When we do a medium format vs full frame comparison, which ones come on top? We explain here what has changed in the world of sensors and how it affects photography.
Sensor Size and Optical Quality
You might know that the sensor in a camera is hardware that converts light into an image we capture. But do you know that its size also has its photography part? Both sensor size and optical quality are highly reliable terms, as the size of the sensors dictates how well your camera will be able to capture the light coming inside it. This size will also impact the depth of field and the dynamic range of the final image. Here's how;
The sensor in your camera has special photosites which are light-sensitive spots and have a single task of capturing light and recording it into signals. So, if you have more sensors, you get more detail of image hence image quality increases. This is why bigger sensors which have more photosites produce better images.
These sensors come in different types and are related to the old terms used in photography. If you are old enough to remember the terms used for analog photography, you might recall that a 35mm film was referred to as small film, 60mm was medium, and the large film was 4x5-inch.
That small 35mm film is now the same size (36mm x 24mm to be exact) as a camera sensor found in full-frame cameras, hence called a full-frame sensor. The higher sensor size than the full-frame sensor is the medium frame, measuring more than 4mm x 33mm threshold, and offers much better performance when a medium format vs full frame.
As explained above, more size means more light being processed by the sensor and a better final image is captured by the camera. In theory, that should be the obvious case but when we compare the two sensor performance and their other aspects, things deviate from what one might expect. Below is a side by side comparison of medium format vs full frame:
1. Medium format camera systems are much bulkier, more expensive, and slower compared to full frames, which makes them less practical for photographers, especially in outdoor work environments.
2. Medium format will give much higher resolution and better dynamic range as compared to the optical quality you will get from full-frame ones. The difference isn't always noticeable in real-world use but medium sensors still win in the performance department in certain practical conditions.
3. Medium format is also inconvenient to work with as the cameras with these sensors produce massive RAW files which require a longer time to write to memory cards as compared to full frame.
4. You also get bottlenecked pretty quickly when taking shots with a medium format camera at 3 to 5 fps, while a full frame can take up to 10 to 30 frames per second.
5. The medium frame camera produces a shallower depth of field at the same aperture and is professional grade photos with a smoother background blur as compared to the full frame, which is "just" shy of this level of performance. This is a significant advantage of medium-size lenses in our medium format vs full frame comparison.
6. An average photographer will gravitate more towards the full frame camera systems as they will have almost the same camera performance but with higher processing speeds and in a camera body which is lighter and cheaper.
Who uses Medium Format Cameras?
Having said that, many professional photographers, especially those related to commercial & advertising photography, often prefer image quality over speed and portability by using cameras running on medium format sensors. The use of such cameras is also quite common in art reproduction & cultural heritage preservation, where processing time is not a significant factor.
Just like the camera body type, the choice of lens also affects the final result, which is designed for either full or medium-frame sensors. In the market, you will find medium format lenses with much higher price tags as compared to the full frames, which are now increasingly becoming the industry standard and are much cheaper to acquire.
Along with full frame, anamorphic lenses, such as the SIRUI Venus anamorphic lens kit, are now also pushing the boundary of how well the iptica quality can be achieved with full frame sensors. These sensors are designed to horizontally compress the image and achieve a wider field of view.
This impacts your shooting in different ways; on the traditional full-frame sensor, a 50mm anamorphic lens will deliver a horizontal field of view equivalent to a 31.25mm spherical lens which happens due to the 1.6x squeeze factor introduced due to horizontal compression. This gives your footage a cinematic widescreen look.
You also get more creamy bokeh effects at the same focal length of full frame along with better subject isolation. The SIRUI Venus anamorphic lens kit comes with different focal lengths of 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm, and 135mm giving enhanced full frame performance at different focal lengths.