Megapixels to format ratio.

[Grandpa Ron]

How many megapixels does it take to equal the resolution of a 35 mm negative printed to 8" x 10".

I was told my old 3.2 megpix would make an 8x10 print, just barely.

So the question, is how many megapixels does it take for a digital camera to match the picture quality of a good 35mm film camera? Also is it proportional to 120, 4x5 and other formats

 

[Original katomi]

I asked this question in a camera shop, assuming that one wanted to produce a 10 by 8 inch photo
This is apparently a rough guide given the differences in film vs digital and computer printing vs a dark room.
As there are so many variables
About 20 meg pixel apparently based on 100 iso/asa film

 

[photo1x1.com]

300 pixel per inch results in a pretty good print, I´d say better than 35mm film (considering resolution only).
That would be 2400x3000px
Or if you want to crop the 4:5 out of a 2:3DSLR format, that would be cropping from 2400x3600px or 8,6mpix.

 

[Ysarex]

How many megapixels does it take to equal the resolution of a 35 mm negative printed to 8" x 10".

I was told my old 3.2 megpix would make an 8x10 print, just barely.

So the question, is how many megapixels does it take for a digital camera to match the picture quality of a good 35mm film camera? Also is it proportional to 120, 4x5 and other formats

You asked this question once before: Mega pixels vs film.

Joe

 

[smoke665]

As above 300ppi will give you the best quality though you can go lower. Here's a chart of examples

Using your 8x10 would result in a 7.2mp image. A calculator you might also find handy. https://toolstud.io/photo/megapixel.php?width=3000&height=2400&compare=video&calculate=uncompressed

 

[Ysarex]

How many megapixels does it take to equal the resolution of a 35 mm negative printed to 8" x 10".

I was told my old 3.2 megpix would make an 8x10 print, just barely.

So the question, is how many megapixels does it take for a digital camera to match the picture quality of a good 35mm film camera? Also is it proportional to 120, 4x5 and other formats

How many megapixels does it take to equal the resolution of a 35 mm negative printed to 8" x 10".

I was told my old 3.2 megpix would make an 8x10 print, just barely.

So the question, is how many megapixels does it take for a digital camera to match the picture quality of a good 35mm film camera? Also is it proportional to 120, 4x5 and other formats

You asked this question once before: Mega pixels vs film.

Joe

You have however phrased the question differently this time. Your earlier question specifically asked about resolution. This time your using the term picture quality. Picture quality does not equal resolution. Megapixels in a digital camera is very closely associated with resolution however we have a phenomenon in digital called pixel stuffing where the camera maker adds a sensor with more pixels than is practical for the sensor size and optics of the system so that megapixels isn't the limiting factor, the optics are.

Picture quality in a technical sense involves resolution, tone response, contrast and micro-contrast and color fidelity with sub-categories of noise/grain and optical aberrations. Resolution is of secondary importance in that list with tone response being most important.

The answer to your question then is whatever you want it to be. My experience is that most people who get involved in this comparison do so to try and justify the answer they've already chosen.

Joe

 

[Derrel]

I think that the Nikon D800 36 megapixel sensor gives quality about equal to 1980s 120 film. I have found that the D800 gives me images that can be cropped very very heavily.

Also I do not think that it is just pure Megapixels, but the quality of those megapixels.

For example the Nikon D2x was a 12 megapixel DX sensor and at ISO 100 it was quite good, but at ISO 800 its image quality was not that hot at all. I feel like today's top 24 megapixel DX sensors give amazing quality-even a $349 Nikon D3500 gives you amazing image quality that I think would be the equivalent of 120color or B&W roll film from the mid-1980s, and the D3500 does this at ISO 200,not at ISO 100 as would have been the case back in the 1980s. I have not shot much medium format roll film since the 1980, and I suppose it is possible that today's 120 roll film offers better quality than what I think of as 120 being.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

The reason we look for a numerical and absolute answer is because it's easier for us to understand, and not because such an answer exists...

Which negative? The one I developed at the wrong temperature, the one with the compressed tonal range that never printed properly, or the one that I got everything right with that still looks crap because the subject just doesn't suit film?

There are no absolutes because it all depends on the subject and just whether it suits film or not. Coal miners descending a pit, Tri-X at 1600ASA - Vs - a full colour sunset on digital, where is the megapixel line that decides which is best? At what magnification does film beat the re-sampling process of digital?

I have never been able to capture the feeling I got with my very best 35mm film images, and I have never been able to equal with 35mm film what I've achieved with FF digital.

If you want an absolute answer then I recon it will be about 12MP for 10"x 8", on average. But if you get the conditions right it's damn tough to beat a film image, whereas if the conditions aren't right it's tough to beat a 6MP digital image.

 

[Derrel]

Here is a good example of what I mean about the Nikon D800 and medium format quality, by which I mean the ability to crop in heavily and still have decent picture quality. The above three pictures are from the same exposure, which was made with a cheap 1990s Nikon 28 to 80 f / 3.3 - f /5.6 kit lens... plastic mount Lens with a wobbly front section ... a $35 Plastic Fantastic zoom lens that I bought from Nikon itself refurbished back in 2003. This shot was made in 2017, at 62mm and was shot at f/8 at ISO 200. As you can see, one can go from a full-length seated pose to a fairly-tight close up and still have decent picture quality. This is what I mean by medium format quality, the ability to make heavy crops and not worry about the image being unusable.

 

[wfooshee]

Also, megapixels have nothing to do with proportion. It's just a measurement of area of the image sensor. you could have a square 4000 x 4000 sensor, a 4:3 4600 x 3500 sensor, or a 3:2 4800 x 3300 sensor, and are about 16 megapixels. Digital SLRs emulate film's 3:2 ratio in the full-frame and APC-C/DX lines. Others might be 4:3 sensors, but megapixels doesn't measure aspect ratio at all.

Also, I've seen 5MP cameras that produced much better images than 12MP cameras they were contemporary with, so while megapixels measures resolution (given Ysarex's caveats,) that's all it measures.

Still, you need a minimum resolution for a certain print size, and smoke665's chart above is a very good indicator of that. Basically, your image from the camera has a certain number of pixels on each axis, and that determines your maximum print size.

I am reminded of a question my dad asked me years ago when he got his first digital camera, a Sony Mavica, which shot VGA (640x480, or less than 1/3 megapixel) resolution images saved onto a floppy disk. He asked why he couldn't zoom into the images or print them large without them getting "fuzzy."

 

[Soocom1]

I also think that with the digital technology, haven a specific quality issue involving lenses in general.
So a high MP count and high resolution setting is worthless with a low end and low contrast lens.

Modern thinking includes the possibility of high quality w/o thinking about the image itself. Auto everything and voila, its reduced down to Mp count v. film grain.
We had a discussion over this before and moreover, its more akin to format size as well given that your reproduction ratio is not the subject alone, but the pixel/film grain and other assorted aspects of an image being enlarged.

So you can shoot a 12Mp iPhone camera vs. a D7500 and the Nikon will go up to a 24x36 and poss. 36x48 image, where the iPhone image will suck eggs.

 

[Derrel]

Back in 2015 during a beautiful Christmas season snow storm I took my Nikon D2x,a 12 megapixel pro-type dslr and my Nikon Coolpix,also a 12 megapixel, and shot the same scenes, side by side and with similar angles of view, with a zoom lens on each camera. The Nikon d2x with its much larger 12 megapixel sensor was slightly better. The Coolpix has a really good zoom lens for a pocket camera, and it is Tiny-- smaller than a pack of cigarettes by about 30%. I paid $5,000 for the D2x brand new in May of 2005, and I paid $7 for the Coolpix in 2015 from a thrift shop.

I have a Canon Powershot G3 I think it is and I also paid $7 for it. It is a 3.8 megapixel I believe, and it shoots pretty good pictures, and it retailed for around eight hundred bucks when it was new and current. I paid $7 for it at Goodwill, and it shoots Raw and has full manual exposure control, and uses Canon 20D type batteries I want to call them BP - 511 batteries. Even though it is a 3.8 megapixel it has a really decent lens and it shoots surprisingly good photos, especially in raw, but my 10 year newer iPhone shoots much better video. the Canon shoots very small videos.

Once again, it is not just the megapixel count, but the quality of the megapixels. Newer sensors offer better quality than older sensors, in most cases, but the quality of the lens plays a significant part. One can take a 24 megapixel sensor and shooting through a Lensbaby or a cheap lens, reduce the output quality significantly. I was always impressed with the iPhone 4 and its lens. Even though it was only a 5-megapixel camera, the lens was of surprisingly good quality, and not just for a phone lens-- it had a really good lens, and I made many good pictures with my iPhone 4.

 

[Derrel]

Around 15 to 20 years ago there was quite a bit of Interest in using software to increase the megapixel count. If you do this in small steps such as increasing the size of a file 10% at a time and applying a small bit unsharp masking after each up resolution step, you can do pretty well using Photoshop. I have done this myself. Back when the Nikon Coolpix 950 and 990 were the new, hot thing, there were a couple of popular application programs. One of them that I recalled was called S-spline. I saw with my own eyes, some pretty good prints in the early 2000s which were made using this software to increase the resolution from roughly 3 megapixel cameras which we had at the time.

Around 2004 I saw some very large 30 x 40 inch inkjet prints at Portland prophotosupply.com which were made by a Nikon shooter who was using the then popular Nikon D2h, which had a pretty good 4.2 megapixel rating. Despite being "outgunned" by Canon shooters, his prints looked quite good.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Well, I think it is obvious from the responses to my question why I re-asked the question. That is to say that working with digital has been like like peeling and onion, there is always one more layer to consider. Hence, when cropping some old 3.2 megpix photos and not getting the image quality I expected; I was at a loss for and explanation.

It appears from the responses, it is safe to say, that one can only approximate the equivalency of digital to film based on pixel density. However, like many things digital, the ability to manipulate data to one's desired outcome is practically endless.

 

[Original katomi]

Re post 14
Yes the limit of what an be done with digital is .... well for me and I expect for others it’s changing all the time as we learn try new ideas see what others like here for example are trying.
As my tag says tech has given me the ability to push the boundary’s of my dreams, the trick is not to let tech limit your imagination
Eg just because PSE 9 will not photomerg 20 images in auto,,, I sit and find a workaround using the tech I have to achieve my dreams.
I look back at some of my early images that were my best at the time, and see how my skill level has changed
And yes sometimes how I have forgotten something because tech can do it for me.

A friend summed up my photography.
I am of an age where I still think in feet and inches then convert to mm
In photography it seems I am still a film photographer who looks and thinks film then shoots digital.
Hell my working catalogue is called ,, Darkroom, which is apprantly a bit of a giveaway