Medium Format vs Full Frame Sensor Comparison - Is bigger really better? Deep Dive

Great video; thank you Leigh!! Yes, pros and cons to all sensor sizes, and the use cases are important. The upcoming video of full frame lenses on medium format is something I have been considering. I have some M-mount lenses, and 102MP cropped to full frame is 61MP. And why not crop larger than full frame (until vignetting is an issue)? I have an X-H2, and it took me a little while to get used to it after using X100V and X-T3/4/5 bodies, and the GFX bodies are most similar to the X-H2 (except no D-Pad). There are too many good choices out there today 🙂

Great video, Leigh and Raymond!

Thank you and congratulations on creating the reference video on this topic. You answered all of my questions and have quelled my GAS. I have bounced around from brand to brand and format MFT, APS-C, and 35mm. I have landed on the Lumix S5iix. The functionality and colors out of this camera are amazing. (Ecstatic we got Leica Monochrome the other day.) The lens catalog is extensive... way more than I will ever need or afford.

I have toyed several times with buying a medium format camera, but I am pretty sensitive about weight. I like hiking to places that are off the beaten path. (Instagram doesn't need more images of mesa arch. :) ) At the end of the day, for the first time in a long time, I'm very satisfied with the S5iix.

Again, thank you for your effort in creating this video and thanks to KEH for their sponsorship.

I, have just come up with an interesting argument for myself in favor of Medium Format. One of my arguments in favor of Full Frame has been that you can utilize vintage lenses, plus there are a lot more Full Frame lenses out there as options than Medium Format. However having a great lens that you love not covering the entire sensor might not be a terrible thing, for a while I have been thinking that since a camera lens projects a circle, why aren't we taking circular pictures. We are not dealing with film that comes on a roll anymore. Capturing a circular image would allow you to crop vertical or horizontal. Since nobody is going to make circular image sensors any time soon, I am thinking maybe using a full frame lens on a medium format sensor might be the next best thing. Knowing that the dark corners and edges are getting cropped out anyway.

Great video!

What really helped me to make sense of this was to remember…

“A lens of a specific focal length will retain the DOF characteristics of that focal length regardless of what camera it is put in front of”.

For example, a 90mm lens on a 6x7 medium format camera will have the same DOF characteristics as an 90mm lens on a 35mm camera.

It’s the crop factor where the medium format “magic”happens. :-)

A 90mm lens on a 6x7 medium format camera produces a 45mm field of view (in 35mm format).

So if you take a 6x7 camera with a 90mm lens and a 35mm camera with a 45mm lens and set them up at the same distance, same aperture…you will have the same composition but the 6x7 will have a shallower DOF.

This can lead one to believe that medium format intrinsically has a shallower depth of field. But when you factor in the focal length you realize this is not the case.

That being said, it is true that a medium format camera will have a shallower DOF when compared to a 35mm camera utilizing a lens to match its FOV all other things being equal. And this is what gives medium format it’s distinctive look which to me is “Wide angle with a shallow DOF” :-)

Hope I made sense!

Another interesting video Leigh, thanks for sharing. On the shot of the yellow flower with the brown centre, I wonder if you'd not only adjusted the focal length by the crop factor between cameras but the aperture as well, whether that might have yeilded much more similar results in terns of "blur" of the flower. i.e. F8 on MF vs F6.3 on FF ( MF x 0.8 )... . Any thoughts on this much appreciated. Keep up the good work.

Hey Leigh, I totally agree with the naturalistic landscape look. You were the person who showed us how Leica has a smoother transition in tones compared to other brands. Have you tried making hdr photos in avif format? I find you need to do almost zero editing with Leica photos and you can uncover so much colour in the sky without having to use any curves or anything… this is not hdr style photography but actual hdr photos that you can only view on certain monitors (including oled screen iPhones).

f/the f/4 is equiv to a 3.2 in ff terms, the f/2.8 is f/2.2 terms. I own most of the GFX gear, bodies/lenses/adapters and I also own and regularly shoot higher end Canon, Nikon and Sony. I also own some Leicas but not the SL line. Sadly I own way too much gear. If you have the time to properly compose, medium format will almost always beat ff. Been shooting 30 years, and medium format is def not a fast camera. I tend to try and pick the right body for the task and then my back up body and lens and so far, so good.

Not disagreeing with your findings somI’m not misunderstood. The dynamic range offered by my GFX 100ii is insane. I adapt various lenses to GFX as needed as well. Leica is going medium format for the new SL 3 bodies if we believe the rumours. Thanks for making this, it was a great video!

I’m on APSC and pretty happy 😅

I used two cameras and I shoot professionally with both. I have a Fujifilm XT5 which is a crop sensor camera and I've often shot many professional gigs with the portraits and other things and even landscapes I migrated over to GFX medium format because I did miss the low light performance and unfortunately Fuji don't make a full frame camera well not yet anyway allegedly they are working on that at the moment but I'm really not sure they're going to do that so I kind of ended up in medium format by accident more than anything. But I do not regret it as the overall performance for this camera is amazing. 100s II did I really need it? Does really anyone need anything probably not but do I love it absolutely do I make money from this camera. Absolutely I do. Do I enjoy using it. Yes I do it answers all the questions that should be asked when purchasing gear. But oddly enough did you actually a little bit not a grown gun and you have to work through the settings when setting up for a photo. It is very much a slow down camera and that is something that actually appealed to me as I'm now in my early 50s. You start to slow down which is good and I'm really now working on the quality of every image instead of just snapping away and getting lots of photos and then picking the best ones out of those. I now compose photos properly and I probably should've been doing this before but I wasn't and this is mainly for landscape photos. Obviously there are as Leigh mentioned advantages and disadvantages for every system. But now I have been working with the system for about a year. There is no way I could go back to full frame. It is just so good in the files. It is very likely if you own a medium format camera you're probably going to need to own another camera of some type for some situations and that's okay that's why I Own XT5 Fiji film which I love. Many medium format owners on a small second camera just to go out walking in and they leave their big rig for when they really need it. The land selection in GFX is pretty good if you think about focal length and you have to remember you don't need as many lenses in medium format because the resolution is so high you can simply crop in all the time. You can take 100 megapixel photo and get 5 x 20 megapixel images out of it...the 100-200 can be cropped to 400 mm and still retain a 50 mp file. Thanks for your very thorough video. I ended up doing what you said at the end of the video which was selling off a whole bunch of gear that I didn't use much and now I have two small systems. I have a GFX camera with four lenses and I have a XT5 with about four lenses and it's the perfect set up.

I have the GFX 50 SII and a Nikon Z7. The 50 megapixels compares nicely with the Nikon’s 45 megapixels. The Fuji is more geared toward portraits and landscape while the Nikon is a more of general purpose sports and wildlife camera. The Fuji has for me has more natural color renderings than the Nikon and the depth in the Fuji is much greater than the Nikon

I think it may have been more relevant if you had printed those two night images of the city on a 36x48 inch format and then used a magnifying glass to pixel peep the two prints. I suspect that what you would have found is that both images produced the same level of detail on a print and perhaps even without using pixel shift to improve the resolution of the FF image. IMO the ease of pixel peeping has corrupted our ability to evaluate an image for how well it will display in the "real" world. As a result many people are avoiding very good lenses and discarding images because of what they saw in a 300 or 400% Pixel Peep.

Not valid comparison, pixel shift is very limited anything moves and photo useless

Yes , I am on board with you adopting full frames lens onto your medium format cameras !!! Can't wait until you make the comparison with only one lens manufacturer ! Hopefully , this will be with Sigma that can be adopted to different camara's manufacturer ! I'm looking forward to seeing your upcoming review ! Thank you !

I'm surprised you used the GFX8 m43 camera instead of your OM1 mii which has the best suite of nighttime photography features that I am aware of including Starry Sky Auto-focus that will focus on the stars perfectly in a matter of a couple seconds. Talk about ease of use :)

Why not make a Ao print size and place it side by side to look at it.Not monitor only.

A balanced, informative and diplomatic review. Liked!

Thanks for the video. The majority of the video was comparing landscape astro/lowlight photography at infinite focus. What did we learn, cameras behave about the same. What could we have learned between the systems.
1. Medium format has a larger image plane by .8; which means a better reproduction ration.

2. Bokeh is overrated? Distance to subject is an important variable, but lens characteristics change the quality of this. It does not change that the bokeh will occur at a distance. A big advantage here is if your in a tighter space using a MF lens; you can have a wider field of view and blur the background more. Especially using Fuji 1.7 lenses (1.36 equivalent to FF)

3. Color transitions are often better with medium format.

4. Full frame to a larger format full frame equals not a whole lot of difference for causal shooting.
5. 2:3 vs 4:3 aspect ratio is actually a big deal especially for portrait work.

6 more megapixels doesn’t equal better image, it’s just more resolution.

7 Microcontrast is better on MF probably by .8x

8. returning to out of focus rendering a tiny cell sensor to medium format at the same distance and aperture will demonstrate greater depth of field, everything will be in focus. M34 and apsc are great for Astro work for this reason

9. MF is a slower system to utilize. It’s not a sports action camera, But they do take an image that for me given the lens and camera combination has more realism in it.

10. The Fuji can be more versatile because you can adapt all types of lenses to it so you can shoot Nikon canon m mount lenses on it as well ; plus other medium format glass should that be of interest.

It’s like you said know your camera and lens combo for what it does.

👍🏾🙏🏾 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇸🇪🇹🇹

Hi, I was using full frame cameras since a long time (Nikon D800, Sony A 7 R III A7 IV, A7 R V) and the best lenses on each system, no zoom's at all for this very long period. Since a year now I sold every thing and bought a GFX 100 (first generation) , a 45-100 and a 80 f1.7. I'm mainly concerned by studio work (I build my own). Recently I put on the wall in an exhibition a portrait in a square format (1.2x1.2m) cropped in the original file. The quality was just incredible ! I had taken the picture with water falling on the face and I have one drop on the eyebrow perfectly in focus (and of course the eye) but the drop falling in front of the same eye was just starting the out of focus zone with such a sweet rendering. I never saw that with my Sony A 7 R V and the 85 1.4 GM or the 100 STF (which is an incredible lens). It's not possible to go back if you're using this kind of gear the right way. Oh ! it was taken with the zoom (45-100) at 100mm F5.6. I will surely sell the 80mm, as the 45-100 is so good !

Excellent review that does a great job of highlighting pros and cons of the Fuji GFX 100S ii upgrade over full frame and smaller. It is clearly not as simple as some promotional videos claim........ Ultimately it's the photographer's skill that will make or break the final photographic outcome. Having said that in the right hands the GFX100s ii can deliver superior results for large prints of landscape and portraiture to most full frame cameras.
I look forward to your upcoming GFX videos - because there is a lot of fun to be had with 3rd party lenses that many of your viewers will already own!

I'm not terbly concerned with ultimare resolution - but far more concerned with color quality and dynamic range. I think Medium format at base iso gives a better (more) dynamic range- esp with portrait subjects,.,,

Thank you, so good!

that's why mft!...

This medium format is not really medium format.. too small.

Fujifilm's GFX offers pixel shift multi shot images of 400 megapixels! Hard to imagine. I myself use Olympus/OM System micro four thirds cameras and can get 80 megapixel (50 megapixel hand held) images that are quite good.

I upgraded to 45mp, and my computer can't handle the larger files. Saving up for a high end computer.

I believe you have Nikon cameras (Z7 & maybe Z8), was surprised you didn't use the Nikon in the test.

This was a fun and enjoyable video. I think I will stick with what I have. I am quite the opposite of you, getting night shots of the milky way, I go close in macro photography. It's fun and that is how we need to look at taking pictures. What I find is that even a 24mp sensor can yield excellent images, both in full frame and aps-c format. It's all in how you take the photos, what lenses, lighting, etc.
What I get from this video is the we really don't need a medium format camera. If you pixel shift using a Sony A7R4/5 with its 61mp sensor, you will get an image file so big you need a large hard drive to save it. Not only does one need to know cameras, they need to know computers.

Wow I love this video! Many thanks 😊

I love your channel! Glad this popped up on my feed!!!!

Leigh & Raymond, nice to run into you at the Gilbert Riparian today. Leigh, I found that menu setting that we talked about, it was just a loose nut behind the camera and had a setting not turned out, LOL

I use 1", MFT, just retired my APS-C in favor of MFT. APS-C was my main format since 2006, and I use FF. And of course, my phone, but I do not know the sensor size.

U are surprised that 100mp image on 2 different cameras produce the same result? There is no reason to use the current medium format cameras as is, they are not superior, the opposite - they feature crappy firmware and hardware unable to process the images, much inferior to the G5II or any new Sony/Canon/Nikon FF. U only get more blur, but... any AI today does the same for cheap. How about shooting sports and birds with medium format...ahahahaha, cheap shit overpriced, now shines like a cheap shit overpriced.

I’m not sure that aperture should be the same for both sensors the medium format should have been 1 to 1 1/2 stops more than the full frame.

Hi Leigh. First let me thank you for your insightful comments on this superb comparison between the Fujifilm GFX System and other formats! As a Nikon Z landscape, wildlife, macro and small products photographer, I'm quite pleased with the sharpness, detail, and overall image quality I achieve with this FF system, as I shoot 95% tripod-mounted. That said, as an admitted sharpness and detail "fanatic", I've always had a keen interest in seeing whether medium format would improve image sharpness/detail, particularly in large (30" x 40") prints. I recently attended a local Fujifilm GFX seminar, and had the chance to use the same SD card in both my Z8 and the GFX 100S ll, in order to compare image quality. As expected, even from this unscientific test, I found that even in an 8x10 print, I could see more detail in the GFX product shot. I realize that such an IQ difference might not be visible on social media, so my question to you is, at what print size would you expect to see a significant difference (improvement) in image sharpness and detail over my FF images? (I also realize that my Nikon Z system would be better suited for my wildlife photography (longer focal length lenses, much faster burst rates, faster AF, etc.), but I was contemplating using the GFX system for landscape, macro and small product work.) And just FYI, I already employ focus stacking on my still life work, which results in very large files with extreme sharpness and detail, but still intrigued by the potential of the 400mp in-camera pixel shifting of the GFX 100 S ll. Thank you once again!

Lego van Gogh!!!! Love it 😁 leave it to a gfx shooter to notice something in the background lol one thing that's the MOST important is native Aspect Ratio. Native 4:3 ratio is the best. It's eye pleasing and just pops. Landscape or portraits alike. I can't go back to 3:2 even if i say I don't need resolution anymore. Just can't. And yes you have to focus stack more on medium format but if you're shooting medium, you probably know how to edit and do more advanced processing techniques already so it's no big deal to take 2 extra seconds. Especially with TK9. And F4 in medium format is like F2.8. If you think about it with a bigger sensor at F4 there is more light hitting the sensor because the hole is bigger. F4 on full frame is a smaller hole. That's what causes that bokeh difference between the sensor sizes 😉 and you can get star bursts at F11-13 on medium format and prevent diffraction whereas you'll be shooting at upwards of F16 to get that on full frame. Just with how the blades work on the aperture.

Excellent and well balanced! Thank you 👍

I had both. Leica SL2 and GFX100S ii (also the older ones). The best „Feature“ of Medium Format was the 4:3 Ratio and using it with vintage lenses.
In Lightroom or Bit Prints i cant Tell the difference between an old Canon 5D Mark III and the GFX. I have big prints and cant Tell the difference. But when there is flash and narrow distances with the 80 1.7 i often think there is am bit more 3D pop.
In real life, the old 5DMark III or SL2 with 35 1.4 or 50 1.2 outperformes the GFX.

People tend to think about MP and resolution of medium format vs fullframe but for me the important thing is I can use same focal length lens but get wider field of view is the key with fullframe I must use branizer technique to achieve that.

why not both😂

how tall are you please reply ?

Interesting video but the Fuji sensor is not really medium format the Hasselblad H6 sensor is still not true MF but at 53.4 x 40mm is substantially bigger than the Fuji. These new so called MF need a new designation otherwise they will be confused with the monster Hasselblad and Phase One offerings. Also not sure if I would ever consider MF for astrophotography. I agree that the camera has to be considered against the lenses offered and what you are trying to shoot and also add a heavy dose of what market and what output you are looking to achieve. I am currently using the H2D from Hasselblad and I am loving the natural and realistic colour of the raw images that require less post processing work. So as you say in the video it’s horses for courses.

Thanks Leigh, great video. I own a GFX 50s mk2. I love it, But I also own a Nikon D850. They are both excellent cameras, the 850 is 3x faster. The images are actually pretty similar. Both are monsters, the 850 is actually bigger than the GFX. But I wouldn't part with either one. Thanks again great video.

Love the "Idea" of medium format...finally settled down and really started seeing..i guess the term is..everyone seems to shoot dreamy,soft...not razor sharp photos.
Its a character fault of mine i guess to wish for quality,sharpness and dynamic range all in one.

Fuji and Hasselblad are in range and love the idea of Fuji 400mp stacks
I just want accuracy and resolution.
Maybe asking too much

I feel like the lenses make a much bigger difference than (non-120) medium format, Zeiss Otus lenses give that medium format pop on full frame no problem

I looked seriously at the Fujifilm 100 MP camera. For me, the deciding factor was cost; 3 primes - a wide angle, a normal and a portrait tele - was going to cost around 10 grand. Throw in the cost of the body, and we were up in the stratosphere; I just couldn't afford it. It makes no sense to have the worlds best camera, if you cannot afford the lenses. A secondary factor was lens selection; to the best of my knowledge, the only lenses made for the fujifilm camera are made by fuji. That really limits your selection. (There are some Chinese lenses available for the Fuji.) I wound up with a Z8 body and a wide selection of lenses. I'm really happy with the Nikon Z8; for me, it was the right choice.

Thanks, still struggling with the decision on adding GFX100S II (larger than full frame, not medium format according to Fujifilm's own description). I have used the predecessor at a Fujifilm event and was quite frustrated with the slow AF, but was amazed at the output.
I am hoping watching similar videos to this one will make me finally decide.
Thanks!