|
You're exactly right Tim.
Greg - I understand what you're saying, and I have plenty of experience shooting nightscapes and through a scope with both ff and aps cameras. You're comparing different sensors which have quite different technologies, like fuji xtrans vs standard bayer, and some are better than others. Evidently the performance isn't necessarily linked to the pixel size, I guess this is to be expected with such different technology used, but I really can't work out where the link between sensor size and extra light is coming from.
To be more clear let's consider a hypothetical test. It has to be hypothetical as I don't know of any cameras that have identical sensors but one in ff and one aps.
So we have two cameras sitting next to each other and each has an identical lens attached. One has a ff and one aps sensor, both sensors have the same size pixels and QE.
Let's say they're looking at a field with a tree in the centre. In both images the tree takes up exactly the same number of pixels but the ff camera sees more of the field either side of the tree.
If we crop the ff image to the same fov as the aps image then they should be identical.
So the extra light you say the ff sensor receives is really just extra fov?
The only inherent benefit I can see with the ff in terms of nightscape photography is that you can get a wider image for any given lens.
Now I know that in practice most of the ff cameras I've used have given better low light results than the aps cameras I've used but I'm pretty sure that was because of: a. The ff cameras were more expensive than the aps cameras and had more advanced sensors and processors etc. And b. They had larger pixels.
|