1/2.5" (1" divide by 2.5") vs 1/1.6" (1" divide by 1.6"), which is bigger?

Oh got it now..lol..suddenly forgot my divide sign

Cost reduction is the only reason I can think off. Canon does have some A series with larger sensor, but S3 is just not in the list... Come to think of it, with all those features built in, just can't ask for more, can we?

Ever notice and wonder why most if not all megazooms uses tiny sensors while normal cameras and wide angle cameras have bigger sensors?
it's because they wanna keep it as a megazoom.. if they increase the sensor size on megazooms, then the effective focal length will be shorter, unless they use longer lens.
it's the same theory as DSLRs sensor crop, a full frame sensor will have a crop factor of 1X, while an APS-C sized sensors will have a crop of 1.5/1.6X.. the smaller the sensor, the higher the crop factor, and a lens will give u higher effective focal length on smaller sensors as compared to a larger sensor.

for example, a 50mm prime will be functioning as a 80mm prime on an APS-C sized DSLR(1.6X crop factor), but if u use it on a full frame sensor DSLR(1X crop factor), it will remain as a 50mm.

This post has been edited by kevin613: Jun 11 2007, 09:02 PM

While I would support the 9600 over the S5IS, there are some undeniably better things about the S5:

- Bright lens (F2.8-3.7). Fujifilm dumped their F2.8-3.1 lens in favor of a much darker one ages ago. Panasonic dropped their constant F2.8 lens too. Why?!?

- physical stabilization

The Panasonic TZ is noisy, and its noise reduction kills details. Give me noisy purple-fringed detailed shots over watercolor blotches anytime!

i would guess panasonic dropped the F2.8 lens because of the increase in sensor size(from 1/2.5 to 1/1.8), if they were to retain the same F2.8 lens used in FZ20, it'll either have an shorter effective focal length, or if they wanna maintain the maximum effective focal length(400+ mm) and constant F2.8, then the lens will have to be extremely bulky. so instead of making the FZ30 and FZ50 too bulky, they opted to drop the F2.8 lens.

But the lens specs and the aperture in the camera is diffrent rite?

like my Fuji (F2.8 - F4.9) can go down till 2.8 (biggest) and the smallest is F11.. It is diffrent from the lens spec? Is there any formula to count that?