Jordan Steele:

The biggest issue I have with all the equivalency talk is that it treats the 35mm size as some sort of magical reference format where lenses act their ‘true’ self. This is flat out not the case, and it comes mainly from the introduction of the ‘crop factor’ to help out 35mm photographers who transitioned to digital when APS-C was pretty much all there was.

While there are advantages of full-frame cameras over smaller APS-C sensors and the even smaller Micro Four Thirds format, I’m finding full-frame “snobbery” to be long in the tooth. All the “full-frame equivalent” jargon is painful.

I do realize this is kind of ironic coming from me, seeing as I just went to great lengths to show that using great equipment will improve your photographs. You could theoretically throw full-frame cameras and lenses into that same argument and say that shooting full-frame over M4/3 will improve your photographs as well.

But, quite frankly, I don’t see thousands of dollars of value in the improvements found by jumping from M4/3 (or APS-C) to full-frame. Long and short, while there are some shortcomings in using small-sensored cameras and lenses, I’m tired of reading that the equipment is subpar.

Thanks to Jordan Steele, I now have some technical information that proves full-frame “snobbery” is more grounded in attitude than it is in actual, technical evidence. If you’re looking to buy into a small-sensor system, don’t let all the full-frame talk bug you. Choose the system that works best for you and provides what you want, understand the trade-offs, then work within those constraints. Simple.