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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

35mm Digital Sensor Comparison Chart

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Mitch Gross

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Lots of today’s cameras feature a “35mm-sized sensor,” but what does this really mean? They all vary slightly in size, and some are shaped differently so that, when used for HD shooting, the usable size is dramatically reduced. Our clients frequently ask how to compare these different cameras and how sensor size affects field of view and lens coverage. A picture is worth 1,000 words, so we decided to produce a graphical chart to better compare them.

Lots of info on this chart and it is not a better/worse comparison and doesn't compare quality, recording media, resolution, etc. It is simply about sensor size and relative field of view. We made it as a poster and it's available as a free download from Abel in .pdf form. For complete information on the chart and a link to the download, please click on the link below.

http://blog.abelcine.com/2010/08/18/35mm-digital-sensor-comparison-chart/

You can also feel free to repost this wherever you like; all we ask is for proper credit for the work it took to create it.
 
Interesting to see the Epic X and 5D2 side by side. The difference between Epic X and Epic FF35 will be significant.
 
Really useful chart Mitch. Thanks.

I think there may be a typo on the Phantom 65 resolution. 16x9 aspect would surely be 4096x2304, not 4096x2034.
 
Nick Shaw said:
Really useful chart Mitch. Thanks.

I think there may be a typo on the Phantom 65 resolution. 16x9 aspect would surely be 4096x2304, not 4096x2034.
Click to expand...

Good catch, thanks. You are correct. We'll have to fix that!
 
Mitch Gross said:
Lots of today’s cameras feature a “35mm-sized sensor,” but what does this really mean? They all vary slightly in size, and some are shaped differently so that, when used for HD shooting, the usable size is dramatically reduced. Our clients frequently ask how to compare these different cameras and how sensor size affects field of view and lens coverage. A picture is worth 1,000 words, so we decided to produce a graphical chart to better compare them.

Lots of info on this chart and it is not a better/worse comparison and doesn't compare quality, recording media, resolution, etc. It is simply about sensor size and relative field of view. We made it as a poster and it's available as a free download from Abel in .pdf form. For complete information on the chart and a link to the download, please click on the link below.

http://blog.abelcine.com/2010/08/18/35mm-digital-sensor-comparison-chart/

You can also feel free to repost this wherever you like; all we ask is for proper credit for the work it took to create it.
Click to expand...
Informative and fair request as due, Mitch!

E. :-)
 
Hey Mitch,

Great chart. I know there isn't room to include all possible resolutions, but wouldn't you think it noteworthy to include the maximum recordable widths for resolution and sensor areas for the RED cameras? Especially for the Epic-X, since 5K 16:9 is not the largest size it can record?

RED One 4.5K is 4480x1920 and 24.19x10.37mm with an image circle of 27mm.

Epic-X 5K full is 5120x2700 and 27.65mmx14.58mm with an image circle of 32mm.
 
There was some internal debate on this, but in the end we felt that the moment we opened up to other frame ratios that it would mean that we would have to cover a variety of frames and it would vastly complicate the chart into un-usability. These days, 16x9 is by far the most common format for deliverables so we chose to go with just that. It would only really effect the RED and Phantom cameras (and the Super-35 film) as they have the different sensor areas that could expand beyond a 16x9 frame.

I think that would have to be a different chart. ;-)

Many of the people using a chart such as this will not be technical camera users. It will often be producers or clients who don't really know about the differences and capabilities of these cameras, no frankly do they care. For them the decision to deliver in 16x9 is most likely already made and as such the maximum possible size of a particular camera is not the point -- they just care what it can do in 16x9. This is not a dig on RED at all -- one of the reasons I decided to make this chart was because clients kept referring to the 36x24 sensor on the Canon 5D without realizing that when shooting motion it actually became 36x20.25.

So I decided that the chart was going to simply be "What do these cameras give me in the way I want to use it?" and picked the 16x9 ratio as the frame that by far answered that question.
 
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