Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s stir up the spirits, and for one more glorious time, jump fully into the sensor size debate.
The trigger?
And article by DL Cade form Petapixel, who had a talk with Richard Butler (DPR) and Bill Claff (Photons to Photos), about:
Why Full Frame is perceived as the “serious” format
What is the “ideal” sensor size
The first can be answered with the popularity of 35mm in the film era.
But in modern digital times, is full frame really the sweet spot? DL Cade, Richard and Bill answer the following in this article:
DL Cade goes for APS-C:
“I still believe there is a best sensor for “most people” and that this sensor is not full-frame. This sensor is APS-C. […] the performance to size to cost ratio falls into a sweet spot that neither Micro Four Thirds nor full-frame can match.
take the Fuji X-T3, which is a bit closer in price and weight to the a7 III, selling for only $500 less and weighing only 0.25lbs less. In the video department, the Fuji can already record 4K/60p 4:2:0 10-bit internally; Sony can’t even do that over HDMI. And it, too, shoots at a faster 11fps in 14-bit RAW, can capture up to 30fps electronically with an additional 1.25x crop, and benefits from a large selection of high-quality, compact lenses designed for APS-C.”
Canon and Fujifilm both have excellent reputation, when it comes to color science.
Now Andrew compared Fujifilm with Canon RAW as well as JPEG colors.
What we can say ahead:
with RAW files, it’s harder for people to have a clear preference
with JPEG files, the differences are stronger
The JPEG comparison is more indicative for the so called “color science“, since with RAW files also the converter plays a role.
So, if you don’t have time right now to make the full blind test, I recommend you to go to minute 5:37 of the video and make the JPEG comparison only.
Before I disclose my results, I’d like to say that:
I consider Canon colors excellent, and if I should switch brand tomorrow morning , just for the sake of colors, I’d go Canon!
*** TOP TIP *** turn off “truetone display” on your Mac/iPhone
The Problem
Since I love you so much, in order to give you a more objective feedback, I went through all the comments on the video, and tried to sum them up in a ranking.
It was not easy to summarize, because:
sometimes people did not specify enough (example: “Canon is best”)
In case of comments like “Canon is best“, I assigned a JPEG point to Canon, although I am not sure those, who made such comments, really made the test
In case of Fujifilm, sometimes people did not specify if Classic Chrome or Provia. In which case, I assumed they mean standard Provia
In case of close results (just 1 or 2 points of difference), I gave it a “same same”
Overall, reading the comments, I had the impression that those, who said to be Fujifilm shooters, had a very open minded and honest approach to the test. Bravo!
EF-FX Pro. 3.10 – EF-FX Standard v. 3.10 – release notes
Be noted: V2.10 is the new baseline version. V1.x must be upgraded to V2.10 before installing firmware V2.20 or later. Baseline version: EFFX210P.BIN (125,248 bytes, for Pro) EFFX210S.BIN (124,912 bytes, for Std.)
Be noted: V2.10 is the new baseline version. V1.x must be upgraded to V2.10 before installing firmware V2.20 or later. Baseline version: EFFX210P.BIN (for Pro) EFFX210S.BIN (for Std.)