6.3 on MFT is NOT 6.3 on FF 

*due to RU-vid's compression, it is important to view the resolution of this video at full 2160p in order to see the differences in noise. RU-vid's compression at lower quality rates make it hard to see a difference between noise levels. P.S. Original video files available for download in the description. Those claiming I "moved" and "changed distance to subject" for my DOF examples will be able to see that I clearly did not. P.S. Somehow during export the "red circles" I added in editing got misplaced and cut off and I didn't catch it before upload. Please excuse the mistake!

Good video, although in my experience I think it is generally well understood by mft users that in terms of depth of field the equivalent ff aperture number is double. The greater depth of field for given aperture on mft is either an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your circumstance/what you are trying to achieve.

As a musician, the way I think about iso is 'input gain'. If you have to crank the gain on a mixer or audio interface you're going to get more noise. As you boost the signal, the noise is boosted along with it, so leaving it as low as possible is always preferred. For the depth of field, I find it most useful to just remember that a 400mm lens will have the same DoF at a given distance and aperture. If you took a picture with 400mm on a FF camera and a MFT camera, both at 6.3(I'm not aware of a 400mm 5.6 in the MFT space), they'd have the same DoF, but the MFT shot would appear more 'zoomed in' because of the crop. It would look more like an 800mm shot at f/11.

I appreciate you taking more of the practical approach! Sometimes the super scientific “here’s what’s actually happening” explanation is not that helpful in the field, I think people leave a lot of those videos thinking their micro 4/3 camera produces exactly what their full frame camera produces as an end result, or just being confused. this was pretty balanced! Also good that you were referencing modern cameras and not just a GH5 or something like that

I think a more fair comparison would have been two sensors with dual native ISOs. The G9II doesn't have dual native ISO, as it sacrificed it for DR boost, which is not very effective for low light photography. Anyway, great comparison. But the same f stop would mean the same light DENSITY, regardless of sensor size. And as mentioned before, with technologies like Dual native ISO and Back side illumination, light sensitivity is getting much better in the mean time. I hoped the G9ii would have had DN iso as it is meant to be photo centric, but DR boost isn't half bad either.

Great explanation. I also used to not know this, but what convinced me originally that DOF will be different with the exact same lens (say 400mm f/6.3) mounted on different size sensors, is that imagine trying to frame the same photo (for example a headshot of a deer). On full frame, you'll be some distance away with a given depth of field and background blur. On APS-C or MFT, you're too close! You need to go 1.5 or 2x further to get the same shot, and at larger distance the dept of field will be wider. And now the subject-to-background distance became relatively less compared to the camera-to-subject distance, thus the background blur will be smaller.

The size of each kit is what really makes micro 4/3s my choice. It's easier to hide and less bulky when getting lower angle shots. Also good to note, editing software is evolving fast. I can add smoother depth of field and noise clean-up is getting impressive.

Thank you for you lucid explanation. I changed form FF (Canon) to MFT (Olympus) a few years ago and have not really been bothered by the longer depth of field - just use a "faster" lens or try to ensure the background is further away. Most of my photography is motor sport or birding so the longer D of F is often an advantage - maybe that's why shallow D of F is not a priority for me. I do notice the extra noise though and often juggle with ISO, exposure and shutter speed to compensate. However I had not cottoned on to slightly over exposing - so a big thank you for explaining that. Incidentally I followed you manual focusing clips with interest and am trying (it is very trying !) to put the ideas into practice - very much a work in progress so far! I do have more success using "modern" lenses than I do with vintage all manual ones interestingly, but the sense of achievement when I get it right is far more than when auto focusing - so thank one again.

I do primarily wildlife photography and I would always say under expose rather than over. You can recover shadows if you underexpose... most of the data is still there, just noisy, and in 2023, we can fix noise. If you clip highlights, there is no data to recover.

You sort of nearly got there with this explanation. I find the biggest misinformation comes from people thinking that in terms of exposure MFT at f6.3 has the light gathering ability of f13 on FF. You kind of implied this misinformation too but subtly corrected it with a text overlay “in regards to DOF.”

Hello, the exposure parameters are the same no matter how big the sensor is. And a greater depth of field also has advantages!

f/6.3 is f/6.3 with regards to exposure triangle. If you buy an f/11 FF lens and expect things to work exactly the same as a f/5.6 MFT lens, you'll be disappointed. I've noticed a recent trend in photography, where people assume that DOF is the only thing that counts.

what about light gathering ?

Okay, so there is one big misconception in this video, which is comparing two sensor sizes using the same *equivalent* focal length. Depth of field is based of 3 variables : the focal length, the diameter of the aperture of the lens, and the focus distance. The shorter the focus distance is, the shallower the DOF gets. The longer the focal length at a given focus distance is, the shallower the DOF gets And at any focus distance, the wider the aperture is, the shallower the DOF gets as well. The difference you're observing in DOF between your full frame camera and your MFT camera doesn't come from the fact that the sensor is smaller. Put the 600mm lens on the MFT camera, and you'll have the exact same rendereing and depth of field, except with a 2x crop. The difference comes from the fact that to "simulate" the same angle of view with the MFT camera, you need a lens that is half the focal length. So from 600mm, you go to 300mm. Then you stayed consistent with the exposure, so both were open at f/6.3, which means the diameter of the aperture on the 600mm lens was 95.2mm, while the aperture on the 300mm lens was 47.6mm So by having halved the focal length, and halved the diameter of your aperture in the process, you ended up with a much deeper DOF, but that has nothing to do with the sensor itself, only the lens that you put in front of it. Also, the 400mm f/6.3 lens on MFT IS equivalent to an 800mm f/6.3 lens on full frame in regards to exposure and angle of view (roughly). DOF comes third as it's generally not as important as the other two. f/6.3 will have the same exposure no matter the sensor size, the only difference is that with a full frame one, you'll be able to get a better signal / noise ratio and reduce the visible noise on the image (also get greater dynamic range). But that doesn't mean that you have a brighter exposure. Otherwise we would choose our cameras based on the pixel pitch and how large pixels would get a brighter image than smaller ones. That's not the case at all.