Breaking the Myth of Megapixels
- Thread starter bladephotog
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
mikerault
Contributor
Yes, but try cropping a 5, then a 8 then a 10 megapixel image to half size, then blow it up, there will be a difference. Reducing a 10 down is different than going the other way.
Charlie99
Contributor
- Messages
- 7,966
- Reaction score
- 168
- # of dives
- 500 - 999
That's only true if you really have 10 megapixels of info. Unfortunately, in too many of my photos poor focus, camera shake, etc. dominate even at 4 megapixels.mikerault:
OP
bladephotog
Contributor
One point that he makes, that I agree with, is that the average person won't notice the difference, not the average photographer. If a picture is good enough the viewer will overlook some technical flaws.
That's the wonderful challenge of photography - to make a technically perfect image that also emotionally moves the viewer. It's what we strive for, or should. And it's not easy to do.
And I also agree with him about cameras not becoming obsolete as quick as some make us think. My 20D isn't a crap camera now that Canon has come out with the 30D.
Just food for thought.
That's the wonderful challenge of photography - to make a technically perfect image that also emotionally moves the viewer. It's what we strive for, or should. And it's not easy to do.
And I also agree with him about cameras not becoming obsolete as quick as some make us think. My 20D isn't a crap camera now that Canon has come out with the 30D.
Just food for thought.
stiebs
Contributor
As anyone with more than just a passing interest in digital photography should already be well aware, the ability for the camera optics (ie, lens) to render the resolution of an image is usually the key factor - not the CCD. And this is especially so when talking about "P&S" or "Compact" cameras.
The sensor in the average compact camera has a 1/2.5" sensor, which is 5.7mm wide and 4.3mm high. My DSLR has a sensor which is 23.5mm wide by 15.7mm high.
(In area, thats 24mm^2 compared to 369mm^2). What that means is that the poor lens has to concentrate the same amount of light onto a much smaller sensor area, which in turns introduces a lot more artifacts and noise into the image, essentially negating any extra megapixels on the sensor.
My 6MP SLR gives much cleaner photos than my 8MP P&S.
Outside of camera marketting, its well known that more megapixels is not always better, but in fact in some cases more megapixels will produce a poorer image than one with less.
When it comes to resizing, it also makes a difference what software and algorithms are used. Sure you can resize in photoshop, but if you use something like Genuine Fractals, the results will be exponentially better.
The sensor in the average compact camera has a 1/2.5" sensor, which is 5.7mm wide and 4.3mm high. My DSLR has a sensor which is 23.5mm wide by 15.7mm high.
(In area, thats 24mm^2 compared to 369mm^2). What that means is that the poor lens has to concentrate the same amount of light onto a much smaller sensor area, which in turns introduces a lot more artifacts and noise into the image, essentially negating any extra megapixels on the sensor.
My 6MP SLR gives much cleaner photos than my 8MP P&S.
Outside of camera marketting, its well known that more megapixels is not always better, but in fact in some cases more megapixels will produce a poorer image than one with less.
When it comes to resizing, it also makes a difference what software and algorithms are used. Sure you can resize in photoshop, but if you use something like Genuine Fractals, the results will be exponentially better.
The column is a tease with no real assesment. I just took a family portriat at with a tripod and self timer at Christmas with my C-5050 and blew it up at Ritz Photo to 8x10 with less than 20% cropped. I'm not a photo expert but I saw specs or pixels that seemed to be a grainy texture. --Im used to looking at fine details.
Mabey Ritz tool was not as good as a professional lab but??? If I take the square root of 4 megapixels (for estimation purposes) I get 2000. Thats 2000 pixels or dots across a 10 inch photo edge. This is 200 pixels per inch. Most color photo printers do 4800 dpi or more. Where does the data come from? It dosent. maybe interpolation or replication. Bottom line loss of detail.
If I had a 8 megapixel then almost 300 more data points. The NYT article was at Times Square. Did every body have their beer gogles on?
-DP
Mabey Ritz tool was not as good as a professional lab but??? If I take the square root of 4 megapixels (for estimation purposes) I get 2000. Thats 2000 pixels or dots across a 10 inch photo edge. This is 200 pixels per inch. Most color photo printers do 4800 dpi or more. Where does the data come from? It dosent. maybe interpolation or replication. Bottom line loss of detail.
If I had a 8 megapixel then almost 300 more data points. The NYT article was at Times Square. Did every body have their beer gogles on?
-DP
OP
bladephotog
Contributor
diver_pirate:
Don't get to hung up on the math of all of this. Was your image well exposed? There are many factors that go into making a good photo, not just sensor size. I love my 1D MK IIn's but if I don't expose properly and white balance properly I'll get an increase in noise. I've also struggled with finding noise in my prints that I didn't see on the computer. Usually it's noise in the shadows and it's hard to fix.
stiebs
Contributor
diver_pirate:
Actually, its only consumer inkjets that advertise printing at 4800dpi. The professional printing lab that I use does 32" x 20" prints off a 8000x5000 image. That's 250dpi, and I challenge even the most discerning photography critic to pick the difference between one of those prints and a 35mm film print.
Similar threads
