Editorial: Crop factor, Spam & Dive into the Pink

Staff · Issue 110, Sep/Oct 2019 · pp. 4

Editorial Crop factor If you only shoot stills, move on. There’s nothing here for your sort; I’m just talking to the video shooters now and when I mention the “C” word I’m sure you’ll know exactly what I’m on about. The “C” in question is the Crop Factor (CF) which occurs in most cameras capable of shooting still images and video footage. When you shoot video the horizontal angle of view is reduced for various reasons which are not immediately apparent nor properly explained and certainly never highlighted or justified by the manufacturers. To confuse things further the term CF was used in the early days of digital stills photography to describe the different angle of coverage when using a full frame sensor lens on a smaller chip camera. As a result everything was compared to a “35mm equivalent” which, if you’ve never shot film wasn’t particularly helpful. I ranted (who, me?) as far back…