Steve Weinrebe's Mode Studio

The forums at photography web magazines such as DP Review have been rife with rumors about a full frame Nikon DSLR for months (years, really, but the buzz has been especially loud of late). The benefit of using legacy lenses aside, the entire full frame vs. APS sized sensor debate has been interesting and often perplexing. In computer technology, smaller is generally considered better, smaller phones, music players, smaller computers, though of course, not smaller displays. While having a large LCD display on the rear of the camera body is terrific, especially for baby boomers like me, a smaller, lighter, form factor sounds tremendously appealing (scoliosis, anyone?). And smaller chips mean smaller lenses, smaller camera bags, lighter tripods to hold down the system, and so forth.

All that doesn’t totally sway me though, due to the one overwhelming issue with the smaller, APS sized, camera sensors: wide angle lenses. If telephoto is your thing, the smaller sensor is great, because all lenses are multiplied by a, roughly, 1.5 times lens multiplier. So a medium telephoto like a 105mm suddenly becomes equivalent to 160mm on a traditional (sorry, had to use that word) 35mm sized sensor, and a 200mm lens becomes a 300mm equivalent. But wide angle lenses bump up by the same multiplier, so my beloved 20mm lens becomes a less effectual 35mm lens all of a sudden. Of course, I tell my 15 year old this and he looks at me glassy eyed, “uhh, OK.”

I’ll confess, I’ve had Nikon systems since I was 15 years old myself, but came seriously close to switching to Canon just prior to the D200. A friend of mine who switched in the opposite direction raved about the quality of the smaller sensor, and pointed out that for almost all practical commercial shooting purposes, 2 page spread, 11 x 14 print, it just didn’t matter. His other point was that Nikon had it all over Canon on ergonomics. Having small mitts myself (and scoliosis from all those years toting a heavy camera bag), smaller and ergonomic was the deciding factor.

I will say that having a full frame Nikon DSLR, where a 20mm lens acts like I expect a 20mm lens to act, sounds like a blessing for me, and all Nikon users. Can Nikon catch up to Canon though, the way Nintendo has barreled back with the Wii, after being unexpectedly trounced by the new gaming industry upstarts? I would say, “who cares?” The future generation of photographers did not grow up with film spooling from one side of the camera to the other, nor do they care about the lens multiplier for their camera phones. Think about it, much of the shape of a DSLR is based on the shape of a camera that has film spooling from one side to the other. There are many digital still camera offerings, the Canon TX1 comes to mind, that have a different form factor, and that show the manufacturers are thinking about a future where photographers never, ever, ever, even have seen a roll of film, let alone used a film camera.

Reminiscent of the infamous email hoax that modern railroad tracks are based on the width of Roman chariots, the trend seems to be that cameras of the future will not be designed based on the adage that form follows function, but may be designed with a form that follows a now obsolete function. Maybe that, and not so much the 35mm sensor vs. the APS sized sensor debate, will determine the future of digital cameras. Sony has introduced HD camcorders that offer decent resolution from stills as well as video, a trend sure to improve greatly, as it already has. The professions of photography and videography overlap so much, that duel of technologies, video that shoots stills vs. still cameras that shoot video, may be the truly interesting game to watch. Maybe its time for Nikon and Canon (no slouch in video themselves), and photographers in general, to let go of the chip size debate and start debating form, rather then format. A future-seeing friend of mine used to refer to Dick Tracy tech, that “we’ll all be using two-way wrist TVs” someday. So true.