printing size and megapixels

I need some acknowledgable advice to help me buy my first digital camera. I already have two cameras in mind but to avoid this one vs that one agument, I decided to seek help in this forum.

My question is which of the following two pictures will come out better with an A3 size print (at least film photo quality): the picture taken by a camera with a big senser of 3.2 megapixels and the picture by a camera with a smaller senser of 5 megapixels?

Or, it will be better if anyone have a table showing the mininum pixels you need to print certain size film quality photo.

Thanks in advance for any answer.

James

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--There are 3 kinds of people in the world - Those who can count ... and those who can't.

I would almost agree, but the quality of the pixels matter, I would take an old D1 over an olympus E10, not E20? but would take a D30 over all including a D1x if quality of prints is all that is important, no doubt the d1X is better build quality and features. Below are examples from a D30 blown up to 30x45" @ 300dpi and the crops are from the same files at 60x80" @300 or 75x100" @240dpi the E-20 can not do this even with more pixels, as clean as this, and thd D1x has also shown me to be a little more dissapointing then the price would suggest.

Stephen
http://www.nyphotographics.com

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Hi, Keith,

Thank you very much for your reply. To get more advice from you and any others, I just reveal the two cameras in my mind. They are D30 and E20. So you can see my dilemma.

The D30 shoots unbelievable clean and somewhat 3D pictures. At least they look very nice on the screen. The thing I don't know is if those pictures can come out as good with A3 prints. With 3.2 million pixels, I imagine it will be a tough job.

On the other hand, E20 shoots reasonably good and sharp pictures and with 5 million pixels it can easly print at A3 size. But will it be better than D30's A3 prints which probably will have some grains?

A3 print is my target with digiphoto.

You are so right by saying that there are other factors that will influnce buying a camera. And there are a lot of them! The price, the dust problem, the pixel count with D30, the noise, the speed, the size of CCD with E20.

Since I am only a hobby photographer, I don't want to spend too much on it. That could be a problem with D30 'cause you have to buy lenses and they are expensive.

But, if, only if it can produce film quaity A3 print, I may bite the bullet. Otherwise, I think I might buy an E20. What do you think?

Kind regards,

James

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Hi, Stephen,

That is amazing! I suspected that D30 will do better than its 3 megapixel implys. But I don't know why and how.

Your advice is very helpful and it made me leaning towards one side of the fence.

Thanks a lot!

James

stephen said:

Stephen
http://www.nyphotographics.com

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

glad I could help, I feel strongly about quality and the D30 is there, the only things I would recommend in its place is the 1D, or DCS760 if you are a nikon shooter, or LEAF back or DCS Pro back, maybe the cmost or h2o backs as well but they are getting very pricey.

James Qu said:

That is amazing! I suspected that D30 will do better than its 3
megapixel implys. But I don't know why and how.

Your advice is very helpful and it made me leaning towards one side
of the fence.

Thanks a lot!

James

stephen said:

Stephen
http://www.nyphotographics.com

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

James Qu said:

Thank you very much for your reply. To get more advice from you and
any others, I just reveal the two cameras in my mind. They are D30
and E20. So you can see my dilemma.

The D30 shoots unbelievable clean and somewhat 3D pictures. At
least they look very nice on the screen. The thing I don't know is
if those pictures can come out as good with A3 prints. With 3.2
million pixels, I imagine it will be a tough job.

On the other hand, E20 shoots reasonably good and sharp pictures
and with 5 million pixels it can easly print at A3 size. But will
it be better than D30's A3 prints which probably will have some
grains?

A3 print is my target with digiphoto.

You are so right by saying that there are other factors that will
influnce buying a camera. And there are a lot of them! The price,
the dust problem, the pixel count with D30, the noise, the speed,
the size of CCD with E20.

Since I am only a hobby photographer, I don't want to spend too
much on it. That could be a problem with D30 'cause you have to buy
lenses and they are expensive.

But, if, only if it can produce film quaity A3 print, I may bite
the bullet. Otherwise, I think I might buy an E20. What do you
think?

Kind regards,

James

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Steady on there,

I think you should print some photos yourself, on your printer, from both cameras, before making the decision. Buy a CF card, take it to a good camera shop or borrow the cameras and play heaps with them.

If you are doing much bigger than a3 the d30 would win due to the lack of noise. But You may prefer the look of the E20 at lower enlargements. But look at the big picture, (I am not talking about Stephen's impressive work)
do you need fast operation?-D30
High ISo-D30
interchangable lenses-d30
Photos that look good straight from camera-E20
a great lens included-e20
silent operation-e20
live ccd viewing-e20
These are both great cameras, I have used D30, E10 and D1x.

They are all great value, the refurb D30's I have heard about may make this one really stand out in value.

James, Another factor is your skill (current and future) in software manipulation of your photos. With Photoshop and similar packages you can generally extend the capabilities of either camera. There are few high quality shots, IMHO, that are printable straight out of the camera. For example, I do not do any in camera sharpening. I can do a better job on the computer and can tailor what I do to the image content. I would argue that a good digital darkroom and the skill to use it is as important to a quality print as the camera (assuming a decent camera).

Stephen,

I loved the pictures, however, as a relative novice I have a question about the statements you made regarding DPI. I may have misunderstood what you said but when a D30 image only has 2160 x 1440 pixels how did you get the pictures to such a large size and still keep the DPI at 240 or 300? What interpolation software did you use? I am still trying to get the DPI thing straight in my head.

Thanks.

Andy.

stephen said:

I would almost agree, but the quality of the pixels matter, I would
take an old D1 over an olympus E10, not E20? but would take a D30
over all including a D1x if quality of prints is all that is
important, no doubt the d1X is better build quality and features.
Below are examples from a D30 blown up to 30x45" @ 300dpi and the
crops are from the same files at 60x80" @300 or 75x100" @240dpi
the E-20 can not do this even with more pixels, as clean as this,
and thd D1x has also shown me to be a little more dissapointing
then the price would suggest.

Stephen

Click to expand...

hello, I use my own action in photoshop 6 you can download the actions from the site below, it has several interpolations up to about 1228megs or 1.228 gigs thats a nice size file.

http://www.nyphotographics.com/ftppage.htm
Stephen
http://www.nyphotographics.com

Andrew Harvey said:

I loved the pictures, however, as a relative novice I have a
question about the statements you made regarding DPI. I may have
misunderstood what you said but when a D30 image only has 2160 x
1440 pixels how did you get the pictures to such a large size and
still keep the DPI at 240 or 300? What interpolation software did
you use? I am still trying to get the DPI thing straight in my head.

Thanks.

Andy.

stephen said:

I would almost agree, but the quality of the pixels matter, I would
take an old D1 over an olympus E10, not E20? but would take a D30
over all including a D1x if quality of prints is all that is
important, no doubt the d1X is better build quality and features.
Below are examples from a D30 blown up to 30x45" @ 300dpi and the
crops are from the same files at 60x80" @300 or 75x100" @240dpi
the E-20 can not do this even with more pixels, as clean as this,
and thd D1x has also shown me to be a little more dissapointing
then the price would suggest.

Stephen

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Wow, that is a big file! Thanks for the info.

Andy.

stephen said:

hello, I use my own action in photoshop 6 you can download the
actions from the site below, it has several interpolations up to
about 1228megs or 1.228 gigs thats a nice size file.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Andrew!

I don't really need to print anything bigger than A3, so I guess the advantage of D30 will not be so obvious in my case.

Now the major obstacle kept me from buying an E20 is the size of its CCD. I just found in Phil's review of D30 how tiny the E20's CCD is. I know it is a little bit bigger than the 1/1.8 chip shown in the diagram, but not much. Could this be the reason why E20 tends to produce more noise?

Refurbished D30 seems very attractive. But the lenses...hmmm...

Do you really think I can try printing some A3s in a camera shop? I would like to try. By the way, I am in Australia, so things may be different here.

We'll see.

Thank you very much for your advice.

James

Andrew said:

James Qu said:

Thank you very much for your reply. To get more advice from you and
any others, I just reveal the two cameras in my mind. They are D30
and E20. So you can see my dilemma.

The D30 shoots unbelievable clean and somewhat 3D pictures. At
least they look very nice on the screen. The thing I don't know is
if those pictures can come out as good with A3 prints. With 3.2
million pixels, I imagine it will be a tough job.

On the other hand, E20 shoots reasonably good and sharp pictures
and with 5 million pixels it can easly print at A3 size. But will
it be better than D30's A3 prints which probably will have some
grains?

A3 print is my target with digiphoto.

You are so right by saying that there are other factors that will
influnce buying a camera. And there are a lot of them! The price,
the dust problem, the pixel count with D30, the noise, the speed,
the size of CCD with E20.

Since I am only a hobby photographer, I don't want to spend too
much on it. That could be a problem with D30 'cause you have to buy
lenses and they are expensive.

But, if, only if it can produce film quaity A3 print, I may bite
the bullet. Otherwise, I think I might buy an E20. What do you
think?

Kind regards,

James

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Steady on there,
I think you should print some photos yourself, on your printer,
from both cameras, before making the decision. Buy a CF card, take
it to a good camera shop or borrow the cameras and play heaps with
them.
If you are doing much bigger than a3 the d30 would win due to the
lack of noise. But You may prefer the look of the E20 at lower
enlargements. But look at the big picture, (I am not talking about
Stephen's impressive work)
do you need fast operation?-D30
High ISo-D30
interchangable lenses-d30
Photos that look good straight from camera-E20
a great lens included-e20
silent operation-e20
live ccd viewing-e20
These are both great cameras, I have used D30, E10 and D1x.
They are all great value, the refurb D30's I have heard about may
make this one really stand out in value.

Click to expand...

Hi, Leon,

Thanks for your advice. I am learning photoshop. It is an unbelievable tool for photo editing. It provides so many creative ways to malipulate photoes. But I surely have a lot to learn, and to try, before I can really use those functions to create something, including big prints.

Thanks again.

James

Leon Wittwer said:

James, Another factor is your skill (current and future) in
software manipulation of your photos. With Photoshop and similar
packages you can generally extend the capabilities of either
camera. There are few high quality shots, IMHO, that are printable
straight out of the camera. For example, I do not do any in camera
sharpening. I can do a better job on the computer and can tailor
what I do to the image content. I would argue that a good digital
darkroom and the skill to use it is as important to a quality print
as the camera (assuming a decent camera).

Click to expand...

James Qu said:

I don't really need to print anything bigger than A3, so I guess
the advantage of D30 will not be so obvious in my case.

Now the major obstacle kept me from buying an E20 is the size of
its CCD. I just found in Phil's review of D30 how tiny the E20's
CCD is. I know it is a little bit bigger than the 1/1.8 chip shown
in the diagram, but not much. Could this be the reason why E20
tends to produce more noise?

Refurbished D30 seems very attractive. But the lenses...hmmm...

Do you really think I can try printing some A3s in a camera shop? I
would like to try. By the way, I am in Australia, so things may be
different here.

We'll see.

Thank you very much for your advice.

James

Click to expand...

Hi James,
I am also in Australia, where are you?

If you have your own printer or one in mind, just bring the files home with you. ( I know a good place to buy CF for A$249 for 256M)

The D30 may make a difference to you at A3, thats why I suggest doing your own prints. Also it gives you an Idea of what you have to do to the file

to make it look good. Some people claim the noise is a real problem with the oly, but I think it depends more on the printer whether it becomes a problem. (looking at it on a monitor will show you the noise, but it might not affect your print. I find the E10 noise is not a problem (low iso) up to about A3 on a kodak LED printer at my lab, I haven't seen refurb D30 in Australia, but there you might be able to get one sent from the US or UK. I think there will be plenty of e10 and D30 2nd hand soon as new things become available.

Andrew

James Qu said:

I need some acknowledgable advice to help me buy my first digital
camera. I already have two cameras in mind but to avoid this one vs
that one agument, I decided to seek help in this forum.

My question is which of the following two pictures will come out
better with an A3 size print (at least film photo quality): the
picture taken by a camera with a big senser of 3.2 megapixels and
the picture by a camera with a smaller senser of 5 megapixels?

Or, it will be better if anyone have a table showing the mininum
pixels you need to print certain size film quality photo.

Thanks in advance for any answer.

James

Click to expand...

One more thing James,

these are two very different cameras, I would recommend getting to know the camera before buying one (esp the oly which is a little more quirky) then you wont get frustrated after you buy it, its not like buying a film camera. You cant rely on the specs to decide, touch it; feel it; use it.
Also they are both pretty old now, so I'd be looking for a bargain price.
Andrew

Thank you Andrew for the kind advices. I live in Melbourne. Where do you live?

As for the cameras, I have been reading a lot of comments here in this forum and Phil's reviews. I think eventually I will be printing photos myself but since I haven't bourght a photo printer yet, I will send any photos needed to be printed to a photo shop.

I will buy the camera very soon, probably an E20, after seeing Ralf's photos.

Your advice gave me another push. The advice about the noise not necessarily showing in the prints.

Thanks and keep in touch.

James

Andrew said:

James Qu said:

I need some acknowledgable advice to help me buy my first digital
camera. I already have two cameras in mind but to avoid this one vs
that one agument, I decided to seek help in this forum.

My question is which of the following two pictures will come out
better with an A3 size print (at least film photo quality): the
picture taken by a camera with a big senser of 3.2 megapixels and
the picture by a camera with a smaller senser of 5 megapixels?

Or, it will be better if anyone have a table showing the mininum
pixels you need to print certain size film quality photo.

Thanks in advance for any answer.

James

Click to expand...

One more thing James,
these are two very different cameras, I would recommend getting to
know the camera before buying one (esp the oly which is a little
more quirky) then you wont get frustrated after you buy it, its not
like buying a film camera. You cant rely on the specs to decide,
touch it; feel it; use it.
Also they are both pretty old now, so I'd be looking for a bargain
price.
Andrew

Click to expand...

I've had my E10 for a few months now and I have been very happy with A4 prints on my Epson 890.

I find the combination of the E10, editing software and the Epson printer give me far better results than I could ever get from 35mm film + my own darkroom work. And high street processing is so variable that consistent, low priced high quality work from film is just not worth trying for.

Last week I borrowed a 1270 printer and have been printing to A3 on Epson Premium Glossy. I shoot mainly landscape stuff so fine detail is essential as most of the distant subject matter is quite small on the print.

The results have been quite interesting. My impressions are that:

1. Even at A3 there is no noticable noise from the E10 even in blue skies.

2. Whilst the A3 prints are superficially impressive when viewed from 2 or 3 feet and people I've shown them to have been impressed, I don't really like them when examined close up. There is a distinctive lack of fine detail. Subject matter that is close to the camera simple looks soft and unfocused whilst distant subject matter (such as range of hills) looks like a smooth, homegenous colour without much variation or detail.

3. I ran some comparisons of similarly sized prints scanned from 4*5 negs on a cheap Epson 1640SU flatbed (with neg adapter). The large format prints are simply lightyears ahead. In fact, to my eyes the A3 prints look exactly like contact prints except bigger. Even tiny features on the horizon have well defined sharp detail (such as individual trees) clearly visible whilst on the E10 prints there is just a smooth blur.

Now I don't see this as a noise issue at - it's a resolution problem. The E10 does not really have enough pixels to produce detailed images of fine features at this print size. No doubt if it use it for portraits or photographing a subject close up it will be fine, but I have my doubts about using it for landscape work at A3 size.

I also doubt whether the D30 could do a better job as noise doesn't appear to be the issue. The E10 might be relatively noisy when viewed onscreen but it must be subject, lighting, exposure etc dependent and doesn't seem to be a problem in well lit images printed out.

I'm going to experiment with stitching several E10 images together. It will be interesting to find out how many E10 pixels are required per image to give me an A3 print that satisfies my tastes. I'd be willing to bet that 3 stiched images giving something like 10Mpixel files will produce pretty decent A3s. 9 or so stitched will be giving 30 Mpixel+ files and that should be something to admire!

James Qu said:

Thank you very much for your reply. To get more advice from you and
any others, I just reveal the two cameras in my mind. They are D30
and E20. So you can see my dilemma.

The D30 shoots unbelievable clean and somewhat 3D pictures. At
least they look very nice on the screen. The thing I don't know is
if those pictures can come out as good with A3 prints. With 3.2
million pixels, I imagine it will be a tough job.

On the other hand, E20 shoots reasonably good and sharp pictures
and with 5 million pixels it can easly print at A3 size. But will
it be better than D30's A3 prints which probably will have some
grains?

A3 print is my target with digiphoto.

You are so right by saying that there are other factors that will
influnce buying a camera. And there are a lot of them! The price,
the dust problem, the pixel count with D30, the noise, the speed,
the size of CCD with E20.

Since I am only a hobby photographer, I don't want to spend too
much on it. That could be a problem with D30 'cause you have to buy
lenses and they are expensive.

But, if, only if it can produce film quaity A3 print, I may bite
the bullet. Otherwise, I think I might buy an E20. What do you
think?

Kind regards,

James

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

James Qu said:

My question is which of the following two pictures will come out
better with an A3 size print (at least film photo quality): the
picture taken by a camera with a big senser of 3.2 megapixels and
the picture by a camera with a smaller senser of 5 megapixels?

Click to expand...

Your question seems very similar to inquires about the D30 vs. more recent offerings like the E10, F707 and maybe the D1x, etc...

It really depends on your application. While the D30 has nearly no noise at only 3MP it doesn't have the resolution of the higher megapixel sensors. So while for portraits the low resolution will help in not showing each little pore on the face, it can tend to look "plasticky" (mannequin skin) for skin tones compared to higher resolution cameras. I've noticed this when comparing my own photos to others that used D30's at the same event. When people have pimples or wrinkles a D30 can be more flattering. If you're going to be using your camera for detail such as group portraits, landscapes and such then a 5 megapixel sensor even on the $1k f707 will beat a D30 in resolving more data (re: lines per mm).

Hi, DMillier,

Thank you for your advice. Your experiment is very interesting. I think you are right. For an A3 print, enough pixels is the major issue. I like shoot landscape so I guess I do need some extra pixels. 6 mp is out of my reach so I guess I will settledown with an E20.

I'll see if it can make reasonably good A3 prints.

Thanks again for your help. Looking forward to the result of your stiching experiment.

Regards,

James

DMillier said:

I find the combination of the E10, editing software and the Epson
printer give me far better results than I could ever get from 35mm
film + my own darkroom work. And high street processing is so
variable that consistent, low priced high quality work from film is
just not worth trying for.

Last week I borrowed a 1270 printer and have been printing to A3 on
Epson Premium Glossy. I shoot mainly landscape stuff so fine detail
is essential as most of the distant subject matter is quite small
on the print.

The results have been quite interesting. My impressions are that:

1. Even at A3 there is no noticable noise from the E10 even in blue
skies.

2. Whilst the A3 prints are superficially impressive when viewed
from 2 or 3 feet and people I've shown them to have been impressed,
I don't really like them when examined close up. There is a
distinctive lack of fine detail. Subject matter that is close to
the camera simple looks soft and unfocused whilst distant subject
matter (such as range of hills) looks like a smooth, homegenous
colour without much variation or detail.

3. I ran some comparisons of similarly sized prints scanned from
4*5 negs on a cheap Epson 1640SU flatbed (with neg adapter). The
large format prints are simply lightyears ahead. In fact, to my
eyes the A3 prints look exactly like contact prints except bigger.
Even tiny features on the horizon have well defined sharp detail
(such as individual trees) clearly visible whilst on the E10 prints
there is just a smooth blur.

Now I don't see this as a noise issue at - it's a resolution
problem. The E10 does not really have enough pixels to produce
detailed images of fine features at this print size. No doubt if it
use it for portraits or photographing a subject close up it will be
fine, but I have my doubts about using it for landscape work at A3
size.

I also doubt whether the D30 could do a better job as noise doesn't
appear to be the issue. The E10 might be relatively noisy when
viewed onscreen but it must be subject, lighting, exposure etc
dependent and doesn't seem to be a problem in well lit images
printed out.

I'm going to experiment with stitching several E10 images together.
It will be interesting to find out how many E10 pixels are required
per image to give me an A3 print that satisfies my tastes. I'd be
willing to bet that 3 stiched images giving something like 10Mpixel
files will produce pretty decent A3s. 9 or so stitched will be
giving 30 Mpixel+ files and that should be something to admire!

James Qu said:

Thank you very much for your reply. To get more advice from you and
any others, I just reveal the two cameras in my mind. They are D30
and E20. So you can see my dilemma.

The D30 shoots unbelievable clean and somewhat 3D pictures. At
least they look very nice on the screen. The thing I don't know is
if those pictures can come out as good with A3 prints. With 3.2
million pixels, I imagine it will be a tough job.

On the other hand, E20 shoots reasonably good and sharp pictures
and with 5 million pixels it can easly print at A3 size. But will
it be better than D30's A3 prints which probably will have some
grains?

A3 print is my target with digiphoto.

You are so right by saying that there are other factors that will
influnce buying a camera. And there are a lot of them! The price,
the dust problem, the pixel count with D30, the noise, the speed,
the size of CCD with E20.

Since I am only a hobby photographer, I don't want to spend too
much on it. That could be a problem with D30 'cause you have to buy
lenses and they are expensive.

But, if, only if it can produce film quaity A3 print, I may bite
the bullet. Otherwise, I think I might buy an E20. What do you
think?

Kind regards,

James

Keith Aitken said:

James,

Well-thought out question.You will, no doubt,
receive several different replies

Generally speaking, the higher the pixel count,
the better the print quality. A 3 MP camera will
give you fine prints ( provided that the original
image is of good quality ) but the same image
taken with a 5 MP camera would probably be
better, especially if you need to do any cropping.

You may well have to tell us which two cameras
are on your short list to get a fuller comment,
as there are other factors which should also
influence your decision ...

The print quality will also depend on the paper
used, plus the printer ...

Good Luck in your choosing,
Keith

--
There are 3 kinds of people in the world -
Those who can count ... and those who can't.

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chi said:

James Qu said:

My question is which of the following two pictures will come out
better with an A3 size print (at least film photo quality): the
picture taken by a camera with a big senser of 3.2 megapixels and
the picture by a camera with a smaller senser of 5 megapixels?

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Your question seems very similar to inquires about the D30 vs. more
recent offerings like the E10, F707 and maybe the D1x, etc...

It really depends on your application. While the D30 has nearly no
noise at only 3MP it doesn't have the resolution of the higher
megapixel sensors. So while for portraits the low resolution will
help in not showing each little pore on the face, it can tend to
look "plasticky" (mannequin skin) for skin tones compared to higher
resolution cameras. I've noticed this when comparing my own photos
to others that used D30's at the same event. When people have
pimples or wrinkles a D30 can be more flattering. If you're going
to be using your camera for detail such as group portraits,
landscapes and such then a 5 megapixel sensor even on the $1k f707
will beat a D30 in resolving more data (re: lines per mm).

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Thank you, Chi.

I haven't seen a lot of D30 photos but I believe you are right. Also I like shooting landscapes so I will need extra pixels.

Thanks again.

James