Yes, I muddied things up by bringing up pixel level arguments without saying why. By showing the noise is equal at the pixel level, I show that the noise advantage of FF is due to pixel size and/or the bonus pixels at the edge. Is has nothing to due with effective apertures, which was the whole point of my original post. The noise advantage is a separate argument. The effective aperture argument is all about DOF changes. Jon pointed out a nice benefit of FF, which had nothing to do with the original question, and I just wanted to point that out (and then defend my argument when everyone said I was wrong ).