Sensor Size Cheat Sheet
Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 12:44AM When preparing for my guest stint on This Week in Photography (I know, I managed to disguise well the fact that I’d prepared), I made myself a little cheat sheet for some popular sensor sizes. It occurred to me that y’all might find it useful.
The RED Mysterium sensor is very close to the size of motion picture film (Super 35), which is as wide as the full-frame 35mm SLR frame is tall. The “small” DSLR chips are very close to this size, meaning that an inexpensive DSLR can have very similar depth of field characteristics to the movies.
On the other hand, if you want to get a sense of what the DOF will be like on the Scarlet, you could do worse than to play around with a Panasonic LX2.
Here’s an image that shows how a lens of a given focal length projects onto the various sensor sizes. It’s easy to see the “crop factor” at work here, and how a 50mm that is “normal” for a 5D would be a super telephoto if you could somehow slap it onto an LX2. It takes a 35mm lens to project an image onto a DX chip that matches the Angle Of View of a 50mm on the 5D or D700. You can visualize this by imagining what happens when you move a projector closer to the screen: the image gets smaller. If you wanted the above image to fit within the DX sensor, you’d have to move the lens, which is very much like a projector, 15mm closer, making it a 35mm lens.
Reader Comments (21)
Where would the Nikon d300 fall?
That's a DX format sensor, 23.6 x 15.8 mm.
Awesome reference, I was wondering about this myself.
Where would the LX3 fall in?
Did you hear about Nikon D90 having video?
You mean if I take a look at Flickr and look for http://flickr.com/cameras/panasonic/dmc-lx2/" REL="nofollow">pictures taken with the DMC-LX2(s) that's nearly what I can get out of the Scarlet? At 180 frames/sec max? And the Lens with it's 28mm wide is like the Scarlet too, isn't it?
Now I love this thing even more. (shameless self-ad).
Is that right? Can you point me to some other Cam's that are in the same Sensorrange? Just for le to look at pictures they took with it, to see what a the 2/3 Sensor is able to capture.
Thanks,
george
The Scarlett is an unreleased camera with a lens that a) doesn't exist b) is planned to be much larger than the LX2's. Drawing too many conclusions from LX2 snaps would be spurious. But the sensor size is similar, meaning that DOF performance will be similar at matching focal lengths and stop.
That's what I meant. Of cause the Lens would work in an other way. And i think and hope in a better one.
The main thing I want to get from viewing the Pics is a sense of what will be doable with it's DOF.
And damn, my Self-ad turned into a Riddle ;-)
george p.schnyder said...
...The main thing I want to get from viewing the Pics is a sense of what will be doable with it's DOF.
And what's doable (DOF wise) with a teeny tiny sensor is a very wide depth of field and little else, right?
Sorry to be such a nitpicker, but isn't Canon written with only one 'n'? Or did I read the sheet wrong?
D'oh. Fixed. Thanks!
J D Aldous said...
And what's doable (DOF wise) with a teeny tiny sensor is a very wide depth of field and little else, right?
WEll, enough for me, I think. And way more than all this "Prosumer" Cams I used were able to deliver. And even that was enough with a little bit of MB-Looks-Kung-Fu.
George
Unless you mean the really old Canon D30 from 2000(?), I think it should be 30D.
Remember, you can get shallow DOF with most sensor sizes, it just won't be practical. The DOF problems range from tiny sensors, where you only get short DOF in close or macro range, to large format cameras, where you sometimes have to tilt the lens or film to get enough DOF.
If the Nikon D90 has a serious film mode, things could get really interesting. I'm guessing it has some severe limitations, if any filming at all.
Thanks Jonne, I'll probably have to keep fixing this thing for weeks.
I really, really want the 50mm 1.2 L... :\
And where would the EX1/EX3 fall on this excellent guide?
Justin, the EX1's 1/2" sensor, at 8mm diagonal (I think), is a little less than half the size of the LX2's.
Stu - okay, thanks. Sometimes hard to work out whether measurements and sizes are 'actual' or 'nominal'.
Begs the question though, doesn't it, that if 8mm and not 12 or 13mm is considered half an inch, exactly what were they measuring!
Jus.
Looking forward to the LX3, too.
My understanding is that the measurement is the diameter of the historical tube associated with tube pickups on old video cameras. The image sensing bit is smaller than that diameter. If that sounds outdated and silly to you, then you and I agree.
I Googled to find that 8mm measurement and I'm not 100% sure its right. But if it is, the EX1' chip is roughly half the WIDTH of the LX2's.
"But if it is, the EX1' chip is roughly half the WIDTH of the LX2's."
Ughh! Strong medicine, that knowledge. Can someone put the genie back in the bottle please?
Thanks for a great post.
Jus.
Yay, I was wrong! The EX1 is 6.97 x 3.92mm, so it's only a little smaller than the LX2 chip.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/109566-ex1-sensor-dimensions-3.html
Maybe our next video camera will be a Nikon SLR
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/technology/personaltech/28pogue.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Great boil-down.
Thanks!