M6 ii

[Kayaker72]

Now, this gets tricky. To do this type of test you need professional level test charts, patience, and skill.

I am 0 or 3. This is why I am not a camera reviewer. But, knowing that Canon APS-C sensors have been getting better and better (and do not even get my on Fuji, those are amazing). I wanted to test what I have accepted for years, which is that "the true benefit of APS-C is more like 1.2x and not 1.6x".

So, cheap test chart from Amazon in hand, here is my attempt to just ballpark if my old assumption is still at all correct. All using the 100 mm macro L, 1/200, f/2.8, ISO 100

5DIV at 10 ft from chart:
Attachment 2845

M6 II at 14 ft:

Attachment 2846

15 ft:

Attachment 2847

16 ft:

Attachment 2848

I have another set of crops I could post, but in a way, I do not want to dwell on this too much. Better charts/equipment/test set up/etc would be needed to really refine this and to do a good job.

But this is close enough to me. I see better detail in the 5DIV image at 10 ft than I do the M6 II at 16 ft. From my standpoint, I would say the resolving power is somewhere between 14 and 15 ft, or 1.4x to 1.5x being the "true" crop factor for the sensor on the M6 II. This is the same conclusion I reached looking at other crops. So, in my mind, I am just going to call it 1.45x. Still more resolving power than a 1.4x TC (which is actually 1.36x and does also put more glass between sensor and the subject).

[Joel Eade]

I see better detail in the 5DIV image at 10 ft than I do the M6 II at 16 ft. From my standpoint, I would say the resolving power is somewhere between 14 and 15 ft, or 1.4x to 1.5x being the "true" crop factor for the sensor on the M6 II. This is the same conclusion I reached looking at other crops. So, in my mind, I am just going to call it 1.45x. Still more resolving power than a 1.4x TC (which is actually 1.36x and does also put more glass between sensor and the subject).

Very interesting .... I thought of crop factor mostly as changing the field of view and not in terms of resolution. In that regard the M6II image from 16 ft looks to have similar field of view as the 5DMKIV at 10 ft thus the 1.6 factor. It does, of course get more pixels on target from a greater distance too assuming the crop sensor has smaller pixels or higher pixel density.

[Kayaker72]

Very interesting .... I thought of crop factor mostly as changing the field of view and not in terms of resolution. In that regard the M6II image from 16 ft looks to have similar field of view as the 5DMKIV at 10 ft thus the 1.6 factor. It does, of course get more pixels on target from a greater distance too assuming the two sensors being compared have similar pixel density.

As odd as this sounds, my idea of APS-C has changed over time. Currently, I more think of it as the image that you would get by cropping out the center of a FF sensor. You could do this "in camera" by having a smaller sensor or do it in post-processing if you started with a FF image. But they would yield the exact same image. The resolution of that image is determined by the pixel density. I have always known all of this, but I think I appreciate it more.

So, I really do not think of my M6II as a 32.5MP sensor, which it is. But, especially when comparing it to FF, more often think of it as an 82.5 MP FF sensor that is physically cropped. The benefit of the physical crop being smaller files, less expensive sensor.

Edit---yep, good article by Ari. It is a bit odd that I've always known this, but I do think I am appreciating the simplicity more. Where it gets a bit complicated is considering things like bokeh. For example, if I take the same image of a bird with my M6II and 5DIV, resize the bird to be the same size in both images in post process (mechanically cropped vs post-processing cropped), each image would have the same bokeh.