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5 minute read
Why a Larger Sensor Delivers Better Images
With a G Format sensor that’s 1.7x larger than a 35mm chip, GFX cameras offer all sorts of imaging benefits. Let’s take a look at a few…
Is bigger, better? When it comes to camera sensors and the ultimate image quality they produce, the answer is usually a resounding yes. That’s certainly one of the main benefits Fujifilm’s GFX System offers with its G Format sensor. And it’s not just about pure resolution, either. The number of pixels produced in a file is important, but the larger physical size and the way a sensor is designed is at least as influential. Read on to find out why – and how they can help you produce better pictures.
All about the G Format sensor
Let’s start with a quick refresher. Although the models in the GFX System have different resolutions – like 51.4 megapixels for the GFX50S II and 102 megapixels for the GFX100S – the physical size of their sensor is identical. This G Format sensor has a 4:3 aspect ratio and measures 43.8×32.9mm, making it roughly 70% larger than that of a ‘full-frame’ or 35mm format sensor. It also uses bespoke microlensing architecture to maximise light gathering. And while the dimensions of the chip are larger, the overall size of the sensor unit is designed to be much smaller than similar models, meaning the camera body itself can be as portable as possible.
Get lower noise and cleaner images
A camera’s sensor is made up of many millions of light receptors or ‘photosites’. With a larger sensor area, each photosite gathers light from a wider space. This is often referred to as its ‘pixel pitch’. Therefore, the bigger the pixel pitch, the more light can be captured per receptor, per exposure. More light means a better signal – one that doesn’t need to be amplified by the camera, but remains purer and closer to the captured original.
But what do we mean by ‘amplified’? Well, that’s essentially what happens when you increase the ISO setting. You don’t make the sensor gather more light; you just amplify what’s captured, like turning up the volume on a radio.
When ISO is increased, the digital ‘noise’ also increases, making images look speckled, lessening details and affecting colour. But if you start off with more light, a greater signal-to-noise ratio is produced. Ultimately, when that data is pushed through a GFX System X-Processor, cleaner, less noisy pictures are produced, compared to working with smaller sensors with equivalent resolutions. More lifelike colours and clearer details are visible, even when the camera’s ISO is set to higher levels, so users can create high-quality images in confidence.
FUJIFILM GFX100S ISO 100
Enjoy greater dynamic range
Especially important in landscapes, architectural photography and heavily backlit portraits, dynamic range is a measure of variation between light levels in a scene. One with deep shadows and very bright highlights, like a dark room with a brightly lit window, would be considered a high dynamic range. A scene with shadows and highlights closer to one another in intensity, like a grey dog on a snow-covered path, would have a lower dynamic range.
Where do sensors come into this? Well, photographic sensors are limited in how wide a dynamic range they can record. Beyond that capacity, detail will be lost at one end of the tonal range, or both, resulting in a landscape with a pure white instead of a blue sky, for instance – or a person silhouetted in black against a sunset.
The wider a dynamic range a sensor can record, the closer the image will look to the human eye, and avoid detail being lost. The FUJIFILM G Format sensor delivers up to 14 stops of dynamic range, so tackling almost any scene or subject is easier, no matter what the lighting. To create this wider-than-normal dynamic range, G Format sensors are manufactured to extend the saturation point of each photosite, meaning they can offer up to 1/3 of a stop more dynamic range than similar sensors.
Photo © Amy and Stuart Photography
Make larger prints and tighter crops
As explained above, using a physically larger sensor area means GFX cameras can produce very high-resolution files without compromise, extending how you can use files.
So, if you want to make big prints, you’ve come to the right place. With GFX50S, GFX50S II and GFX50R producing 51.4-megapixel files, and GFX100 and GFX100S producing 102-megapixel files, the photos are 8256×6192 pixels and 11648×8736, respectively. If you were to print at the optimum 300dpi, you’d be able to output at huge sizes of almost 70cm across and 1m across.
And there’s more good news. The more pixels you start with, the more you can crop into an image and still end up with a usable, high-resolution file. If you’ve framed a portrait in horizontal format, you can crop it to vertical and still end up with a 6193×4955 file from GFX50S II, or 8737×6988 on GFX100S.
The same high-resolution benefit applies to the numerous aspect ratios photographers can use with GFX cameras. Starting out with lots of pixels to play with, the G Format sensor’s original native 4:3 ratio can be reshaped to several different formats, but still with lots of potential for making large, detailed prints. A classic 1:1 ratio gives 6192×6192 images on GFX50S and GFX50R, and 8736×8736 files on GFX100. Alternatively, if your composition suits a panoramic 65:24 format, you’ll get a 25-megapixel 8256×3048, or a 50-megapixel 11648×4304 file.
Photo © Michael Clark
An undeniably different look
Finally – and perhaps most alluringly – a larger sensor can have a distinctive effect on the way your photos actually appear. When reading about cameras like the GFX System, you might have heard about a ‘larger format look’ – and this is one of the main reasons that photographers are drawn to those models. For one thing, the bigger a sensor is, the shallower a depth-of-field it’s able to create, compared to using a lens with a corresponding aperture and field of view on a smaller sensor.
However, photography is full of variables: the sensor size, aspect ratio, focal length and aperture all combine to influence that ‘look’. Even small changes can define one camera system from another. For instance, the larger a sensor is physically, the longer a lens’s focal length needs to be to get an equivalent field-of-view. So, GFX lenses need longer focal lengths than 35mm versions to deliver the same framing. That change affects how the subject looks in relation to its background, as well as the distance you would compose from. The G Format sensor’s 4:3 ratio means that you’re also liable to compose in a slightly different way, so it all comes together to make a particularly distinctive look that can’t be replicated by smaller sensors.
Photo © Kara Mercer | FUJIFILM GFX 50R camera and GF32-64mmF4 R LM WR lens, 1/80 sec at F5.6, ISO 250
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