Megapixel Myth?

delete · May 25, 2006

Member said:
YOu do in fact need to x4 the megapixel mo. to double effective
printing size at the same res (or image size)....ie 6mp would need
to be 24mp...its pretty easy to work out..ask phil if you dont
believe me...

1) I know the maths myself perfectly well, believe me
2) I do not know any Phil

3) Even if I knew the Phil you are talking about, I would not know why what this Phil says should be of any authority to me

Member said:
Cropping....right dont be so lazy...walk! use your
eyes.....armchair photographers dont do much good work and thats
why....walk

Thanks for these words of wisdom. I will try to improve. However, I do have the impression that the meaning of the paragraph that endet with 'bildschnitt' was not clear enough.

Member said:
More megapixels....hmmmmm no thanks...lets have clean good higher
ISO shots....not big noise ridden ones..

I agree. For physical reasons, clean high ISO are achievable only with large pixels.

BTW, there seems to be a problem wit the '.' on your keyboard, looks like severe keybounce.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

Gearóid Ó Laoi Garry Lee · May 25, 2006

I mean that in an A4 the picture looks natural and very detailed from the 9500, and from the e1, either lacking sharpness, or oversharpened.

delete · May 25, 2006

Kim Letkeman said:
If 10mp is coming from a dSLR like the D200, then you can crop it
all the way down to 3mp and get a great image from it anyway.

Yes.

Kim Letkeman said:
But if 9mp is coming from an S9000z, then you will get a grainier
3mp image by cropping down that far.

Yes. No sane person would deny that. BTW, why do you set up a S9500 against the D200? Why not a Casio EX-Z1000, this has 10.1mp and is thus closer to the 10.2mp of the D200. Point is, and this has been stated several tims in other threads, by a lot of intelligent people: it just doesn't make sense to compare a DSLR with a non-DSLR. To be more precise: to compare a cam that uses a small sensor with a cam in which a large sensor is doing the job.

Kim Letkeman said:
You just cannot have this argument in complete isolation from where
the pixels come from.

Then compare comparable things. But if you prefer to continue to compare apples with peaches, and to continue with discussing about anything but not the pixel count issue, then there is no dialogue but a monologue.

Kim Letkeman said:
Well, actually you can, and that's called measurebation.

What does that mean? Couldn't find it in any dictionary.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

Gearóid Ó Laoi Garry Lee · May 25, 2006

This is a somewhat compressed 9500 shot from Provence in France. Before you theorise any more, save this to your computers, print to A3 and be amazed.

delete · May 25, 2006

Marcel Geers said:
I think you both agree on the same conclusions

Maybe

Marcel Geers said:
stating what the discussion is\was about rather than discussing the
discussion

The discussion endet, as it became obvious that som people just don't understand that a DSLR is not a non-DSLR, and that the discussion is not about comparisons between incomparable things

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

Amolmd · May 25, 2006

delete said:
2) I do not know any Phil
3) Even if I knew the Phil you are talking about, I would not know
why what this Phil says should be of any authority to me

Well...ignorance is not always the bliss. Phil is the one who owns this site & writes all these nice reviews. He certainly has great professional wisdom to get acknowledged for. So no personal attacks please.

Regards.

Kim Letkeman · May 25, 2006

Gearóid Ó Laoi said:
I mean that in an A4 the picture looks natural and very detailed
from the 9500, and from the e1, either lacking sharpness, or
oversharpened.

You made it sound like something was inherently wrong with the E1 ... but in reality, this is the classic issue with dSLRs ... you need to get really good at nailing the right sharpening technique and amount for your target medium (a large print in this case.)

I don't see how the inability to get an E1 to the ideal sharpness for printing somehow causes that camera to become inferior to some other camera where the ideal sharpness happened to be achieved.

--
My gallery: http://letkeman.net/Photos
Fuji Finepix F11
Nikon D70s, Sigma 18-200, Nikkor 50mm 1.8D, Sigma 70-300APO

Kim Letkeman · May 25, 2006

delete said:
delete said:

YOu do in fact need to x4 the megapixel mo. to double effective
printing size at the same res (or image size)....ie 6mp would need
to be 24mp...its pretty easy to work out..ask phil if you dont
believe me...

Click to expand...

1) I know the maths myself perfectly well, believe me

Surely you jest.

delete said:
2) I do not know any Phil

You are posting to his web site. Phil Askey ... you know, the owner of dpreview? By the way, since you obviously like this place, why don't you poke around and find the donate button. I have a feeling you are going to eat up a lot of resources around here (like me, but I've already donated.)

delete said:
3) Even if I knew the Phil you are talking about, I would not know
why what this Phil says should be of any authority to me

I'll let you ponder that one ...

delete said:
delete said:

Cropping....right dont be so lazy...walk! use your
eyes.....armchair photographers dont do much good work and thats
why....walk

Click to expand...

Thanks for these words of wisdom. I will try to improve. However, I
do have the impression that the meaning of the paragraph that endet
with 'bildschnitt' was not clear enough.

Right ... so explain it in English and we can all share what you are trying to drive at. Surely you have noticed that many are having trouble parsing out your meanings.

delete said:
delete said:

More megapixels....hmmmmm no thanks...lets have clean good higher
ISO shots....not big noise ridden ones..

Click to expand...

I agree. For physical reasons, clean high ISO are achievable only
with large pixels.

Excellent.

delete said:
BTW, there seems to be a problem wit the '.' on your keyboard,
looks like severe keybounce.

And your signature closing ... but where are the repeated winks?

--
My gallery: http://letkeman.net/Photos
Fuji Finepix F11
Nikon D70s, Sigma 18-200, Nikkor 50mm 1.8D, Sigma 70-300APO

delete · May 25, 2006

tdkd13 said:
If you read, or should I say if you were able to comprehend what was said in the webpages you are calling megapixel mythologists, you would be able to put this together.

If you read, or should I say if you were able to comprehend what I was saying in the starting post of this thread, you would be able to put this together.

tdkd13 said:
The pages in question and the discussion we are having are seperate issues.

I never said otherwise. Maybe you missed it, but I even worte explicitly 'Even if one accepts for the sake of the argument that three MP are sufficient for large scale prints [...]'

tdkd13 said:
It was you who decided to take information about PRINTING and relate it to CROPPING which is a completely different subject.

Apparently you missed or misunderstood also the part about 'Bildschnitt'

tdkd13 said:
Now, you probably sensed a tone of condecension

I didn't sense anything that would deviate from the polite, inarrogant and non patronizing tone I am already used from your posts. But I sensed that you keep missing the point. I will type the following extremely slowly, so you might be able to follow and understand:

Sometimes one wants to print a good quality picture from a crop. No sane person can deny that in such cases a highier initial pixel count is better than a lower initial pixel count. It should go without saying that same 'per pixel' quality is sine qua non. So, even if the sites are right in saying that 3mp are enough for a good quality print, they are not right in saying that a higher pixelcount does not make sense.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

delete · May 25, 2006

Kim Letkeman said:
Kim Letkeman said:

1) I know the maths myself perfectly well, believe me

Click to expand...

Surely you jest.

I do never jest.

Kim Letkeman said:
Kim Letkeman said:

2) I do not know any Phil

Click to expand...

You are posting to his web site. Phil Askey ... you know, the owner
of dpreview?

Thanks for the info. No, I didn't know until now who operates this web site.

Kim Letkeman said:
By the way, since you obviously like this place

Yes, I do. Phil does an excellent job.

Kim Letkeman said:
Right ... so explain it in English and we can all share what you
are trying to drive at.

I'll post an example later today.

Kim Letkeman said:
Surely you have noticed that many are
having trouble parsing out your meanings.

That 'many' being so far tow to three user who permanently try to compare DSLRs with non-DSLRs

Kim Letkeman said:
Kim Letkeman said:

I agree. For physical reasons, clean high ISO are achievable only
with large pixels.

Click to expand...

Excellent.

I know.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

yelir · May 25, 2006

delete said:
I didn't sense anything that would deviate from the polite,
inarrogant and non patronizing tone I am already used from your
posts. But I sensed that you keep missing the point. I will type
the following extremely slowly, so you might be able to follow and
understand:

Sometimes one wants to print a good quality picture from a crop. No
sane person can deny that in such cases a highier initial pixel
count is better than a lower initial pixel count. It should go
without saying that same 'per pixel' quality is sine qua non. So,
even if the sites are right in saying that 3mp are enough for a
good quality print, they are not right in saying that a higher
pixelcount does not make sense.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

Getting kinda nasty around here.

Could you please link me to where the sites you are talking about say...

"that 3mp are enough for a good quality print, they are not right in saying that a higher pixelcount does not make sense."

Specifically that a higher pixel count than 3MP doesn't make sense, in the context in which your using it, cropping.

--
Kevin Riley
http://www.shutterbugs-gallery.com/gallery
http://www.aquariumadvice.com

tbcass · May 25, 2006

I don't know how this thred went off on one of these DSLR is better than the s9000 tangents (we all know that) but his original premiss is correct. What I think he meant to say, I believe, is that all other things being equal, more mp is better than less mp.
--
Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

tbcass · May 25, 2006

I'm sure it was the cost.
--
Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

Barry Fitzgerald · May 25, 2006

tbcass said:
I don't know how this thred went off on one of these DSLR is better
than the s9000 tangents (we all know that) but his original premiss
is correct. What I think he meant to say, I believe, is that all
other things being equal, more mp is better than less mp.
--
Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

I think so...trouble is to me I want less mp and cleaner shots.....give me a decent ISO 1600 not a pants one....

tbcass · May 25, 2006

Barry Fitzgerald said:
I think so...trouble is to me I want less mp and cleaner
shots.....give me a decent ISO 1600 not a pants one....

But more clean mp is better yet. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

--
Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

delete · May 25, 2006

yelir said:
Could you please link me to where the sites you are talking about
say...
"that 3mp are enough for a good quality print, they are not right
in saying that a higher pixelcount does not make sense."

For instance

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

"There is little visible difference between cameras with seemingly different ratings. For instance, a 3 MP camera pretty much looks the same as a 6 MP camera, even when blown up to 12 x 18!"

Please note that I did not argue against that statement.

yelir said:
Specifically that a higher pixel count than 3MP doesn't make sense,
in the context in which your using it, cropping.

Same site, section "Honest Results for Comparison". Says "These sizes are easy to do with a 3 MP camera" (these sizes being 5x7 inch)

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

delete · May 25, 2006

tbcass said:
I don't know how this thred went off on one of these DSLR is better
than the s9000 tangents

Probably the people who threw cam types into the thread can provide an answer.

tbcass said:
What I think he meant to say, I believe, is that all
other things being equal, more mp is better than less mp.

Exactly.

I'll try to express myself more clearly in the future.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

yelir · May 25, 2006

delete said:
delete said:

Could you please link me to where the sites you are talking about
say...
"that 3mp are enough for a good quality print, they are not right
in saying that a higher pixelcount does not make sense."

Click to expand...

For instance

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

"There is little visible difference between cameras with seemingly
different ratings. For instance, a 3 MP camera pretty much looks
the same as a 6 MP camera, even when blown up to 12 x 18!"

Please note that I did not argue against that statement.

Granted, although your tone was obvious that you doubted it.

delete said:
delete said:

Specifically that a higher pixel count than 3MP doesn't make sense,
in the context in which your using it, cropping.

Click to expand...

Same site, section "Honest Results for Comparison". Says "These
sizes are easy to do with a 3 MP camera" (these sizes being 5x7
inch)

No where in that statement does it say anything about cropping. As a matter of fact, nowhere on the page does it mention cropping for composition, at all. You have twisted the statements made into an argument that was never there. I think everyone has agreed, if all things are equal, more megapixes is better, however, in the real world all things are not equal, and that is where the argument comes up. I am not trying to rekindle the argument, simply explain why it came up in the first place.

delete said:
--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

--
Kevin Riley
http://www.shutterbugs-gallery.com/gallery
http://www.aquariumadvice.com

Marcel Geers · May 25, 2006

The first part of this respons is in respons to Barry's suggestion that cropping equals no skill (the famous "cropping is a poor man's zoom" theory)

The second part is an attempt from me to put into context what the discussion has been\is about.

Barry: So let me get this straight......tele lenses are just nonsense, who needs zoom? We can all just walk up to our subjects!

Short version: skill and zoom can get you just so far, MP can get you further (with some side notes\considerations)
Long version:

Of course, I don't think many will disagree that if it is possible to get closer to a subject (considering TIME and the NATURE OF THE SUBJECT), the result will be better! But I think that especially that more people than you think shoot pictures while on their way to somewhere . Yes, even when in a hurry (or in any case a situation where you don't have the desire to go away from the path your on), zoom comes in handy. Or better, the combination of zoom and megapixels. Or even when you have the time (let's say a photo outing to the local zoo), but you just can't get closer to the animal due to the make up of the zoo. Should these photographs be solely reserved for those equipped with heavy tripods, (D)SLRs and huge telelenses?

A side note\nuancing note: When I look at my own shooting style, I tend to focus too much at the "trying to get as much pixels to cover my subject" routine (to maximise detail\minimise the effect of noise). The result will most likely be\is that things like composition will be less than ideal....

So yes, skill is important, even when in a hurry (it's something that should become a habit IMHO). But there's just so much that can be done when you're considering technical skill, time, scene-to-capture and the limitations of a camera.

Additional note: especially with animals and children (from what I gathered here, they tend to not sit still...) it might not always be practical to wait for that perfect distance-to-subject and just shoot the picture and crop afterwards. In which case the more pixels the better. Of course, the amount of cropping that can be done before detail is distorted too much, depends on the pixel quality, which Kim is referring to (and what I mean with the limitations of the camera (well, at least one of them))

TO "DELETE":
I reread your opening post again. Let me get this straight for the record:

1 You don't understand the reasoning why people are claiming you'd need a whole lot of more pixels to see a difference and thus a lower MP count will suffice too, because:

2 There might be the need for (heavy) cropping. Therefore their reasoning is flawed.

Is this correct?

The way i see it is that they are comparing detail of a full frame original picture (no cropping) and the only way you're going to notice the difference is when you print quite large. Or when you use a certain (large) reference print, it will only be visible after so many % increase of pixels.

Now you are saying, ok, but I need those pixels, I need to crop that part of the scene that was too far away (or the part of the scene that I didn't notice at first!) I want that small part of the scene to have a high quality\resolution, therefore I need alot of pixels. So when you have a 9MP camera and need to crop out an area which consists of "only" 3MP, you can still make quite large prints which look great at a practical viewing distance) This quality wouldn't be reachable when the camera would have a far less megapixel count, as you'd be stuck with say a 1MP crop.

From what I can gather is that Kim is trying to point out that when the per-pixel quality is relatively low, it is questionable whtether you still fullfill the 3MP-is-good-enough-for-that-particular-print-size rule of thumb. Therefore it is pointed out that when you crop from a high quality 5MP picture, chances are that it will be better than when you crop from a relatively low quality 9MP picture. (please don't start flaming when I have these numbers "mis quoted", just trying to remember what I read hours ago without having to re-read the entire thread)

So to some extend I agree with Kim that the part you didn't want to include in the discussion to not overburden the discussion, turns out to be somewhat important after all in the discussion about whether more MP are usefull, don't you agree? (Delete)

Is the above what the intention of this dicussion was all about?

Please forgive me if I misinterpreted posts and intentions in this thread. Do correct me if made a mistake, I believe we can come to a friendly agreement on this!

Marcel

delete · May 25, 2006

yelir said:
No where in that statement does it say anything about cropping.

Pardon me, but the web site even gives an example for cropping in this very section.

yelir said:
As a matter of fact, nowhere on the page does it mention cropping for
composition, at all.

I never said it does. The composition (which is, as I believe to have understood by now, the translation for 'Bildschnitt') as sometimes practical reason for cropping was my very own argument.

--

S9500 results at http://www.elwu.de/ => gallery one and gallery two

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