How many megapixels do you need?

[runnah]

Then again there are those of us who hate digital but don't think we need to go back to the stone - age.

If you hate digital, why comment on a thread about it?

 

[robbins.photo]

0

I shoot film. Way better than your mega-pixel cameras. Try it someday.

Film? Sheesh. What a sissy way to go. Seriously. Sheffield plate. Daguerrotypy. That's how a real man captures images. You kids and all this lazy film nonsense.

Yes, that's one way of looking at it.

Then again there are those of us who hate digital but don't think we need to go back to the stone - age.

Well actually the Stone Age ended sometime between 6000 BCE and 2000 BCE roughly, and Daguerrotypy wasn't invented until.. umm.. sometime in the early 1800's I think. So your at probably somewhere between 4000-8000 years off really. Now if I had said Flinstones Camera.. bam.. would have nailed that one. Unfortunately for whatever reason you can't really teach a modern bird to etch an image in stone, so really if you want to be all "true to the roots" thing Daguerrotypy is probably going to be about as close as your going to get.

 

[Gavjenks]

0
I shoot film. Way better than your mega-pixel cameras. Try it someday.

You will get higher film resolution possible from medium format or large format film, which you can't get in digital (yet, too expensive to manufacture), something like 100+MP. However:

There are 80MP backs in mainstream use (Medium format). I see no reason that the resolution couldn't be pushed up.

I doubt the claimed performance of film, however.

Mamiya Leaf Credo 80MP Digital Back Kit with 645DF 020-00302A
I wouldn't call a $37,000 back "mainstream"

Oh oh wait, this one's a steal at $30,000, I take it all back
Mamiya Leaf Credo 80MP Digital Back Kit with 645DF 020-00302A

Yes, it's possible, but not really seriously feasible yet for probably anybody on this forum.

 

[photoguy99]

There are no dimensions in which digital performance does not exceed film, and several in which digital does vastly better. Area for area. Given that I can trivially stitch up as much area as I like digitally, film loses that one too.

There are excellent reasons to shoot film. Technical details of so called image quality are not among them.

 

[Derrel]

You will get higher film resolution possible from medium format or large format film, which you can't get in digital (yet, too expensive to manufacture), something like 100+MP. However:

There are 80MP backs in mainstream use (Medium format). I see no reason that the resolution couldn't be pushed up.

I doubt the claimed performance of film, however.

Mamiya Leaf Credo 80MP Digital Back Kit with 645DF 020-00302A
I wouldn't call a $37,000 back "mainstream"

Oh oh wait, this one's a steal at $30,000, I take it all back
Mamiya Leaf Credo 80MP Digital Back Kit with 645DF 020-00302A

Yes, it's possible, but not really seriously feasible yet for probably anybody on this forum.

Pentax is about ready to, I think TODAY, April 14, 2014, launch the second incarnation of its 645 digital camera, with 51.4 effective megapixels, for I think the body price MSRP is $8,700. It is also one of the VERY FEW, brand-new medium format digitial cameras to use a CMOS sensor, and not the CCD type sensors that medium format digital has been using for the past 15 years or so. From what I've heard, the new CMOS MF sensors have a HUGE ISO advantage over their earlier, CCD brethren; much cleaner images at significantly higher ISO levels than was possible using CCDs.

 

[TheNevadanStig]

Everytime I even start to think about megapixels, I go to my local camera shop. There, they have a 48" print on display that blows away any of my current shots, and it was taken with a D40.

If megapixels were that important, my little D3200 must be almost twice as good a camera as the D4S!

 

[robbins.photo]

Everytime I even start to think about megapixels, I go to my local camera shop. There, they have a 48" print on display that blows away any of my current shots, and it was taken with a D40.

If megapixels were that important, my little D3200 must be almost twice as good a camera as the D4S!

Which is why they never bothered to make a camera with a resolution higher than 2 megapixels.

Umm.. whoops.. lol.

Seriously though, more MP by itself doesn't necessary lead to better pictures. Good technique generally contributes more to better pictures than equipment. But better equipment can become a factor as well, and can certainly make it much easier to do certain things than it is with equipment that has more limitations.

Megapixels is a good example - they can be a real double edged sword at times. Higher MP gives me a lot more ability to crop in post, more ability to resize without degrading the IQ as much as the same shot taken with a lower MP camera. However higher MP also means that errors in technique become more pronounced, more noticeable than they would have been otherwise.

I could take two shots side by side on a tripod with the D5100 I used to own (16 mp) and the D5200 I have now (24 mp) and if I didn't have to crop the photo at all it might be difficult really to tell the difference between the two just by looking at them on the computer screen. But if I do a 100%+ crop the differences become apparent pretty quickly.

So yes, higher MP is not the end all be all of photography, no argument there. But they can make a difference depending on the kind of shots your taking and the way those shots are finally presented. Just my 2 cents worth of course, YMMV

 

[MartinCrabtree111 5]

Surprised no one touched on the size of those pixels.