Forget full-frame as the holy grail

A camera with a small sensor indeed works fine outdoors and in sufficient light. Indoors, unfortunately, it is often a different story.

A few years ago, I took a group of students to a factory to take photographs. Little light, a short shutter speed because people were working (movement). Using flash was not possible everywhere. The aperture was already wide open, so the ISO went up. For the person who photographed that afternoon with a small sensor, the enormous amount of noise in her photos (and seeing afterwards how much less there was in the photos taken with a full-frame camera) was the reason to switch to a full-frame camera.

I've had an aps-c camera since 2007, first a D80, then a D7000 and now a D500.
And I've never missed anything, unless I wanted (very) little depth of field.
And I don't find Liesbeth's earlier response really realistic, the noise at iso 1600 is still quite manageable even with that D80, and the later models do even better. I eat how it is with those mirrorless things of today, but with the 500, 6400 is even fine.
The small format has more advantages than disadvantages, every lens seems 1.5 times as long, so long telephoto lenses don't need to be as long. On the wide-angle side there may be something to find, but the Sigma 8-12 really does provide a very wide angle (equivalent to 12 mm, there are shorter ones, but not many, and, as far as I know, no zooms)

The Nikon 7 II is a compact camera. I use it as a full-frame and as an APS-C camera (22 MP).

As long as I have been photographing digitally, I have worked with an APS-C camera. This choice was mainly based on the cost.
I have also come to see a technical advantage in it. Especially for landscape and wildlife, I find my current R7 an ideal camera.
I do think it is a disadvantage that people are trying to cram more and more pixels onto a crop sensor. As a result, the pixels are much closer together, which means pixels can influence each other. In addition, the pixels are smaller and can therefore receive less light. Higher ISO values can produce more noise.
With my R7 I can go up to ISO 6400 without much trouble and without annoying noise. If there is still a lot of noise, noise reduction software nowadays is so good that you don't have to be afraid of noise.
For people with a small wallet, there is the option of choosing lenses developed for a crop camera. Of course, they do not have the quality of the L lenses, Canon's top segment. They are a lot lighter in weight, though.
I don't really need a full frame. I am very satisfied with my R7

I think this article goes a bit too far in the other direction.

No one claims that you can only take beautiful photos with a full-frame camera. In the end, the photographer takes the photo. But dismissing the technical advantages of full frame as "theoretical nitpicking" is at least as misleading.

I photographed with Four Thirds and later Micro Four Thirds for years and eventually switched to full frame. For me, that was not a hype, but a huge step forward in image quality and flexibility.

A few points that I miss in this story:

Micro Four Thirds has a 4:3 aspect ratio. That is noticeably squarer than the 3:2 format of full frame. For landscapes, I find 3:2 much more pleasant because it naturally gives you a wider composition. With 4:3, I regularly crop away the top and bottom to get the same look.

The smaller sensor means smaller pixels at the same resolution. As a result, each pixel captures less light. In practice, you see that in more noise, less dynamic range and less room to maneuver at high ISO. That is not theory; especially when photographing sunrises, sunsets or forests, I have experienced that difference often enough.

The familiar claim that a 200mm f/2.8 "becomes a 400mm f/2.8" is simply incorrect. It remains a 200mm f/2.8 with the angle of view of a 400mm on full frame. In terms of depth of field, it behaves approximately like a 400mm f/5.6. That can be an advantage if you specifically want a lot of depth of field, but it also means that you can never achieve the same background blur as with a real full-frame 400mm f/2.8.

That is precisely the point: a full-frame photographer can always stop down to f/5.6 if more depth of field is desired. Conversely, a Micro Four Thirds photographer cannot suddenly create the shallow depth of field of full frame. Full frame therefore simply offers more creative flexibility.

The argument about large and heavy lenses is also more nuanced than the article suggests. If you compare systems fairly, you have to compare equivalent lenses. A 12-40mm f/2.8 on Micro Four Thirds provides approximately the same angle of view and depth of field as a 24-80mm f/5.6 on full frame. In practice, you would then more likely end up with a compact 24-70mm f/4. The difference in size and weight is then much smaller than is often suggested.

In addition, many modern full-frame cameras have 45 to 60 megapixels. This allows you to crop heavily and still retain a high resolution. That provides extra flexibility that you often have less of with Micro Four Thirds.

Micro Four Thirds is absolutely an excellent system. It is compact, relatively light and ideal when weight or extra depth of field is important. But pretending that full frame has hardly any advantages is just as much a myth as claiming that only full frame can produce good photos.

The right system depends on what you photograph. For me, switching to full frame was, in retrospect, one of the biggest improvements in quality I have made in years. I did not just see that difference on paper, but especially in my photos.

Recently, alongside my Canon R, I also have an OM System OM-1 Mark II with 12-40mm and 150-600mm lenses (for this latter setup I traded in my Canon 5D Mark III with lenses). I wanted a smaller/lighter camera alongside the Canon R without making any particular concessions in terms of quality. And it works great!

Small, light and handy are the basic criteria for me. Right after that come the sensor and the lenses.
In the meantime, I have been photographing for a few years with a Lumix G9 Mark II body and the Leica 10-25mm F1.7 zoom lens as the basic setup.

In full frame, that setup would be so large and heavy that it would be unpleasant to have to lug it around all the time.
I also have a full frame Lumix S5D with various lenses, by the way, but it hardly gets used.
That is telling too.

My five cents:
The very best camera is the device you have with you when you need it.

Zeddammer wrote on Tuesday 18 August 2026 at 22:31  | reply

Reply to Boulanger:
Thanks for the arguments put forward.
But comparing the PanaLeica10-25mm F/1.7 lens with the Sony 20-70mm f/4 G or with the Sony FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G is missing the mark a bit. There simply is no equivalent of the 10-25mm F/1.7 in full frame. And I don't expect one to come onto the market anytime soon; a full frame version of that lens would be far too large, heavy and expensive.

The G9 II body with the 10-25mm F1.7 lens is my favorite combo. But that doesn't mean I take it everywhere with me.

At the beginning of September I will get on my bike to climb Mont Ventoux and then continue on to Santiago de Compostella in northwestern Spain. On that trip I will take a complete camera setup with me: A Panasonic Lumix GM5 body (211 grams) with the following Lumix lenses: 12-32mm (70 grams), 20mm (87 grams) and 35-100mm (135 grams). And a flash (26 grams).
The total weight of this equipment is 529 grams.

That is less than half the lightest combo, the Sony A7 V + Sony 20-70mm f/4 G.

I think the camera bag still has room for my 188-gram Laowa 6mm f/2.0 Zero-D MFT ultra-wide-angle lens... 🙂

That brings the weight of the set to 717 grams.

Zeddammer wrote on Wednesday 19 August 2026 at 21:06  | reply

Dear Boulanger,

I myself have not used the word "depth of field" even once in this discussion so far. And for a reason: to me, it is not an important factor. So the fact that the F-number of a lens changes when you convert it using the factor "full-frame equivalent in terms of depth of field" doesn't help me.

The lens simply has a constant aperture of F/1.7. And if I want less depth of field, I just use a longer lens, for example - to keep it from getting too extreme - my Sigma 50mm F1.4 Art lens in combination with the Metabones Canon EF to MFT adapter.

Or the same adapter with a focal reducer, which reduces a full-frame image to fit on an MFT sensor. In that process, the light-gathering capability increases by 1 stop.

As for the comparison: I deliberately looked for the extremes there. A comparison of a very lightweight but complete set, so body including lenses, from 2016 can easily be made with a recent small full-frame camera body with a corresponding lens.

That GM5 may look like a toy camera, but it is anything but. It is not for nothing that 8 to 10-year-old GM5 bodies have recently been offered for absurdly high prices through websites such as Marktplaats.nl. And they are still sold quickly too.

The reason? Photography is not only about (the latest state of) technology, but also about things like experience, emotion and even nostalgia. See for example https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0zNF1aXdxYM