Why am I so Anal about How Many Pixels I Have

[benjikan]

You know, I've been observing my images and thinking about the stuff I have shot with my Canon 10D, Canon 20D, Canon 1Ds Mkll and my Pentax K10D's and K20D's. I have also shot with pretty much every Medium Format camera and digital back available.

I JUST DON'T SEE ANY SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANY OF THEM WHEN PRINTED TO A LARGER THAN STANDARD MAGAZINE FORMAT!!! That being around A3. Perhaps color nuance and some grain differences when I shot at 400 or 800 iso.

I have been published with all of the above camera's. All of the magazine's I have been published in are very high grade Trendy Press book quality magazines. The output out of all of the above camera's were more than adequate for my needs.

My point is this. In terms of resolving power and for most support that most of us would imagine being published in, pretty much all of the newer DSLR's out today could be used for professional application, if you know their limitations.

In fact my last shoot I did with the Pentax K20D was over kill considering the size of the support i.e. about 8x10 inches. In fact I had to reduce the image size to get down to 300 dpi for Pre Press. I would have been quite comfortable with a 8-10 mega pixel DSLR. The only grain I see when published with a 10 mega pixel camera in double page landscape format is the "tram" grain of the printing press of around 133 dpi.

Why do I bring all of this up...Pixel Peeping is a total waste of time.

Go out and enjoy your toy and use it to express who and what you are.

Benjamin Kanarek Blog | Benjamin Kanarek Blog

 

[chaosrealm93]

+1

 

[benjikan]

+1

Some 6 & 10 megapixel samples of 3 x 3 to 3 x 5 meters posters:

"3rd" Festival of Fashion Photography, Cannes, France photo - Benjamin Kanarek photos at pbase.com

"5" International Festival of Fashion Photography photo - Benjamin Kanarek photos at pbase.com

 

[Derrel]

Well, magazine reproduction simply isn't that high quality---the halftone screening process kills high-frequency detail quite effectively. If you look at double truck full bleed spreads printed in Sports Illustrated in the early 2000's, images made with 2.7 megapixel Nikon D1 and D1h cameras and later, Canon 4.2 megapixel 1D bodies are indistinguishable from film-based shots from earlier decades OR from film-based games shot during that same era using the SAME Nikon and Canon 300 and 400/2.8 lenses. The very finest halftone screens are lower-resolution than even a 2.7 megapixel d-slr sensor...so, no matter how much high-frequency detail your captures have, if they are being screen printed in any magazine, it really does not matter if the pixel count is 6MP, or 12MP, OR 24 MP, OR 40 MP...IT ONLY MATTERS WHEN THE PRINTING OUT PROCESS has the capability to actually print,and show, high-frequency, fine detail, such as when making a print on a higher-quality output device on high-quality paper. And even then, it's surprising how little added information there is in huge, high MP count files printed by many of the various output devices.

 

[usayit]

Why do I bring all of this up...Pixel Peeping is a total waste of time.

Go out and enjoy your toy and use it to express who and what you are.

Benjamin Kanarek Blog | Benjamin Kanarek Blog

a big thumbs up...

In a semipro and amateur world dominated by Canon and Nikon, I remember when you started posting here with the digital underdog, Pentax k10d, and demonstrated that the photography can be enjoyed no matter the equipment no matter how nice the pixels look. Thanks for posting and keep up the good work

For me, the pixel rat race ended once I started making decent sized prints with 8mp.

 

[CCericola]

We always want the biggest and the best. Our addiction I suppose. That and I, for one, can never let go of cameras no matter how long it has sat unused. They are my drug

 

[Ron Evers]

No need for me to upgrade to more pixels as the only folks seeing my work are on forums seeing low resolution anyway.

 

[imagemaker46]

It's all because people have been saying that more is better. I have seen images from my 1D that look amazing at 6 feet tall. It all depends on what the images are being used for. It's like shooting on file, I have seen 100asa images on the the side of a building and I have seen 800 asa images on the side of a building and there is little difference. More is not always better, nor is it as important as people are being lead to believe.