mistercat wrote:

OldNikonFan2025 wrote:

mistercat wrote:

Yet I can also see this phenomenon ('smallness' would be the best way I can describe it, although this has nothing to do with field of view or length of lens) on photos taken by other people using APS-C cameras. I doubt I will be able to dissect what or why that is, exactly, until my experience and understanding improves.

I think I will just have to chalk some of this down to "je ne sais quoi" and get on with it.

Without peeking at the EXIF data, please tell me what distinguishes these from one another in terms of the format used.

I'm viewing on a 10" tablet screen rather than full 4k monitor so not ideal. But the top appears to have less background blur, so more depth of field. Or maybe it's just a sharper photo in general. I'm judging that on the bridge and the mountains.

The bottom one was something I have been displaying for years that I just grabbed to put up here, it isn't set up for 4K display, though I do have a 20x30 inch print of it on the wall in my bedroom.

The bottom photo seems less detailed but it's hard to compare exactly like for like as different focal lengths/fields of view have been used as well.

Sure, different focal lengths and resulting FOVs. The top photo is 17mm on a D300, which is approximately the same as a 26mm on an A850 (the camera used for the bottom photo). The bottom photo used a 35mm focal length on a lens I hated and got rid of because when I went any wider than that (it was a Sony 24-70mm f/2.8) and the corners became hopelessly blurred. Similarly, I also got rid of the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 17-35mm f/2.8D that I used on the top photo and ultimately replaced it with a Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G (now I have a Tokina AT-X Pro 14-20mm f/2 that I use with my D500, the combo used on the last photo of this series).

However, the biggest differences are the light. I'm not talking about how much light reaches the sensor (which is merely an image quality issue that can be addressed with software and post-processing); I'm talking about the quality of the light being photographed (time of day, direction, clouds, etcetera). Short of dragging both my D500 and D850 around with me and using equivalent focal lengths, it's practically impossible to show an apples to apples comparison of the two formats. The fact is, I replaced my Nikon D300 with a Sony A850 because I wanted to go from 12 MP to 24 MP, and I replaced my A850 with a D800 for a bunch of reasons that included going to 36 MP, and now I have a D850 I use for landscapes and such because it has 45 MP and I have T/S lenses that work best with its larger format.

If I had to guess I'd say both are APS-C cameras with the possibility that the bottom one is older and/or using a lens that doesn't resolve as much detail. At the risk of making myself look foolish, I reckon the top one might be APS-C because, although it is a very nice photo, it has...again, I don't know how to put it. It's a slight smallness, despite the wider angle of view. It's only really visible to me in the rocks and the white water to the left of the frame.

Ok, I checked the EXIF data. I didn't know/couldn't tell that the bottom was full frame. I couldn't see that, I wouldn't have guessed with any certainty. The only minor hint was the relative difference in background blur/sharpness and perhaps that slight I don't know what in the top one. Initially, I thought the top one was full frame - which does go to show some of this might be down to assumptions about angle of view - but the above 'details' or feel in the main rock, white water, and maybe also the mountains (particularly in the left third) and the bridge suggested APS-C to me.

Actually, having zoomed in to 100%, I think the differences become more apparent. I honestly cannot explain what those differences are - maybe a slight grit or grainy quality in the photos but it's not noise as such. Maybe it's something to do with sharpness? I really don't know. I'm probably making things more confusing with these descriptions because I don't think it's noise.

Here are some 100% crops from the two above:

Of course, you will have to go to the gallery to actually see them at 100%.

I probably should've done an analysis for both before checking the cameras but oh well. You might have thrown a curveball for me and used different cameras of course!

Yeah, checking the data on the first two hasn't helped here. I'd be more confident that the first one is a. an older camera although I can't tell if it's full frame or not. But the second one looks/feels like ASP-C to me.

I really don't know how or what it is that 'gives it away'. For what it's worth, it's most apparent in the rocks. Again, I don't know what/how, but it's a quality that just seems reminiscent of the photos I've taken on a crop sensor that's different to full frame.

I suspect what you are sensing is sharpening.

Here are 4K crops for all the photos, along with the cameras used:

Again, to see them "properly" you will have to view this in the gallery.

I wanted to keep the playing field reasonably level, so all of these were quick conversions using ACR in Photoshop 2025, but I did add some USM (Unsharp mask) to the D800 crop, but it still wasn't enough to get it where I would have liked.

These are really nice photos by the way. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome.

I might be enticed to actually do some head-to-head comparisons between my D500 and D850, but right now I left my D850 in Connecticut with my girlfriend (because I didn't want to tote it back and forth across the country) and I'm in California until the end of the month and will be too busy to play this game until the end of the summer (my day job is seasonal in nature).