# Why Ever Invent Cropped Sensors?



## D-B-J (Aug 19, 2011)

I mean, other than them being cheaper to build (less size correlates to less money), why were cropped sensors ever invented.  I mean, we started with 35mm film, now DX sensors, and recently, a movement back towards FX sensors.  So what was the point?


Just curious,

Jake


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## kundalini (Aug 19, 2011)

money, marketing and motivation to make more money

You shoot with an APS-C sensor camera, what is the point of your question?  Buyers remorse?  Penis envy of those that shoot full frame?

Exactly, what is the point.


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## Trever1t (Aug 19, 2011)

lol, cheaper was/is the reason.


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## IgsEMT (Aug 19, 2011)

> Penis envy of those that shoot full frame?


:lmao:


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## bigtwinky (Aug 19, 2011)

For some odd reason, i thought the first digital slrs had smaller sensors, and full frames came later as technology allowed us to have bigger sensors.But w/eWhy crops?  The worlds obsession with making things more compact? Making things more affordable for the masses?  Making more money by having people upgrade more?


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## 480sparky (Aug 19, 2011)

I'd say a full-frame sensor, back in the day when digital was in it's infancy, would be just too dang expensive.


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## IgsEMT (Aug 19, 2011)

D-B-J, I think the better way to Ask the Q, coming from wedding/portrait photography: why MEDIUM FORMAT FILM, then Dx?
In fact, when I first went digital, all of the formals I was still shooting medium format while everything else digital.


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## manaheim (Aug 20, 2011)

Cheaper to produce.  Cheaper to produce lenses.  More zoom.

End thread and next.


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## Overread (Aug 20, 2011)

Eh the world of photography is full of different film/sensor sizes. You've cropped sensor, 35mm/fullframe, medium format, large format (the latter two made up of multiple different sizes not just fixed values). 

Each size has its advantages and disadvantages, and (like it or not you art/gear perfectionists) costs are also a factor. As the tech advances certainly bigger sensors will cheapen to make them more affordable and with high MP sensors going the way they are chances are that cropping will oneday be even more suitable and we might well see the professional death of even 35mm in favour of larger formats (for the common photographer).


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## D-B-J (Aug 20, 2011)

kundalini said:


> money, marketing and motivation to make more money
> 
> You shoot with an APS-C sensor camera, what is the point of your question?  Buyers remorse?  Penis envy of those that shoot full frame?
> 
> Exactly, what is the point.



Haha no, just curious.


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## D-B-J (Aug 20, 2011)

And then i realized how much less glass it took to make a DX lens as opposed to a FX lens..


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## KmH (Aug 20, 2011)

D-B-J said:


> I mean, other than them being cheaper to build (less size correlates to less money), why were cropped sensors ever invented.  I mean, we started with 35mm film, now DX sensors, and recently, a movement back towards FX sensors.  So what was the point?
> 
> 
> Just curious,
> ...



Of course you know they made APS film  too, Advanced Photo System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Image sensors are made in batches on a silicon wafer. The wafers, about 0.75 mm thick, are cut from cylindrical silicon ingots. A wafer is about 300 mm in diameter. More APS-C (and APS-H) size image sensors can be made on a single wafer of silicon, than full size image sensors, which is why APS-C sensors cost less to make.

Plus the camera itself can be made smaller.

Nikon's first FX (full frame) sensor was the D3, launched in 2007.

Do you have any idea how much a Nikon D1X, with it's 5.3 MP APS-C image sensor, cost new when it was launched back in 2001? Nikon D1x Review: 2. Specifications: Digital Photography Review

The first consumer Nikon DSLR (D70) didn't appear until 2004, and the first entry-level (D40) didn't launch until the 4th quarter of 2006 to take advantage of the Christmas season.


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## bigtwinky (Aug 20, 2011)

KmH said:


> ....
> Nikon's first FX (full frame) sensor was the D3, launched in 2007.
> ....
> The first consumer Nikon DSLR (D70) didn't appear until 2004, and the first entry-level (D40) didn't launch until the 4th quarter of 2006 to take advantage of the Christmas season.



Oh, so my initial thinking was correct... full frames came after the crops.


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## table1349 (Aug 20, 2011)

bigtwinky said:


> KmH said:
> 
> 
> > ....Nikon's first FX (full frame) sensor was the D3, launched in 2007.....The first consumer Nikon DSLR (D70) didn't appear until 2004, and the first entry-level (D40) didn't launch until the 4th quarter of 2006 to take advantage of the Christmas season.
> ...


 Kind of, sort of, maybe.  1972 Kodak created what would be considered FF sensors that fit into the F2 with a special back.  $12,000.00 for a back that would produce a decent 5x7 size photo max.  Not practical from a business point of view at that point, but we have come a long since then.


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## 480sparky (Aug 20, 2011)

What I can't figure out is this:  The lenses I used to shoot with when I had 35mm films cameras are _much_ smaller and lighter than the lenses used for Nikon DX format.  I've come across some of those lenses I sold many years ago and they look absolutely puny!


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## D-B-J (Aug 20, 2011)

480sparky said:


> What I can't figure out is this:  The lenses I used to shoot with when I had 35mm films cameras are _much_ smaller and lighter than the lenses used for Nikon DX format.  I've come across some of those lenses I sold many years ago and they look absolutely puny!



Are the wide aperture lenses?  Now a days, an expensive FX lens has many pieces of glass, mainly to cut down on aberration, diffraction, and all those shenanigans.  I think, basically, they've improved significantly.  And to improve, they need to be bigger.


Now, i have no facts to support that, so someone please feel free to answer more accurately.  These are merely my guesses.


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## Garbz (Aug 21, 2011)

480sparky said:


> What I can't figure out is this:  The lenses I used to shoot with when I had 35mm films cameras are _much_ smaller and lighter than the lenses used for Nikon DX format.  I've come across some of those lenses I sold many years ago and they look absolutely puny!



Actually my experience is completely the opposite. My DX lenses are far smaller than their FX equivalents. My girlfriend's 4/3rds lenses are smaller still. Compare apples to apples, after all better design tools have allowed for lenses with more elements to be more easily calculated. I'm not surprised that the modern lens is more complicated, but the modern FX is still larger than the modern DX.



D-B-J said:


> I mean, we started with 35mm film, now DX sensors, and recently, a movement back towards FX sensors.  So what was the point?



You missed two critical bits, firstly we didn't move from 35mm to DX. APS existed a long time before digital ever did. Also it wasn't just cost. What photographer would accept a camera with a defect out of the box? The cost is not only in area, but also in sensor yield. If you have statistically a certain amount of errors per area of a wafer then it becomes physically quite hard (and thus expensive) to create an FX sensor. There have been major advances in increasing yield over the last 15 years so and the cost differences between the sensors has been reduced as cameras have come down in price. 

Cost is just the application of supply and demand. Supply being the hard bit to achieve. That's why you go for smaller sensors.


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## usayit (Aug 21, 2011)

The manufacturers of the sensor chips can make more crop sized chips out of a single wafer than larger full frame.


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## Ant (Aug 23, 2011)

480sparky said:


> What I can't figure out is this:  The lenses I used to shoot with when I had 35mm films cameras are _much_ smaller and lighter than the lenses used for Nikon DX format.  I've come across some of those lenses I sold many years ago and they look absolutely puny!



Because although DX lenses are naturally smaller they then stick extra stuff in them, like AF-S and VR which makes them bigger again


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