[Leica] Highly Intelligent Crop Factor Overview

[Mark Rabiner]

But few of us for some reason used 18x24 format. Otherwise known as half
frame. Before that 18x24 was called  full frame. The first Leicas' s,
Barnack were known as "double frame" which was 24x36mm.
35mm movie film could work for stills long as the standard movie film format
already used on some still cameras was doubled. This was crucial to the
original Leica concept. We want a very compact pocketable camera; but we
don't want the format smaller than it needs to be.  It needs to be using
more sprocket holes... We want it as big as is possible or practical. Years
later Hasselblad/ Fuji camera out with a pan camera using 35mm film which
they marketed as a medium format camera. Maybe it was triple frame I don't
know but you get my point.

The great compact cameras of the 80's on 90's could have been half frame and
we'd have gotten 70 on a roll verticals. That could have been a selling
point. Instead they were   full 24x36 frame and a blow up the size of your
wall could look just as clear and sharp as one made with a honking 35mm SLR
with moterdrive and batter pack weighing many pounds.

To me ever since the Olympus OM1 and the Rollei 35 it taught is you wanted
the biggest possible format in the smallest possible camera. A compact
camera need not have a tinier than necessary format. And this is a basic
Leica idea as well. The idea behind the Barnack.

Nowadays we we get a compact camera the format has not stayed the same. Its
been shrunken to a size they don't even want to tell us about. Only one
company Sony with its RX 1 has done that. And we don't want to think about
it because it cost three grand USD.
So we pretend that needlessly shrunken formats equal quality image making
worthy of Leica glass and Leica conversation.
Its Weasel words.
We pretend like the bottom line is pixel resolution.
Which is like saying put slow film in your Minox blow it up as big as your
wall and pretend you like it.
The long and short of it is most the threads on the long now are concerned
with toy cameras.
"The pros' are all using them now!"
No they're not.
"The sensors are just as good as full frame!"
The full frame sensors have been getting better too.
"They are only needed for Pro's"
Like saying 24x36 film is pro size and amateurs could all be using 18x24.
Serious amateurs didn't use 18x24 because they weren't stupid.
But if they were sold for less money many they might have.

On 1/4/15 3:01 PM, "Henning J. Wulff" <henningw at archiphoto.com> wrote:

> Yes. Use the tools that suit.
> 
> In film days, I used 24x36, 24x60, on through all sizes of MF and on to 4x5
> and 8x10. Obviously for different reasons. For commercial photography, the
> biggest struggle was always getting enough depth of field. Now, finally, with
> m43 those concerns are largely gone but I hardly do commercial work anymore.




-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/