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Relationship between sensor size and noise


3 years 8 months ago #692014 by Adam Cuffin
Why is it, that full frame sensors at higher ISO have less noise than APS-C sensors at the same ISO?
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3 years 8 months ago #692015 by Adam Cuffin
OR am I misunderstanding this?  
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3 years 8 months ago #692017 by Nikon Shooter
No association possible there, Adam.

The sensor size will define its sensible area and the sensels count
its resolution. The noise is generated the same way than film was…
by underexposure.

True is that larger sensors with less resolution means greater DR
given the larger surface of each sensels and the consequent capa-
ability to catch more photons.

In the case of noise, if a scene was underexposed, one will try to
recover the low lights; doing so, the app will attempt to generate
information where there was none. This will generate the noise.

The same applies to all sensor sizes but with different expressions.
Light is free… capturing it is not!
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3 years 8 months ago #692119 by nomad
noise is indirectly related to sensor size so crop sensors having more noise than full frame sensors is likely, but this won't always be true.  a sensor will have more noise if it has more photosites per area.  fewer photosites/megapixels per area means less noise.

so if a crop sensor and a full frame sensor are both 26mp sensors the crop sensor will have more noise than the full frame sensor.  full frame sensors usually have a lower photosite:area ratio than crop sensors so this is why they have less noise.  you may not notice a difference at iso 100-1200, but at 1600 or 3200 you'll see a difference.

the sony a7r4 (60mp) is a good example where a full frame camera has more noise than a lot of crop sensor cameras.
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3 years 8 months ago #693575 by fmw
It isn't sensor size that matters as Nikon Shooter explains.  It is the size of the pixels themselves that affect the amount of noise that is involved.   Larger pixels capture more light individually and are a boon to low light photography.  Larger sensors often incorporate larger pixels and that would help you explain what you heard or read.
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3 years 8 months ago #693591 by Shadowfixer1
The sensor size is generally the deciding factor on noise, but not always. Here is an interesting set of comparisons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQH-LVZwahk&feature=emb_logo
www.betterphoto.com/?ramshots
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3 years 7 months ago #695403 by AntonFernando
When you amplify the ISO, the electronics in the pixel gets heated up and this heat which causes this type of noise. When the pixel is bigger and has more space between pixels (pixel pitch) then the noise/heat which is captured by the light diode is less. That's why in general the bigger the sensor its less noise. But, its not true, its the pixel size and the pixel pitch which matters. :-) 
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3 years 7 months ago #695460 by Naheed
As full-frame cameras have higher pixels, they get more light and give a higher SNR. That suggests there will be less noise at all ISO values on full-frame cameras than APS-C cameras.
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3 years 7 months ago #695818 by fmw

Naheed wrote: As full-frame cameras have higher pixels, they get more light and give a higher SNR. That suggests there will be less noise at all ISO values on full-frame cameras than APS-C cameras.


It is the size of pixels that affects the amount of noise the camera will generate at a given ISO, not the quantity of them.  The number of pixels affects resolution.  Higher resolution cameras of the same format and sensor qulaity will generally generate more noise than lower resolution cameras.
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3 years 7 months ago #695830 by Nikon Shooter

Naheed wrote: As full-frame cameras have higher pixels, they get more light and give a higher SNR. That suggests there will be less noise at all ISO values on full-frame cameras than APS-C cameras.


May I suggest that the statement might need
more digging in the matter?
Light is free… capturing it is not!
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