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How many MP do we really need?

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iCan

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I love my F707. I have no prior experience with photography, nor have I ever owned a camera I couldn't "dispose" of.

Now that I'm being exposed to this wonderful yet sometimes frustrating world of "digital photography," I have so many "newbie" questions I have been dying to ask.

However, one such question involves the amount of MP being offered on digicams.

How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)

I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's! Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."

Just as computers will get faster, I know digicams will have more MP's ....

Maybe I should ask the question this way...

How much better can digital cameras get, and when is enough ...well....enough?
 
I'm really pretty happy with 5, but I would to know that I could get larger size prints in the event that I needed them. I'm talking like 24x30.

Of course, than I would be crying for at least a 256 meg stick!
iCan said:
I love my F707. I have no prior experience with photography, nor
have I ever owned a camera I couldn't "dispose" of.

Now that I'm being exposed to this wonderful yet sometimes
frustrating world of "digital photography," I have so many "newbie"
questions I have been dying to ask.

However, one such question involves the amount of MP being offered
on digicams.

How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)

I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."

Just as computers will get faster, I know digicams will have more
MP's ....

Maybe I should ask the question this way...

How much better can digital cameras get, and when is enough
...well....enough?
Click to expand...
--
Jim Fuglestad
Why simply live and let live? Live and help live.
http://www.pbase.com/jfuglestad/galleries
 
Well you can clearly see that print quality below 300 dpi is poor in comparison to a photograph. So if you want a 300dpi print at 10x8, that's 7.2 MPs. We're not there yet.

I just read on a site that it you wanted to capture the same detail as a 35mm camera with a good lense (100 pm/mm whatever that means) then you'd need to have a 7200 x 4800 image, which is 34 Mega Pixels!

I'm sure we're not far away from that - I guestimate 3 years from now. That means BIG hard-drives :)
Shay Stephens said:
I am targeting a foveon 6MP or mosaic sensor of 12MP. That would
get me a two page magazine spread at 300 DPI. I have no need for
more than that myself.

--
Shay

My Sony F707 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp
Click to expand...
 
iCan said:
How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)
Click to expand...
This all depends on what size/quality you want your print to be.

An old thread here indicated that National Gographic requires what would be 20mp for their pages.

But a 2mp will do just fine for a 4x6. But say you want to do a 30x20 poster, the 5mp from the F707 arent likely going to do it w/o some sw upsampling.

As for the web, you typically wont even go beyound 1mp.

--
jc
F707 w/ Nikon 5T/6T
http://www.reefkeepers.org/gallery/f707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery
 
enough to equal Fujichrome Velvia 50 : )
iCan said:
I love my F707. I have no prior experience with photography, nor
have I ever owned a camera I couldn't "dispose" of.

Now that I'm being exposed to this wonderful yet sometimes
frustrating world of "digital photography," I have so many "newbie"
questions I have been dying to ask.

However, one such question involves the amount of MP being offered
on digicams.

How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)

I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."

Just as computers will get faster, I know digicams will have more
MP's ....

Maybe I should ask the question this way...

How much better can digital cameras get, and when is enough
...well....enough?
Click to expand...
--
cheers
Zip:P

=========================================
BFS: been there had that...got the t-shirt
Sticker Status: ON...but on upsidedown
Pie Chute: UnCorked
Lens Cap: No dangle at any angle
128mem stick: lost

Real Name: Michael C

 
If your goal is to have an image displayed on your screen or to simply e-mail, then we had enough at 2MP.

If your goal is to print no larger than 8x10, then you have enough at 3MP.

If your goal is to do portrait work with a quality similar to what you'd get from medium format cameras for large prints, then you're talking about probably waiting just a bit for a Foveon-like chip at 6MP.

For most people, there is no need to wait. In fact, even if I were waiting, I'd still buy right now the camera that would help me most become familiar with my current needs in preparation for the future.
iCan said:
I love my F707. I have no prior experience with photography, nor
have I ever owned a camera I couldn't "dispose" of.

Now that I'm being exposed to this wonderful yet sometimes
frustrating world of "digital photography," I have so many "newbie"
questions I have been dying to ask.

However, one such question involves the amount of MP being offered
on digicams.

How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)

I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."

Just as computers will get faster, I know digicams will have more
MP's ....

Maybe I should ask the question this way...

How much better can digital cameras get, and when is enough
...well....enough?
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
 
In all honesty, I think that 8x10 with 3.3MP come out great. And I don't think you'll need more than what you have with your F707. They will come out with camera's with higher than 5 MP for less, but you won't need it. What you will want are the other features they will have. Better focus, faster reaction, more zoom . . .

red
iCan said:
I love my F707. I have no prior experience with photography, nor
have I ever owned a camera I couldn't "dispose" of.

Now that I'm being exposed to this wonderful yet sometimes
frustrating world of "digital photography," I have so many "newbie"
questions I have been dying to ask.

However, one such question involves the amount of MP being offered
on digicams.

How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)

I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."

Just as computers will get faster, I know digicams will have more
MP's ....

Maybe I should ask the question this way...

How much better can digital cameras get, and when is enough
...well....enough?
Click to expand...
 
iCan said:
I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."
Click to expand...
Printing out 8 x 10 is the whole purpose of having an F707! 5MP makes for a very sharp 8 x 10 print. And it's a very convenient size, all printers can handle it, and 11 x 14 frames with pre-cut 8 x 10 mattes are inexpensive and sold at many places.

Although there is no NEED for megapixels, you can never have too many. Each pixel on a non-Foveon CCD only does one color. The full size full color image that comes out of digital cameras are, therefore, actually interpolated up from their real size of 1.3 MP. Looked at at 100% resolution, the image always looks blurry, and it gets much sharper when you resample it to a smaller size.

This is why the 5MP makes noticeably sharper 8 x 10s than 3MP. 3MP theoretically has enough resolution to do 8 x10, but the reality is that 3MP coming from digital cameras is an upsample from a smaller resolution.
 
alex_worden said:
Well you can clearly see that print quality below 300 dpi is poor
in comparison to a photograph. So if you want a 300dpi print at
10x8, that's 7.2 MPs. We're not there yet.

I just read on a site that it you wanted to capture the same detail
as a 35mm camera with a good lense (100 pm/mm whatever that means)
then you'd need to have a 7200 x 4800 image, which is 34 Mega
Pixels!
Click to expand...
According to Norman Koren this isn't as simple a question as it might first seem and he explains on his page 'Understanding image sharpness part 7' at:

http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF7.html

A most interesting read.

Personally, I doubt if I buy another digital camera until a Foveon-like 6MP is affordable.

Gordon
--
No matter where you are...there you are.
 
Ron nailed it with the cropping issue. Since my entry into the world of digital photography, rotating and cropping has become every day event for me. With 2 or 3 mp, you have preciously little freedom to do so. With, say, 12mp, you could make a print out of just a little portion of a picture. With that, everyone is bound to have some quality pictures. Bring on more megapixels!
 
iCan said:
How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)
Click to expand...
Larger prints and greater processing on the image requires more megapixels.

3.3mp will make a decent 8x10 print (5mp does better). If you start to crop you can quickly lose half of your pixels while removing what seems like a small amount of the image. When I'm cropping I want everything that I can get.

With today's cheap hard disk prices (about $1/gb) I don't see any real downside to keeping a lot of 2mb files sitting around. That is 500 files per gb, or .2 cents per image for storage. Copy them to a CD-R and it is even cheaper.

More pixels often means a larger CCD too. I'm looking forward to the day when CCDs get closer to 35mm film size (or at least APS sized). The f707 is the first digital camera I've owned where you can blow the background out of focus (the smaller CCD on most results in a large depth of field even when the lens is wide open), and a larger CCD would give even better control over depth of field.

alex
 
"The full size full color image that comes out of digital cameras are,
therefore, actually interpolated up from their real size of 1.3 MP.
Looked at at 100% resolution, the image always looks blurry, and it
gets much sharper when you resample it to a smaller size."

What are you talking about here and where did you get your information? I don't find images from 3.3 megapixel to blurry at all, and they don't show any sign of interpolation, though I cannot say the same thing for 5 megapixel. Are you saying that all digital's capture a 1.3 mp image and simply interpolated to a larger size? Eh? Eh?
Capital Man said:
iCan said:
I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."
Click to expand...
Printing out 8 x 10 is the whole purpose of having an F707! 5MP
makes for a very sharp 8 x 10 print. And it's a very convenient
size, all printers can handle it, and 11 x 14 frames with pre-cut 8
x 10 mattes are inexpensive and sold at many places.

Although there is no NEED for megapixels, you can never have too
many. Each pixel on a non-Foveon CCD only does one color. The
full size full color image that comes out of digital cameras are,
therefore, actually interpolated up from their real size of 1.3 MP.
Looked at at 100% resolution, the image always looks blurry, and it
gets much sharper when you resample it to a smaller size.

This is why the 5MP makes noticeably sharper 8 x 10s than 3MP. 3MP
theoretically has enough resolution to do 8 x10, but the reality is
that 3MP coming from digital cameras is an upsample from a smaller
resolution.
Click to expand...
 
jes said:
"The full size full color image that comes out of digital cameras are,
therefore, actually interpolated up from their real size of 1.3 MP.
Looked at at 100% resolution, the image always looks blurry, and it
gets much sharper when you resample it to a smaller size."
What are you talking about here and where did you get your
information? I don't find images from 3.3 megapixel to blurry at
all, and they don't show any sign of interpolation, though I cannot
say the same thing for 5 megapixel. Are you saying that all
digital's capture a 1.3 mp image and simply interpolated to a
larger size? Eh? Eh?
Click to expand...
I believe he's referring to the Bayer interpolation that every camera on the market does today.

Full size images from Bayer interpolated sensors do tend to have somewhat softer edges. The best way to see this is to start with an original, sharp image, and see what happens after we place a color filter array over it and then run a Bayer interpolation algorithm.

This guy's thesis has some great examples:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/etd/public/etd-251613201010013240/etd.pdf

starting around page 74 (p. 89 in the pdf file)

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
iCan said:
How many MP's do we really need? When we're talking about MP's and
resolution, aren't we talking about the eventual quality of our
prints and web results(4x6's, 8x10's...)

I just cannot imagine having a need for a camera with so many MP's!
Yes, even I think I'm well in over my head with 5 MP's...Although I
don't plan on printing any 8x10's...it's nice to know "I can."
Click to expand...
This question comes up rather frequently in various photog forums. It's a very subjective, personal evaluation of need, which doesn't really have a right answer, IMO. What you need or want probably doesn't apply to me and vice versa. You've gotten some good answers, but the one I agree with most is Ron Parr's response. There's never enough, for me. :-)

--
my gallery of so-so photos
http://www.pbase.com/kerrypierce/inbox
 
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