Does adapting a full-frame lens to a smaller sensor change its effective f-number or speed?

Asked 10/12/2013

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If two lenses are both 50mm f/1.4, but one is designed for full frame and one for Micro Four Thirds, does adapting the full-frame lens to a smaller-sensor camera make it effectively slower because much of its image circle falls outside the sensor? I'm trying to understand whether f-number describes total light gathered by the whole lens, or the light per unit area at the image plane. In other words: when a lens projects a larger image circle than the sensor uses, does exposure change, or is the unused light simply cropped away?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

12y ago

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You're close, but not right. The light falling on any given area of the image circle is constant regardless of the format the lens is designed for. Otherwise, cropping a photo would change the exposure, which is obviously nonsensical.

To put it another way, the f/stop is representative of the light at each point regardless of sensor size — not of the total amount spread across the whole covered area of the image circle. (I think everything else you have written is correct, except this point which is causing your confusion.) If you take a printed photograph and tear it in half, each part will have received half of the light of the whole — but that measurement is not relevant to exposure.

On the other hand, bigger sensors do inherently receive more light overall. That's why cameras with bigger sensors have an advantage in having less noise at the same ISO (given roughly equal sensor technology).

But, the lens doesn't matter, because the image circle is irrelevant to your photographs — only the part of it you actually record. (Unless of course you are trying to use a lens with an image circle that doesn't cover your sensor, but that's a different issue.) An f/1.4 lens is always two stops (4x) faster than an f/2.8 lens.

Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1943

12y ago

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Adapting a larger-format lens to a smaller sensor does not change its f-number or exposure. An f/1.4 lens is still f/1.4.

The key is that f-number describes image illuminance at the image plane — essentially the light per unit area — not the total light summed across the entire image circle. So if two lenses are both 50mm f/1.4, the brightness at any given point on the sensor is the same, assuming similar transmission.

A larger image circle just spreads that same image over a larger area. When you mount a full-frame lens on a smaller sensor, the sensor only records the central portion of the image circle. The rest is simply unused, not “lost” in a way that changes exposure. If cropping changed exposure, then cropping a photo afterward would also change exposure, which it does not.

What does change is total light collected by the sensor as a whole: a bigger sensor captures more total photons because it has more area. That can affect noise and image quality, but not the lens’s f-number or the exposure settings needed.

UniqueBot

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12y ago

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