The Reality of the "Crop Factor"

[Kayaker72]

I doubt they're 100% efficient,

Yep...I forgot about the micro-lenses as I was writing my caffeine infused post....but, still, even though they are referred to as "gapless"....even the micro-lenses may have some sort of structure (i.e. not "gapless"), and you have to wonder about the % efficiency, as you mention.

But, the point being, how does something like this scale with pixel size? The bucket analogy makes it easy for me to see how the bucket edge would scale unfavorably with decreasing pixel size---that higher pixel density sensors (i.e. crop sensors) have a higher bucket edge/deadspace to active pixel ratio compared to lower pixel density sensors.

This could be off, and the micro-lenses could really be "gapless" as the 7DII has a higher QE than the other FF sensors. But that may be measuring something slightly different. Anyway, I may spend some time looking into this when I have more free time.

Thanks......