Whats the difference between a small and full frame dSLR camera?

Question

Ok, it may sound like a stupid question. But seriously on top of my head I don't know. I want to buy a good dSLR camera, and would like to know the difference. Thanks heaps.

Answer 1

Like the others said, full-frame is a camera that has a 35mm sensor, or larger, in some cases, like the Nikon FX sensor.

A small frame camera is more common, and an example of that would be the Nikon DX sensor, which is somewhere around 26mm by 24mm (that figure is from memory, so don't expect it to be perfect).

I would just go with a small frame from Nikon, such as the D40 or D40x, because the overall loss of quality from full-frame to small-frame is not highly significant.  For example, the difference between an FX and DX sensor is 2mp-6mp (FX=12mp, DX=10mp/6mp[D40]).  2mp is rougly 5 inches of image size.

Answer 2

There are actually a number of different size sensors found on DSLR's

Full frame ... the same size as a 35 mm SLR frame

AP-C (most DSLR's use this size sensor .... they are so called 1.5x and 1.6x sensors)

4/3rds sensors .. made by Olympus, Pentax and Leica (they are 2x sensors)

The larger the sensor, the higher quality your image is (this of course requires the photographer to have the necessary skills)

Answer 3

Pentax sensors are not 4/3 2X as fhotoace quoted. They are APS-C 1.5X.

A full frame DSLR has a bigger sensor than a small frame camera. When both cameras are coupled with a 50mm lens, the FF will view it as 50mm while the smaller sensor will have a crop factor of 1.5 as in the case of a Pentax will be viewed as a 75mm (35mm equivalent) 1.5 X 50mm = 75mm. 80mm for Canons, 1.6 X 50 = 80mm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_factor