Is this bad advice or am I just being pesimistic?

[zcar21]

One disadvantage of shooting with large megapixels is the file size. at 6mp the raw file is around 5MB, 24mp is over 20MB. Loading a bunch of pictures on Lightroom and processing is probably very slow.
To answer your question, more resolution gives you more detail which usually is a good thing. The question you should be asking yourself is how much resolution do I need? For me 6MP is enough, but I disagree with what Ken Rockwell says.

 

[Derrel]

Ken Rockwell has some interesting views. There's seldom any question in photography that has only ONE "right answer". I think Ken writes often times for specific types of users, and depending on who he thinks those users are, his material will be tailored for the expected audience. I'll try and be brief. If you have a D3200, which is a 24MP APS-C sensor camera, to get the MOST out of 24 MP, you will need the best lenses Nikon makes. 24MP on DX sensor is demanding. I honestly do not think that the kit lenses are really good enough to handle 24MP. Unless you have top-grade lenses, I don;t think there's much difference between a 16.2 MP D3100 and the new 24MP D3200 and D5200.

Also, how are images viewed these days? Mostly on average monitors, under Windows, on non-color-aware web browsers. We read a lot about using wide-gamut color spaces and all this crap, but in terms of a typical camera-to-Windows OS-to-megastore color print workflow, you're better off setting the camera to sRGB,turning Active D-Lighting to HIGH or AUTO, and setting in-camera sharpening to High, and shooting Medium-sized Direct Print optimization RAW+JPEG files. At least until you become an expert, or near expert in about five different disciplines in serious digital photography.

On photo forums, you'll get advice advising all sorts of exotic, best-practices methods, as viewed by really enthusiastic, often times quirky people. There's another side to the coin though. Real-world shooting, in sRGB JPEG mode, and sharing images on the web, via e-mail, and taking files or sending files out to be printed automatedly. So go ahead, and USE the Advanced D-Lighting setting, and go ahead, and shoot in sRGB color mode, and feel free to enjoy the D3200.

 

[unpopular]

Don't read ken Rockwell and you'll be fine.

WORD!

 

[Buckster]

Ok so Ive been reading through the Ken Rockwell

BRAKE SCREEEEECHHHH!!!!!

/thread

 

[tecboy]

Ken Rockwell: Digital Photography Review: Digital Photography Review

 

[orb9220]

+1 Scraig - As to the reasons for higher the better MP for me is cropping and retaining as much detail and largest file size I can get away with. Many times due to cost constraints we all can't afford that 600mm f2.8 for wildlife. But due to higher pixel count can squeeze by with something like the 70-300vr or a 300mm f4 with a 1.7x and cropping.

The other plus side is the newer larger sensors also have additional benefits of Dynamic Range and better ISO performance.

Like many I also stumbled onto Rockwell's Whirlpool of Confusion & Mayhem! Some of his technical charts and reviews for lenses and such I find useful as a starting point. But for the most part ignore his personal opinions on photography.

"Mom! Everyone's Picking On Kenny Again!"
.

 

[SCraig]

You have to take Ken Rockwell's site with the grain of salt that was intended. Read the first paragraph on his About page and it says it all. The issue that I have with his site is that new shooters do now know where the fiction ends and the truth begins. They simply assume that someone with his depth of experience would never put anything on their web site that wasn't factual, and wind up believing everything there. Once one has a bit of experience to temper their judgement they begin to see his site for what it is.

 

[Gavjenks]

I think Ken Rockwell is right on about a vastly higher proportion of opinions than almost any other photo blogger.

However, his thoughts on megapixels are a bit... eccentric, but not really very far off. He's totally right about them in terms of them being a ridiculous marketing tool. A difference of 18 to 20MP, for instance, is meaningless for all practical intents and purposes. He's also totally right about 6MP being enough for almost any size print if you don't crop. The difference between 6 and 18 does make a difference if and when you crop, which some people do more than others. That's just taking it a bit too far.

BUT you have to realize that this was written in 2008, when 20 megapixels was not just something you find in an alley on the way home from work. If it doesn't COST appreciably more along with the other features you want, then it doesn't matter as much, and he may not have written the same article today. And you also have to keep in mind that this opinion goes together with a whole philosophy of getting things right mostly in the camera and spending the majority of your time out in the world taking photos. If you don't buy into all of that completely, then the logic behind the 6MP thing naturally doesn't apply as much. It's sort of a package deal.

But anyway, yeah. Went a little too far, everybody has their foibles / strikes out sometimes. Don't let it put you off of his website entirely. If you were to throw a dart and pick a random page of his, and then come on here and start a thread making the exact same argument, but not saying it was inspired by Ken Rockwell, then probably 85% of the time people would agree with you. A lot of people just have grudges against him, because they eventually ran across one or two opinions that they thought were really dumb, and wrote off the whole operation. Happens a lot with famous people... not just in photography by any means.




Also FWIW, 90% of my photos that other people have ever seen besides me were viewed at about 800x1200 pixels, which is my standard "resize for the internet so that it doesn't take half an hour to upload" resample. Which = 1 megapixel. OR printed at smaller sizes like 8x10s, which from the cheap printing services I can afford, is probably around 7MP. Never has resolution bothered me for display in either situation. So there's that. How many of you can really say differently? How many people print half of all the photos that they share at poster size, etc.?

 

[tecboy]

Ken Rockwell has a lot of good points in his articles. However, he doesn't have anything to backup these up. When I read about Canon vs Nikon, I was so convinced until I read further. Where did he get those informations? How does he know about the history and other technologies. He admitted his website is fictional, and he is still writing and asking for donation. I don't know what he is accomplished, but a lot of his articles are interesting and amusing. I don't believe everything he wrote. I just read because I'm just curious.

 

[cptkid]

I dont mind some of Ken Rockwells stuff.

What annoys me about him though is when he says stuff like "the 70-200 2.8 VRII is a pointless less to carry with you, when you can take XYZ instead"

Yet on the page about the 70-200 2.8 he says "this is must have lens in your bag"

His website is full of contradictions and missinformation, but if you cherry pick, he does have some useful info on his site.

 

[sashbar]

I am baffled by Ken Rockwell logic when it comes to pixel count. His target audience is mostly beginners, and beginners need high pixel count more that anyone. They often need to crop heavily and fiddle with the image in post production to get a decent result. The better your exposures are the less pixels you need.
So essentially high pixel count is for beginners and some pro artists who need more freedom to work with an image file. Most of the pros, as far as I can guess, need operational speed and better high ISO performance more than the possibility to crop away two thirds of the frame.
Where is that lowest denominater is - is it 6 or 12 or 16 MP I do not know, but there should be some number of pixels beyond which the choice is not about the IQ but about post production opportunities vs operational advantages.
Methinks.

 

[sashbar]

I dont mind some of Ken Rockwells stuff.

What annoys me about him though is when he says stuff like "the 70-200 2.8 VRII is a pointless less to carry with you, when you can take XYZ instead"

Yet on the page about the 70-200 2.8 he says "this is must have lens in your bag"

His website is full of contradictions and missinformation, but if you cherry pick, he does have some useful info on his site.

He is not that stupid, he understands that the guy who clicks on his 70-200 2.8 most probably is looking for a top quality glass and for that audience it is indeed a "must have lens in your bag". If you read his 70-300 VR review, he says - this is the only tele I use because it is not heavy and does not cost an arm and a leg. And it is a great argument for an amateur on a budget. Then you open his 18-300 review and it says this zoom makes 70-300 obsolete because of its wider range. And he is again right, because there are a lot of customers who do not care about some small differences in IQ between 70-300 and 18-300.
So he addresses different people, even though his main audience are beginners. I can not possibly imagine someone seriously choosing between 18-300 and 70-200 2.8 so, as strange as it seems, there is not that much contradiction in his opinions.

 

[Mach0]

He has a few decent points on the reviews. I read reviews from him and Thom Hogan as well.
The thing that gets me, is that almost every camera, he writes a review about, is the best camera out and others are garbage next to it. How many "best cameras" are there ? Lol

 

[SCraig]

He is not that stupid, he understands that the guy who clicks on his 70-200 2.8 most probably is looking for a top quality glass and for that audience it is indeed a "must have lens in your bag". If you read his 70-300 VR review, he says - this is the only tele I use because it is not heavy and does not cost an arm and a leg. And it is a great argument for an amateur on a budget. Then you open his 18-300 review and it says this zoom makes 70-300 obsolete because of its wider range. And he is again right, because there are a lot of customers who do not care about some small differences in IQ between 70-300 and 18-300.
So he addresses different people, even though his main audience are beginners. I can not possibly imagine someone seriously choosing between 18-300 and 70-200 2.8 so, as strange as it seems, there is not that much contradiction in his opinions.

You have to look at dates on his site. The 70-300 lens came out long before the 18-300, so the review of the 70-300 was likely written long before the review of the 18-300. He stated that he doesn't go back and update pages so both of them stand alone as they were written at the time. When the 70-300 came out his view was probably correct. When the 18-300 came out perhaps his view at that time, a few years later, was also correct. The fact that we read both pages today just makes it sound confusing.

That is the case a lot when he reviews camera bodies. Read one of his review of an old body, say the D1 or D2 and you'll think it is the king of the hill. Then read a review of, say, the D4. By reading only what is on those pages one would find it hard to choose between those bodies while in reality there is no comparison. The problem is the passage of time between when the pages were written that is not evident in the writing.

 

[manaheim]

Putting it another way, Ken Rockwell has very narrow opinions which are sometimes applicable, and sometimes not... but all his opinions are spoken as if they are the unquestioned laws of reality. It's up to you, the reader, to decide which is which.

If you're inexperienced... that will be MUCH harder to do.