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Crop Factor on Fuji Lenses, Why?


davek

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Its what people are used to, and I think it makes sense. Let say you start in photography and you buy a crop camera and the manufacturer labels there lens in the 35mm equivalents, so your 23mm lens is actually labelled a 35mm. Then you read a thread saying that vintage glass is a great way to experiment and get different looks. SO you buy a legacy manual lens and a adapter. However you really like the 35mm focal length so you buy a 35mm manual lens, and then you are left wandering why the hell it looks so different from your existing 35mm lens (because on your crop camera its a 52 mm lens) 

 

The reality is that the current system is not ideal, but there are so many lens out there in circulation that you can't change them and changing the standard now would cause a lot of people a big head ache.

 

G

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I agree with gordonrussell76's assessment and those made earlier - focal length measures exactly that and does not change regardless of what you would "want" it to say. If you want to know what its equivalent on 35mm sensors/film would be, multiply by 1.5x. If you want to know angle of view, the specifications sheet on Fujifilm's official product site states what it is. In fact, they also include the 35mm equivalent focal length.

 

See, for example, here for the 16mm f/1.4 lens. Clearly labeled are the facts that a lens with a 16mm focal length on Fujifilm's APS-C ("crop") sensor is equivalent to a lens with a 24mm focal length on a 35mm sensor. They also state that the angle of view is 83.2 degrees (24mm lens on 35mm sensor has an angle of view of 84.1 degrees).

 

The information is all there for anyone willing to look for it. I can see how the focal length issue might be confusing but it is a standard and an measurement. If you're still thinking in 35mm terms, just multiply Fuji lenses' focal length by two-thirds. In the case of the thread starter, if they want a lens with the field of view of a 27mm lens on their 35mm camera, multiply 27 by two (54) and divide by three (18) - so you want Fujifilm's 18mm lens.

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Fuji could do what Olympus does: ie The box says 25mm and prints the 35 equivalent on the box (50mm).

This is nothing new. If you shot multi format in the film days you had the same issue. 

A focal length in on format has an equivalent angle of view in another format

50mm in 35mm and 80mm in 2 ¼ have a close to equivalent angle of view. (didn't call an 80 a 50 or 50 an 80)

You think in that format, when I shot 2 ¼ I didnt think in terms of 35mm. If I wanted a wide angle I would get a 65mm lens or wider

Back in the days before digital and the ineternet - Calumet in the front page of there mail order catalog

had a table of equivilnet focal lenfghs and angles of view. -- 35mmm, 2 ¼, 4x5, 8x10,  ( mostly for interchangeable lens cameras)

I remember having to figure out what was a "normal" lens when I bought a 4x5.

The problem more complex with digital because there are more sensor sizes.

Film had a standard set of format sizes so all manufacturers could make standardized film.

Digital doesn't require a standardized sensor,  (memory cards are the film (standardized)--- that's a different paradigm)

Compairing to 35mm film is probaly there for historical raesons. tons of 35mm film cameras were sold. A lot of people think that way

Larger formats were use mostly by professionals, advanced amateurs or photo students

In the other direction --Point and shoots ( 110. 126 film etc). People never had  a concern for focal length.

Todays comparison  -- How may poeople even consider the focal lenghth/ angle of view when they buy a phone with a camera.

Edited by merosen
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Modern camera makers could simply use angle-of-view and T stop to describe their lenses. That would be state-of-the-art and useful as we could quickly compare lenses across various systems with different sensor sizes, be it 1", APS-C, APS-H, 35mm, 44x33mm or larger.

 

Sadly, most camera makers consider many of their customers old-fashioned and resistant to learning current stuff, so they don't dare to change a thing. Fujifilm, for example, are disqualifying themselves by mentioning the "35mm equivalent" in pretty much every lens description, acknowledging that their core customer base consists of old men who have been socialized with 35mm film and don't know anything else. They also stick to nonsense like "ISO sensitivity", as if the sensitivity of a digital camera sensor would/could ever change. Nobody dares to speak of "ISO amplification", which would be the correct description of what's going on.

 

Rico, thank you speaking the plain truth. People waste so much time talking about this meaningless BS!

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Marketing is not exactly a “ science" (otherwise we would never have any flops among products)

 

 

So what you are saying is that the product does not matter. It can be useless and/or poorly made crap and if marketed correctly will never flop

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In this thread there have been arguments for calling an x 23mm lens 35mm. There was also arguments för using angle of view rather than focal lenght and even t-stop instead of f-stop. The people asking for a change in lens naming all have good arguments from their point of view. I will however play the devil's advocate and try to explain why none of these changes would be good for the art of photography.

First "23mm should be called 35mm"
I know a lot of photographers that use multiple formats none of them really talk about numbers when specifying angle of view. We usually use "normal", "wide normal", "tele", "long tele", "portrait lens" and so on. 35mm, however is something of an oddball since the small frame 35mm has made a name for itself as a concept. If someone would ask me about what angle of view my 60mm ga645 i would actually say "35mm equivalent". I wouldnt mind that much if lenses were sold as "potrait"  and "long portrait" instead of 56 and 90mm and in that sense a "35mm equiv" name may be more appropriate than "street" but there are somany other things you can use these lenses for that i think it would be more missleading than guiding. 

Angle of view rahter than focal length
Angle of view is very important for lots of kinds of photography since it both defines perspective and how far away from the subject the shooter has to position himself. For someone that has not yet gotten used to the photography lingo or is doing his first film size switch it may be helpfull with angle of view naming. But it is actually very easy to learn to know what angle of view your lenses have regardless of film size, you get that information every time you look in the viewfinder and is sticks fast. In contrast to angle of view, focal length tells us something else too and that is the depth of field. Regardless of format a 210 lens has the same depth of field. Knowing your depth of field is at least as crucial to getting the picture to look the way you want as angle of view and it would be a lot harder to calculate that from angle of view.

T-stop rather than F-stop
T-stop may be interesting to the consumer or specialist that want to know that a lens will be usefull in certain low light conditions. But if one is more interested in what look a photographer can create with a certain lens, f-stop is a lot more interesting. 

To sum things up. If we want to argue about low light capabilities between camera/lens combos, compare lenses across systems to see which is "best" or just figure out how far away we have to stand from the subject to fit the same subject in the frame. Then changing what we call our lenses may be a good thing. However, if we want to talk about the qualities of a photo or how a picture was created or what lens one should use to make the picture look a certain way, things are a lot better as they are.

Btw, there is a lot of confusion going on about focal lengths and crop factors and depth of field. If you want to know that almost every explanation you can find on the internet is horrible simplifications, try to follow my long and confusing explanation here.

Edited by Patrik_roos
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In the early days of digital, there were many sensor sizes and they were all named after analogue TV camera tube sizes like 1/2.33" at the small end and 2/3" for the expensive bridge cameras. Then there were  APS-C and APS-H sensors named after a failed film format, and followed by four-thirds and micro four-thirds. Perhaps some early adopters bought digital as their first camera, but most came from a background in film where 35mm dominated. Even large format shooters were well aware that a 35mm lens was a wide normal, 85mm a portrait of short telephoto lens, 24mm was genuine wide-angle and so on.

 

My first camera had a 1/1.8" sensor whatever that meant, and an 8.2 to 23.4mm zoom. No way that one could visualise an 8.2 to 23.4mm range, but when translated to the familiar 38 to 115mm equivalency, we were at home on familiar territory. My second camera had a 2/3" sensor, so focal lengths would be entirely different. Equivalence was necessary for clarity in those days, and for better or worse, the custom stuck.

Edited by Larry Bolch
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In the early days of digital, there were many sensor sizes and they were all named after analogue TV camera tube sizes like 1/2.33" at the small end and 2/3" for the expensive bridge cameras. Then there were  APS-C and APS-H sensors named after a failed film format, and followed by four-thirds and micro four-thirds. Perhaps some early adopters bought digital as their first camera, but most came from a background in film where 35mm dominated. Even large format shooters were well aware that a 35mm lens was a wide normal, 85mm a portrait of short telephoto lens, 24mm was genuine wide-angle and so on.

 

My first camera had a 1/1.8" sensor whatever that meant, and an 8.2 to 23.4mm zoom. No way that one could visualise an 8.2 to 23.4mm range, but when translated to the familiar 38 to 115mm equivalency, we were at home on familiar territory. My second camera had a 2/3" sensor, so focal lengths would be entirely different. Equivalence was necessary for clarity in those days, and for better or worse, the custom stuck.

 

What about a person who started on m4/3 and then went to full frame.

The point of reference is different but the a conversion is still needed to start your new reference point for lens focal lenghth in the new format till you learn and intuit angle of view equivalencies.

Kind of the reverse anology, going from smaller to larger insead of the other way  around   ---  so the argument takes on a quality of being relative to your viewpoint.

YMMV

Edited by merosen
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The problem is not new to digital and was much of a bother with medium-format. At its smallest with 120 and 220 film, there was 4.5×6cm, and many 6×6 cameras. Next up was 6×7 which was common, 6×8 which was primarily the Fujifilm GX680's exclusive size, 6×9 was also very popular, my Brooks VeriWide 100 was 6×10, Linhof and Horseman made 6×12, Linhof and Fuji both had 6×17 cameras and someone made a 6×24! A normal lens on a 6×9 would be a very wide angle on a 6×17 and a telephoto on a 6×4.5. We carried printed charts with equivalency focal lengths. 

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Oh, my... why is it that every time this subject (and several similar ones) come up posters manage to turn a simple concept into something that appears to be baffling and complex.

 

First a 23mm lens is a 23mm lens is a 23mm lens. When you buy a 23mm lens from Fujifilm (on Canon or Nikon or Hasselblad or Olympus or whoever — yeah, some don't sell 23mm) it has a focal length that is 23mm. 

 

The angle of view of the image from a 23mm lens is different on every different format, not just cropped sensor cameras. A smaller sensor captures a smaller area of the image projected by a 23mm lens, so you get a narrower angle of view from this focal length on a small sensor camera. If you could put a 23mm lens on a medium format camera, with its much larger sensor of film, the projected image would extend over a larger area, and your photograph would capture a larger angle of view.

 

What photographers are usually trying to figure out is, more or less, "I like 35mm on my full frame or 35mm film camera. What focal length will give me the same angle of view on a Fujifilm camera?" Typically starting with a full frame sensor or 35mm camera as your starting point, you can figure this out using your camera's crop factor. It is easy.

 

1. If you like a 35mm lens on your full frame or 35mm film camera and you would like the same angle of view on your Fujifilm 1.5x cropped sensor system, just divide the full frame focal length (35mm) by the crop factor (1.5) to get 23mm. (35mm/1.5=23.33mm)

 

2. It works the other way, too. If you wonder how your 14mm Fujifilm sensor's angle of view compares to full frame cameras, you just multiply the crop sensor camera's focal length by the crop factor: 14mm x 1.5=21mm. Yes, your 14mm Fujinon lens gives you the same angle of view that you would get from a 21mm lens on full frame. 

 

I understand the desire to not have to do the (simple) calculation, but a few ideas. First, you only have to do it once when you select your lens for purchase. After that, it is what it is. Second, the math is actually pretty easy once you understand it and do it a few times. Third, there is a common way of describing this: "Effective focal length" or "focal length equivalent." You'll even see it on some vendors' websites. (From one I just looked up: "The "FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR" offers a focal length equivalent to 53mm...")

 

Finally, if nothing else convinces you... accept that fact that this is how the world of photography refers to lenses. For decades, where referring to large format, medium format, 35mm, or whatever (each of which provides a different angle of view with a given focal length) we have simply referred to the actual focal length of the lens and photographers have learned (the relatively simple skills needed) to make sense of it.

 

Good luck!

 

Dan

Edited by gdanmitchell
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So what you are saying is that the product does not matter. It can be useless and/or poorly made crap and if marketed correctly will never flop

 

No, I am not saying that , you are misinterpreting me, but I am afraid that this thread is not about this kind of thing, so there is no point in further making that point clear.

 

Suffice to say that if if marketing were an exact science no one would ever produce a product which will not meet the market expectations. As we know, that happens... even to Fuji.

 

Take the now discontinued ( because of their poor sales record) series X-10-20-30 or the X-M1 the camera which only ever few people bought. A clear example of a camera which wasn’t welcomed, at least not well enough, to secure a commercially viable production and has relatively quickly been taken off the market.

 

http://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm-x30-and-fujifilm-xq2-officially-discontinued-is-this-the-definitive-death-of-fujis-23-sensor-x-cameras/

 

http://www.fujirumors.com/low-sales-fujifilm-x30-71th-ps-digital-camera-ranking/

 

That’s what I am saying but no point in arguing this,  Let’s leave it to that.

Edited by milandro
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Using comparisons to film day 35mm cameras with respect to lenses makes going from one sensor size to another as well as respective lenses easier. It merely serves as a reference point. In short, the work was already done for digital photographers. Whether the 35mm film lens reference is the best choice, is perhaps another topic.

 

If you have  4/3 camera and then got a full frame (as some call it) and then a medium format, do you really want to go through an exercise of comparing them all to each

other or simply have one reference point (which in this case happens to be the 35mm film camera lenses reference)? I'll choose the single reference because I am both lazy

and smart.

 

Using T-stops instead of F-stops is for me a rather silly exercise. F-stops remain reasonable as it is a generic equation that traverses the entirety of photography while T-stops deal with flaws in light transmission of a given lens (it is a measurement). If I only had 1-3 lenses and that is all I had, and had to be super critical of exact spot on measurement of light hitting the sensor, then perhaps a T-stop reference makes more sense. Then again, are sensors even among a given make/model of camera 100 percent the same in sensitivity? Answer is perhaps close enough but not 100 percent all of the time. Or perhaps you got a model/make of a camera and then moved up a model where the sensor is not exactly the same. T-stop tells you nothing...absolutely nothing unless you measure it against the sensor you plan to use. The full value of the T-stop remains with measure the light transmission of the given lens WITH the actual sensor. I'll just say the T-stop actually had more value with shooting sensitive film in larger format where both film and print didn't have as much flexibility and even that was quite rare in the golden days of film photography. Btw, for those that use light meters, you would have to make/buy special filters to adjust for the light transmission of your given lens when you use it if you want the "T-stop" on your meter. Again, utter nonsense.

 

There are a lot of terms I don't like and I have simply adapted to using them.  Though I obviously came from film days, I do get with the plan and understand that digital photography is quite a different breed (as are many of the younger photographers) from film photography.

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more than anything is just something that we understand, even if it is wrong.

 

Like saying that the sun sets (while it is the horizon that rises ) it is not true the sun doesn’t do that but it appears to do that and we know it doesn’t but still say so.

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more than anything is just something that we understand, even if it is wrong.

 

Like saying that the sun sets (while it is the horizon that rises ) it is not true the sun doesn’t do that but it appears to do that and we know it doesn’t but still say so.

Absolutely. A "common" understanding. Very important.

 

Otherwise the old Chinese idiom comes into play, "Like a chicken talking to a duck". :P

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