Megapixels -- how many is enough?

LDMGOLD
Posts: 440
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:30 am
anti-spam detector: No
The middle number please (4): 4

Re: Megapixels -- how many is enough?

Post by LDMGOLD »

I have a Nikon Cool Pix p5000. It is an all magnesium-aluminum body. I bought five years that takes great photos. In fact I get image quality equal to my Nikon D-80 I use with my telescope. I agree don't get wild about megapixels. An old professional photograph friend of mine said you can get just as good photos with 6 megapixels as you can with 12 megapixels when you move to Photoshop Pro.

Tom K.
User avatar
rede2rock
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2010 5:54 am
anti-spam detector: No
The middle number please (4): 4

Re: Megapixels -- how many is enough?

Post by rede2rock »

Thanks guys all your advice is greatly appreciated. I will check out the sites. You are all doing such great photos and are so willing to help others that I am glad I found DUSA. I know I will be overjoyed to meet you all on the trail. Maybe I'll have some cool beverages we can sip over a campfire and shoot the breeze.

Thanks again

Thom
lara
Posts: 82
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:14 am
anti-spam detector: No
The middle number please (4): 4

Re: Megapixels -- how many is enough?

Post by lara »

LDMGOLD wrote:I have a Nikon Cool Pix p5000. It is an all magnesium-aluminum body. I bought five years that takes great photos. In fact I get image quality equal to my Nikon D-80 I use with my telescope. I agree don't get wild about megapixels. An old professional photograph friend of mine said you can get just as good photos with 6 megapixels as you can with 12 megapixels when you move to Photoshop Pro.

Tom K.
i think i have to disagree with some of that. with small sensor point and shoot cameras there is the law of diminishing returns where more megapixels do not equal better images. but i know that i cannot make prints as large from my older canon 30D as with my 7D which has more megapixels and and better "hardware/internal parts sensors etc." and it is one of the 1.6 magnification factor cameras. more megapixels on the larger sensor canons also equal higher quality pics and prints.

i am assuming when you say "photoshop pro" you are talking about the current CS incarnations? software cannot make up for hardware deficiencies. it cannot make something from nothing. you can tell the software to upsize a pic but it has to interpolate the photo data info to try and approximate a reasonable facsimile of a larger image. but the quality simply isn't there.

if all one is doing is making photos for the web, you don't need a lot of megapixels, that's for sure. but for printing, it is a factor, along with sensor size.

lara
mathew83
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:55 am
anti-spam detector: No
The middle number please (4): 4

Re: Megapixels -- how many is enough?

Post by mathew83 »

For regular use I think 5 MP is OK, even the 3,2MP camera in some cellphones (iphone or SE) does a great job taking photos for web propose.
Desertroad
Posts: 100
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2009 4:57 pm
anti-spam detector: No
The middle number please (4): 4

Re: Megapixels -- how many is enough?

Post by Desertroad »

My current camera is a Canon EOS 7D. $1,800 last Christmas w/lens at Best Buy. 18 megapixels.

I'm liking it, but some of the finest work I've ever seen was shot with 4, maybe 5 or even 8 megapixel units.

Something to consider: imagine you have an image with a resolution of 100 dots per inch (dpi) or perhaps 100 pixels per inch (ppi).

Think about that for a minute. dpi - an image on a piece of paper. ppi - an image on a display device (laptop display, computer monitor).

No matter what the resolution of your capture device (camera), you are limited by the constraints of your display device (printer/monitor).

All the megapixels in the world won't do you any good if you're looking at them through a glass shower door. Matching capture and display dev[ces has been and ongoing (and expensive!) challenge for me. I have yet to configure a system which truly delivers optimum performance and image integrity. I just don't have that level of money.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Desertroad
Post Reply