How many pixels do you want?

L

L David Tomei

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I had worked on digital imaging development some 20 years ago when we first began capturing 4096 x 4096 x 12 bit images, which were considered to be, and still are, big images. The purpose then was to retain high resolution over relatively wide fields.

Today, I see that the number of pixels captured by digital cameras can be very large, perhaps too large when the purpose is to display an image on screen or to produce a print of reasonable size, e.g. 11 x 14. In such cases, much of an image is discarded after the software has recalculated the value of a final pixel based upon the neighboring pixels. If not, then the raw images of 16 million pixels or more, each with well over 1000 digital values, are too big to display and take a lot up of memory.

Unless one needs the option to zoom in and crop an image, there is a practical limit to the need for increased pixel numbers.

I curious, How many pixels are considered to be sufficient for non-technical photography?
 
The number for sufficient non-technical photography with intent for web use and small prints (11x14) is probably around 4-6mp.

The Olympus e-1 was a fantastic camera with a 5mp kodak sensor, and was even used in the hands of a couple of national geographic photographers for magazine publication.

I think the comfortable image size for most people sits around 12mp - where you can make great big prints with that, and the files aren't too big at current HD storage cost.

For me, I want around 25-32mp in the next 5d mkIII. The bigger the better. I didn't always think this, but now I realize the advantages of it, and occasionally I need to make big prints for clients.
 
Tony Pio said:
Unless one needs the option to zoom in and crop an image, there is a practical limit to the need for increased pixel numbers.
Click to expand...

Or unless you are looking at print publication, in which case an A4 page is about 9-10 megapixels and a double-page spread is 18-20. Which, by an extraordinary coincidence, are respectively what the M8/8.2 and M9 offer.

Cheers,

R.
 
10MP has been quite enough for me in terms of resolution. In some cases I like to stitch images but for everyday use, 10 is fine. If I did mainly studio shots in perfect conditions, I could probably appreciate a higher resolution (16-20MP) but I usually shoot outside, handheld and at wider-than-optimal apertures. A higher resolution would let me peep deeper into image degradation due to shake, atmospheric conditions and optical aberrations and would yield little useful detail, I'm afraid.

Then again, the current problem for me is noise/grain structure. I've been leaning towards a more "gritty" look, often shooting in low light. I'm also applying quite aggressive curves and sharpening to the raw data which obviously reveals a lot of noise. While the image detail is there, these files are not suitable for large prints because of the (kind of) checkered, repetitive, non-chaotic nature of the noise.
Noise-reduction algorithms alleviate this but defeat the original idea of making a crisp, high-contrast image with some grain. While this is a good place to mention the merits of shooting film, I believe that the higher-resolution sensors should have an advantage in this field because near-pixel-level effects are less visible at normal print sizes. Whether this advantage is realized in real-life images, would also depend on the demosaicing algorithm used.
 
fdigital said:
Also note that MP count will still continue to rise, especially interesting is the new phase one back just released:
http://www.phaseone.com/en/Digital-Backs/IQ180/IQ180-Info.aspx
And that's an 80mp 645 sensor.
Click to expand...

Wow. 80 is a lot... Someone should flatten the design a bit and squeeze it into a Bronica RF645-style rangefinder body with interchangeable lenses, modern electronic lens shutters. Let Fuji manufacture it, slap a Hasselblad badge on it and sell it to fashion and advertising shooters as well as retiring orthodontists :D
 
ottluuk said:
Wow. 80 is a lot... Someone should flatten the design a bit and squeeze it into a Bronica RF645-style rangefinder body with interchangeable lenses, modern electronic lens shutters.

Let Fuji manufacture it, slap a Hasselblad badge on it and sell it to fashion and advertising shooters as well as retiring orthodontists :D
Click to expand...

If we're going to be cynical about it, then what about let someone in China manufacture it? Apparently, people with money just care about brand names, just like those girls who get cheap knock-offs merely for the name on the bag. That's a correct assumption, right?

I guess that engineers and research investment are too much to pay for: brand names cannot possibly stand for something other than "price".
 
Portrait photogs like more MP because they like to sell big prints with big profit margins.

For the rest of us, 12 will do fine.
 
The megapixel race is over, and nobody won. I would say the resolutions offered right now are very good. Bigger pictures won't improve anything but print size possibilities. I'd like to see more latitude, better lenses, and better camera design. The Fuji X100 is a step in a good direction in my opinion. I don't really consider it retro, just good design.

12mp is an awesome press camera size. It's just big enough, and small enough to render and transmit quickly, plus you can get more images on a card. 21mp is great for studio, 25 even better. 18mp is a nice all round number that combines resolution and noise control.

If I wanted max resolution from a medium format digital, 40 is I think the sweet spot.
 
My old d70 with 6mp was more than adequate for 16x20 prints as long as it was not above 800 iso.
The jump to 12 with the d700 wasn't so big a change in picture quality unless you pixel peeped.
I think that unless you are needing huge pics or crop a lot then it's more to do with the iso and the look that the sensor gives
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
If we're going to be cynical about it, then what about let someone in China manufacture it? Apparently, people with money just care about brand names, just like those girls who get cheap knock-offs merely for the name on the bag. That's a correct assumption, right?

I guess that engineers and research investment are too much to pay for: brand names cannot possibly stand for something other than "price".
Click to expand...

I know, I know - sorry about the dentist bit... But to think that everything made in Japan or China is cr*p is an equally ridiculous generalization.

I'm not really talking about cheap knock-offs. Look at the Hasselblad Xpan and H systems. Both were mostly developed and manufactured by Fuji, in Japan, as well as sold as identical Fuji-branded products in their home market. I think we can agree that both are innovative, well made systems that deliver excellent results.

Fuji probably could have made either of the systems from the ground up start to finish with their research and engineering resources, but they would never have gotten as much attention and sales without the venerable Hasselblad name. Plaubel Makina 67 is apparently a similar story with bodies actually produced by Konica. And Kyocera's use of the Contax name. Many good things have come from Japan.

The aura of German/Swedish/Swiss engineering sells whether or not it was actually involved in the production of the cameras. Sometimes at premium prices, sometimes not. The main idea is that if you make an awesome 80MP 645 rangefinder and want to sell it, too, you need to call it something that catches the connoisseur's ear. You don't call it Tamron 645ZX. You call it Baldaxette III :D
 
I agree with nobbylon, I've found that my Canon 10D can make some great looking 16x20 prints with just 6.3mp. Of course if you look extremely closely you can see a lack of resolution, but I've never really felt the need for larger images.
 
I recently moved from 12 to 16 mpix, and the larger file size has noticeably slowed down my computer, and I quickly ran out of disk space. As they say, memory is cheap, but we're now talking a fast desk-side computer and 1T or 2T NAS to keep up with backups.

I've started using lower-sized JPEGs when I know the image is just for family or facebook.
 
sper said:
The megapixel race is over, and nobody won. I would say the resolutions offered right now are very good. Bigger pictures won't improve anything but print size possibilities. I'd like to see more latitude, better lenses, and better camera design. The Fuji X100 is a step in a good direction in my opinion. I don't really consider it retro, just good design.

12mp is an awesome press camera size. It's just big enough, and small enough to render and transmit quickly, plus you can get more images on a card. 21mp is great for studio, 25 even better. 18mp is a nice all round number that combines resolution and noise control.

If I wanted max resolution from a medium format digital, 40 is I think the sweet spot.
Click to expand...

Well.

Canon made the most profit out of the pixel race. For several years in a row Canon's camera division made more profit than the rest of the camera business combined. That's impressive.

My ideal pixel count would be around 21 - 22 million pixels for a 24 x 36 mm sensor. Which matches Canon's 1Ds III and 5D II - and the Nikon equaliant, I am sure.
 
When it comes to considering the number of pixels, or the dynamic range and whether the raw image files have a real 12 bits of intensity or less, I was curious what the general feelings were out there among photographers.

It's interesting that at the limit of visual acuity, the human eye can see about 74 million pixels in a typical photograph, as Clark discusses on his site (http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/eye-resolution.html). This would mean that a 6 million pixel images printed on anything larger than about a 5x7 would be "reduced" resolution detectable by eye. However, I'm not sure the human brain really cares about that.
 
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