The Final Word on Sensors
Derek Smith • 8 August 2022
For me personally a camera with an APS-C sensor is the sweet spot for size, weight, cost, and performance. An APS-C camera usually has a kit lens with a typical focal length of 16-50mm, equating to the 24-70mm typical focal length of a full frame camera kit lens, because the APS-C sensor is smaller than the full frame sensor, the focal length of a lens will be 1.5 times smaller (1.6 times for Canon sensors) to obtain the same field of view.
For lenses I like to have a zoom lens of approximately 16-50mm, and a telephoto lens of 50-300mm, also I do like my fixed focal length lenses, these are called prime lenses, and a photographer can always use a “nifty fifty” 50mm lens, which in APS-C terms becomes a 35mm focal length, with a wide aperture of f/1.2 – f/2.0 for use in low light situations. Many photographers like a selection of prime lenses a typical trio of prime lenses would be 35mm, 50mm, 85mm in full frame terms, that’s 23mm, 35mm, 56mm in APS-C terms.
Nikon, has three APS-C mirrorless cameras, (which are termed as DX) the Nikon Z30, Z50, and the retro styled Zfc. DX Z mount lenses are as follows: 16-50mm, 18-140mm, 50-250mm, however for prime lenses only full frame are currently available, so not a bad start for a relatively new format.
Canon has recently introduced the APS-C Canon R7 which appears to be a professional standard camera, and can be purchased with the RF-S 18-45mm, or the RF-S 18-150mm lens, which should be good for travel. Again, currently no dedicated RF-S prime lenses, but the RF 35mm f/1.8 macro, and the RF 50mm f/1.8 can be used on this camera. For wildlife photography the RF 100-400mm could be a good match for this camera. Now that Canon have chosen to introduce an RF mount APS-C camera, questions inevitably arise over the future of the APS-C M mount system of cameras, and lenses.
Sony has three APS-C mirrorless cameras the A6100, A6400, and the A6600. I fervently believe that Sony dropped the ball on their APS-C offering, considering the Sony NEX 7 was introduced in 2011, with the E mount 16-50mm, and the 55-210mm zoom lenses. The basic rangefinder design of the camera has hardly altered in 11 years!!, still not very ergonomic, in fact the NEX 7 had more controls than its A6000 successor. I used the Sony NEX 3N, the A6000, and the A6300 extensively for a number of years, the auto focus was amazing, possibly even bettering some modern cameras, but the lack of lenses, and poor ergonomics led me to leave the brand. Sony APS-C lens development stagnated, with the R&D development budget used to develop the full frame A7 series of cameras, and lenses. Third party manufacturers Sigma, and Tamron filled the gaps in the APS-C lens line-up early on, and only now is Sony beginning to fill the gaps. Placed alongside the A6100 though, the Nikon Z50, the Fuji XT30, and Fuji X-S10 APS-C cameras all represent improved handling and a better range of native lenses at a similar price point.
Fuji, well where do you start? Fuji X-E4, XT30ii, XT4, X-S10, X-H2S, all APS-C cameras plus a full range of native lenses, in my very humble opinion the king of APS-C.
Images posted with this blog, Nuthatch taken with the Sony A7ii, and with the Olympus E-M5iii. The Bee, and Robin taken with the Fuji XT3.
Clearly the full frame sensor has greater dynamic range, but photographic skills, use of lighting, and choice of lenses will best any advantage that can be obtained from a larger sensor.
The answers to the “Summer Fun Quiz”
A-Monica Olympus O-MD E-M5iii, with Sigma 30mm micro four thirds system at f/5.6
B-Heather Apple iPhone SE
C-Marika Fuji XT20, with XF50mm f/2.0 APS-C system at f/4
D-Ruby Sony A7ii, with Samyang AF 45mm f/1.8 at f/3.5 full frame system
My personal favourite portrait is Ruby, but I don’t believe that this is entirely due to the sensor. Ruby was positioned in the centre of the room, some distance away from an east facing window with net curtains diffusing the light, and the pose strengthens the image. Next favourite is Monica, this time positioned close to the window in full sun, choosing the f/5.6 aperture to control the light, the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens (60mm full frame equivalent) was my lens of choice for portraits on micro four thirds, strangely I never took to the 25mm focal length (50mm full frame equivalent). The portrait of Marika was taken with the Fuji XF 50mm f/2.0 lens (75mm full frame equivalent), this was my first outing with the lens, I enjoy the focal length, better than the 85mm full frame lens, the pose, and lighting could have been improved to create a more stunning image.
Louth Photographic Society

Good Morning All Last week at the club I gave you a PDI (Projected Digital Image) presentation showing photographs I had taken on my travels last year, following up with some past and present photographs of Binbrook. I hope you all enjoyed the evening and maybe saw parts of England you hadn't seen before. This week, Wednesday 4th March, our member Steve Chapman will be showing us photographs he has taken. This is Steve's first time showing the club his work so will be a very good night. Harry is now accepting your PDI's for the next competition, with the categories of "Architectural Detail" and "Open". The closing date is Friday 6th March. Regards Graham

It was "President's Night" with Graham Harrison showing some of his images from short breaks, and holidays around the UK. Graham rented a holiday cottage in Newbiggin, Northumberland, and showed many of his photos from that area, including a visit to Lindisfarne, where the castle on the rocky outcrop made for an impressive photo. In Suffolk, Graham visited Pakefield, and photographed the colourful beach huts at the top of the shingle beach, he also showed several photos from the Lake District. One of my favourite photos from last night was St. Mary's Lighthouse, Whitley Bay, with the groins in juxtaposition. Thank you Graham for a very interesting evening.

Good Morning All Last week at the club Harry and Chris gave us an insight into how our exhibition preparation is going, we have a lot of historical photos to go on show and there may be room for some more up to date ones but Harry and Chris will see how much room we have left when they start putting it all together at the museum. I also took the time to find out what you wanted in the new program, filling in the competition subjects and outings. This week, Wednesday 25th February, it is the Presidents night, so that's my night and I will be showing you what I got up to in 2025. The rainbow at Brough castle gives you idea of one area I visited. Harry is now accepting entries for the next PDI competition, with the categories of "Architectural Detail" and "Open". The new program is nearly done and to give you a chance to get ready for the first two competitions in May and June the subjects are May, PDI comp - Landscapes with water and Open and June, Print competition, Trees and Open. Regards Graham

Good Morning All Last week at the club we held our Print Of The Year (POTY) competition, it's one of our highlights of the year and judged by Grahame Dunkin, it proved to be an excellent night with some very good prints on show. The results are on our website under competitions but the highlights were Dave Turner being placed first in the Pictorial, landscape and best Mono print in show; Robin Begley, First in the Record section, Keith Rossington first place in Portrait, Harry Kerman first in the photo/journalism (including Street) and myself taking first place in the Nature as well as overall Print of the Year. My photograph of a Hairy Shield bug was taken at Chambers wood on a camera club outing. This week, Wednesday 19th February, we are sorting out Prints for our 70th anniversary exhibition at Louth Museum. Please bring along any local prints you may have and maybe a few further afield for selection. Please also bring along any prints you may have that you think will be ok for the LPA Foster challenge and LPA Battles. They need to be mounted on a 500mm x 400mm mount and a maximum print size of A3. Don't forget to take a photograph of water if you are doing this years project, no real excuses at the moment. Regards Graham

Our highlight competition, Print Of The Year (POTY) competition was held last night, with our judge Grahame Dunkin giving his experienced critique on the excellent images submitted. Congratulations to Dave Turner for his Monochrome image of the year: West Pier Watchtower - Whitby, and Graham Harrison for his Colour image: Hairy Shield Bug.

Good Morning All Last week we went to have a look at the Lancaster sculpture at Norton Disney, it is open for visitors at certain times and although work is still ongoing the main Lancaster is finished and a car park in place. The sculpture is full size weighing 100 tons and honours WW2 RAF crews. Last week at the club Derek Smith ran an editing night, members were asked to bring their laptops in and Derek gave us all an SD card with some images to edit and information regarding the free editing software. A different and interesting night and hopefully we all learnt something and anyone new to photography would have learnt quite a lot. Thank you Derek for running the evening. This week, Wednesday 11th February, we have one of the clubs yearly highlights, the Print Of The Year (POTY) competition to be judged by Grahame Dunkin, all the entries are now in and you should have checked the scoresheets to make sure yours are included. Dave Turner is also asking for prints to enter into the Foster Challenge and LPA Print Battles. He will ask to use prints that are in the print of the year but if you have any prints that you think would be good to enter in the two competitions please bring them and hand them into Dave Turner. The following week we are having an evening collecting everything in for our exhibition at the Louth museum, if you can sort out any prints especially local prints that could go into our exhibition please bring them in on the 18th February. Regards Graham

Last Sunday I was in Stockton on Tees working with Izzy, a favourite model of mine she enjoys cosplay, that’s dressing up as a character from Marvel, Hasbro, or film titles. This photo is of Fey, a woodland sprite, pictured against a woodland backdrop that I bought for the photoshoot. I stayed overnight at a Premier Inn, and in the morning drove to Staithes, as I had always wanted to visit this fishing village, Staithes in the February rain wasn’t much fun, and the tide was out, but I did manage to take a few photos, and I captured one for the “Water” project so I was pleased with that. I was quite surprised how vibrant the colours were in the drizzle, and misty light. Driving back over the North Yorkshire Moors in rain, and fog, didn’t allow for much photography either. Yesterday, walking along the harbour front in Bridlington the high tide, and strong winds had thrown lots of debris onto the promenade, seaweed, nets, tree branches, and cuttlefish kept council workmen busy clearing up the mess. With the right clothing, and a weatherproof camera photography can still be enjoyed even in poor conditions.

A photo editing workshop was held last night, with members bringing in their laptops, and post processing sample images. Members were able to practice processing bracketed, and focus stacked images. Simple editing tasks of cloning unwanted items from images, cropping, and resizing of images were shown. The excellent FastStone photo viewer, and editor was able to accomplish most tasks apart from developing of RAW images, this free software is a “must have” for those with Windows computers. The Affinity photo editor has now been acquired by Canva, and the changes applied by Canva have made the software very confusing to use, and on my 14” Lenovo Thinkpad, it was very difficult to view the master layer to apply adjustments. PhotoScape X is a simplistic photo editor, for all that the software was easy to use, and the RAW processing was seamless. It was an interesting evening, and hopefully members will have attained some new skills in post processing, some of the images edited are shown here.

Good morning All I did manage to get to visit Gibraltar Point last week, very few birds to photograph at this time of year but I took a few and a Grey Squirrel. Last week member Dave Mann showed us photographs from his visit to Beamish, it's a great day out and Dave went round most of it and showed us some photographs from the new 1950's town as well as the farm, pit village, town and trains. Thank you Dave, and Harry for helping out with refreshments. This week, Wednesday 4th February, Derek is running an editing night, he has sent us all information on what we could download, if you have a laptop remember to bring it along. Print of the year is fast approaching, if you are entering make sure you send Dave Turner a list of your entries with which subject they are in and bring your prints along this week. Regards Graham





