In many of our camera reviews over the years, we’ve noticed a trend: small sensor cameras are really starting to suck. A good camera does the job you need. But a good camera is also one that you can use repeatedly yet never loses its intrigue. That’s the type of camera photographers deserve — and firmware updates often help with that. But in the past few years, small sensor cameras have lived in the shade cast by the giant redwood trees we can call full-frame cameras. As a result, small sensor cameras are the vines that creep around and climb up the massive trunks of the full-frame camera tech trees, but they never see the sun in the same way.
When I talk about small sensor cameras, I’m talking about both APS-C and Micro Four Thirds. All the best features end up with full-frame cameras first, and the APS-C cameras aren’t given enough to make them really relevant. To help illustrate this point, I’m going to use several examples:
- No one really remembers to discuss the Sony a6700 all that much. It’s forgettable — for the $1499 price tag, you can get a renewed Sony a7 III. You won’t have all the AI features, but you’ll have excellent battery life, image quality and all. We rated this camera very highly when it debuted.
- The Nikon Zfc pales in comparison to the Zf and the Z6 II. The ZFc was treated like a toy when photographers really wanted the Zf. This is evident in the plasticky feel of the camera, the lightweight claim, which was just a way of saying they used cheaper materials, etc.
- Canon is in a race to the bottom with all the cheap APS-C cameras that they make. No other brand makes cameras that are that affordable, and they don’t follow Canon’s strategy of making all these cameras to discount them during the holidays with lenses, flashes, printers, etc.
- OM System is often behind all the other manufacturers. If it’s not with image noise, it’s the fact that they’ve been using a 20MP imaging sensor for almost a decade now. Their autofocus has also lagged behind many others out there.
- Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds sensor cameras often have really bad color compared to their full-frame options.
- Fujifilm claimed to make the XT5 lighter — but if you hold it in comparison to the XT3, the older camera feels much more substantial with metal dials compared to the large amount of plastic the XT5 uses.
It should go without saying that small sensor cameras pale in comparison to the full-frame cameras on the market. One can say that it’s so that it can accommodate to a more entry-level user. But that’s what the second hand camera market does so well. Fujifilm APS-C cameras are some of the few that hold their value on the used camera market. But we can all agree that Sony cameras never do that — even for the full-frame options.
The question then becomes: with such a saturated and rich second-hand market, why have small sensor cameras be what they currently are? Camera brands are all flexing that their revenues are doing very well — to be frank, lots of them indivually made billions in 2023. Why can’t small sensor cameras get more love in the form of firmware updates, exclusive features, etc?
To be fair, Canon is really the only one that does this by giving their lower end cameras things like special scene modes such as panoramic shot, toy camera mode, etc. But Sony puts that in all their cameras — as do all the other brands.
It’s long past time that the manufacturers added more differentiation in their cameras.