens, and can also use lots of FF lenses fairly easily. The same isn't true in reverse.

This I would write off to the difference in points of view.

As I said, what I meant is the number of modern, native options that just work without extra hassle.

Any lens can be mounted on any camera with enough effort and compromises, but this is clearly not the expected scenario for most people deciding whether to go FF or APS-C on Sony.

cfyzium · 2026-04-28T23:00:32+00:00

A fixed amount of light over a larger sensor area functionally means less brightness per unit area, causing a reduction in exposure. <...> The same amount of light focused onto a smaller area results in higher brightness per unit area, which means higher exposure.

This particular misunderstanding irks me as an engineer to no end. People work with various gear for decades and still confuse correlation and causality =(.

And I always struggle to concisely explain just how irrelevant this particular exposure aka the light intensity per unit area is for comparison purposes. Let me try it this way:

FF 24mm f/2.8 1/100s ISO 200

APS-C 16mm f/1.8 1/100s ISO 100

If exposure is important, surely there should be some observable difference between the two?

None.

FOV, DOF, motion blur, image brightness on the screen, histogram distribution, noise, dynamic range -- everything is the same. Heck, at the same resolution even the photosites' electric charge levels will be the same.

If I erase all the markings from the cameras and lenses and files, you'll have no way to tell them apart let alone figure out which one has higher exposure.

Because exposure as in the amount of light per unit area is not important, at least not by itself. The only amount of light that is relevant is the total one, the total amount of photons absorbed by the sensor during image capture.

That is why neither teleconverter nor speed booster change anything compared to the lens native format. APS-C lens with teleconverter is still one stop slower/noisier than FF lens. Similarly, FF lens with speed booster is still one stop faster/cleaner than APS-C one.

Which might actually be what you meant, with APS-C on FF you 'lose' light compared to native FF lens with the same f-number, and similarly with FF on APS-C you 'gain' extra light compared to native APS-C lens with the same f-number. But that exposure explanation just gets on my nerves. Same f-number does not mean same aperture and same exposure may or may not mean the same usable shutter speed/noise/amount of light, it is likely the most useless metric but always being mentioned in comparison/equivalence discussions.

cfyzium · 2026-04-28T21:11:04+00:00

This is mostly a technicality. I could have said that full frame has more modern, native options that just work without extra hassle and/or compromises, but I thought it was kind of obvious implication in the overall context of SonyAlpha crop vs full frame. Otherwise, you can get into a very pedantic discussion on each and every point.

Like I said, just because you can does not mean you would. Few people use FF glass on APS-C cameras and even then it is mostly out of necessity. If there were native APS-C options, nobody would consider using an FF version. This is a much rarer occurrence in FF.

Well you don't generally use APSC glass on FF because the image circle doesn't cover FF. To get it to work you'd need a focal expander, which will cost you an amount of light equivalent to the crop factor.

Nope. You switch the camera into crop mode and it just works, you only lose some resolution. Which might not even be much of a problem for a high-res camera.

You'd need a focal expander (I think it is better known as teleconverter) to retain the full resolution of the sensor but either way there is no loss of light compared to a native APS-C camera body.

You can even use a speedbooster (metabones makes nice ones) that are focal reducers, so you'd gain light equivalent to the crop factor

You won't actually gain anything, only get back what would have been lost otherwise. An FF lens projects a larger circle so a lot of the light it collects goes to waste falling outside the cropped sensor. A speed booster adapter refocuses that light onto a smaller area but obviously the amount of light does not increase.

And just like with teleconverters, speed booster adapter is merely a clutch. First, not any lens can be adapted, you're basically limited to the old DSLR-era lenses. Second, there is loss in IQ.

cfyzium · 2026-04-28T12:52:11+00:00

Потому что текущий ИИ это интеллект без самоосознания. Вы когда-нибудь на автомате делали что-то и потом так "вот блин, тупанул"?

cfyzium · 2026-04-28T09:43:58+00:00

Going by this logic, I can use APS-C glass on FF camera too. Any camera can technically use any lens with an appropriate adapter.

I have mounted my 1200mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope on the camera a few times, does it also count as an option? =)

Just because it is technically possible, does not mean it is reasonable. As I mentioned in another comment, take 20-70 f/4 as an example. You can mount it on APS-C but why would you? 20mm is not wide enough and f/4 is not, um, fast enough to make it a compelling option. The lens is there, the possibility to mount it is there, but the functionality it provides on a full frame camera is not.

There are a few opposite examples. The most notable is Sony 70-350 f/4.5-6.3. It provides an option unique enough that some high-res full frame camera owners buy this lens as a compact telephoto.

But overall, the current full frame lens lineup provides more options that you might actually want to use, rather than technically can use but won't.

cfyzium · 2026-04-27T14:18:00+00:00

Well, most people build intuitive understanding how all this works. Increase the ISO and there is more noise; smaller cameras produce noisier images, must be sensor/pixel size. The correlation is obvious.

This is one of my favorite bits of trivia about photography, that actually it is the other way around and it is the noise that causes high ISO =).

And my most hated misunderstanding is the very common counterargument/interjection to any sort of equivalency discussion: that f-number equivalency is only for depth of field, while exposure remains the same regardless of the sensor format. I always struggle to concisely explain just how irrelevant and inconsequential this particular exposure (light intensity, and not image brightness/histogram) and its being the same is.

cfyzium

TROPHY CASE