Is bigger always better??

[tjones8611]

This is another one of those questions that I am sure has already been addressed here, but was unable to locate by searching. Early this year I upgraded to the 7D at 18 megapixels. While 18 is great for cropping when doing macros, is there any value for 18MP for portraits when the subject is filling the frame? I ask because processing 18MP files is tedious and time consuming and am thinking about reducing to 12 or 10MP for portraits. Typically, I don’t have any images printed larger than 8X10.

thanks

 

[Big Mike]

I would say that the main benefits of high megapixel imgaes like that, are cropping and/or print size. If you don't expect to print larger than 8x10, then I think you would be a good candidate to use the smaller file sizes.

Of course, if you do get an image that is fantastic, and you find yourself wishing that you had shot it at full resolution...then you might have a reason to always use the largest setting...but that's up to you.

 

[djacobox372]

Keep in mind that, all other things being equal, a higher mp camera will have worse low light performance.For example: the d3s is 1.5 stops (three times) better in low light then the higher resolution and more expensive d3x.This factor is why the lower resolution d700 and d3 are often preferred over canons comparable offerings.

 

[The_Traveler]

A higher MP camera is also much more critical about camera movement.

 

[KmH]

And lens quality.

 

[Derrel]

Getting a more-powerful computer, with more RAM, might help speed up the processing. On a close-up portrait, covering a relatively small physical area, 18 megapixels is a lot of MP to be applying to the area covered; on a distant landscape, 18 megapixels' worth of information is helpful in rendering lots of small details. Most portrait work of single people and two-person couples looked quite good once cameras reached 6 to 8 megapixels, even when making fairly big prints. On images of 8x10 inches, it really does NOT require a lot of megapixels to crete a satisfactory portrait of one,two,or three people.

 

[epatsellis]

I shoot a lot of sports for the local paper. My preferred camera is my D2Hs, a 4 mp pro camera. While I wouldn't print 16x20's from the files from it (without some tweaking) 8x10s off of those files look no different than ones from my D2X and in some ways look better. I do have higher resolution options, but from a post processing standpoint, handling large quantities of images (typcially 600 or so from a game), the small file size makes life tolerable.

 

[Durwin]

Hi,..
I agree with this quote that big size picture always looks better and also looks nice on the wall,..

 

[Village Idiot]

I would say that the main benefits of high megapixel imgaes like that, are cropping and/or print size. If you don't expect to print larger than 8x10, then I think you would be a good candidate to use the smaller file sizes.

Of course, if you do get an image that is fantastic, and you find yourself wishing that you had shot it at full resolution...then you might have a reason to always use the largest setting...but that's up to you.

I've printed 24"x36" before off of an 8MP 30D file using an enlargement program and it looked nice.

 

[Deo]

for me bigger is better, such as bigger sensor is better, bigger aperture is better etc