Last year, I stated that we’re in a full-frame revolution. We also stated that small-sensor cameras are terrible — which spurred a lot of reactions from other publications. And it seems like it’s taken a while, but it seems like the internet has gotten over its anger at these statements too. Back in the DSLR days, APS-C cameras were all about having smaller bodies. But these days, that’s not always the case. Instead, it’s often about just having a price ladder. At a certain point, it’s totally irrelevant to purchase a new APS-C camera and sometimes the same can be said about Micro Four Thirds. Instead, it makes so much more sense to go buy a used full-frame camera that will be cheaper than a brand new APS-C camera and also often better.
APS-C cameras often make more sense for birding and wildlife — as do Micro Four Thirds cameras. But full-frame cameras have the ability to crop in-camera to get great results too. On top of that, they’ve got better autofocus to be able to find the animals in the first place. In many ways though, I feel like Micro Four Thirds is a better buy. Sure, the megapixels haven’t gone up in most cameras in years and both the autofocus and high ISO image quality can fall apart. But at least you truly get smaller camera bodies and lenses.
Let me clarify here: if you already own an APS-C camera, then that’s fine. It’s most likely an older one. But the camera brands aren’t putting much effort into new APS-C cameras, and instead, they’re trying to just maximize profitability.
But specifically, I’m saying that buying a new APS-C camera is illogical when there are so many great used full-frame cameras on the market and you can get them for often cheaper than new APS-C camera bodies.
On top of that, cameras aren’t truly innovating or offering lots of features that worth picking up for these days. That’s happening at the high end for full-frame and of course then happening for APS-C.
The next big one that we’re probably going to see might be from Nikon or Canon. And they’re bound to be their higher end cameras but with a smaller sensor in many ways along with slightly worse autofocus.
We’re in a very frustrating market right now, and often, I think we should all just go look at older products instead of newer ones.