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Resolution up the Wazoo vs Good Enuff

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Bernard de Clairvaux

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In looking at a recent thread here, I saw an advertisement for bridal gowns and dresses. Head to toe images of models.

This reminded me of someone long ago paying for their daughter to get a modeling portfolio. The family had prints in different smaller sizes and had the negatives.

They were shot with 35mm film. This occurred 30 plus years ago.

For the money spent I wondered y it wasn’t done with medium format because there were head to toe portraits mixed with head shots. I am sure in retrospect it was all good enough for someone trying to get noticed for some modeling work. But the cost of the portfolio was not exactly small.

We looked at the full body portraits with an eye loop and saw eye lash detail.
We then looked at the negatives and the detail wasn’t there. It was inked in on the prints with a fine point.

This was probably a common practice? Perhaps if a quantity of such images were ordered a medium format camera could have been used for such shots.

Digital Resolution now far exceeds that of 35mm film.

When have we reached
“It’s Good Enough?” It depends on the intended use.

Best Regards,
Bernard
 
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Bernard de Clairvaux said:
In looking at a recent thread here, I saw an advertisement for bridal gowns and dresses. Head to toe images of models.

This reminded me of someone long ago paying for their daughter to get a modeling portfolio. The family had prints in different smaller sizes and had the negatives.

They were shot with 35mm film. This occurred 30 plus years ago.

For the money spent I wondered y it wasn’t done with medium format because there were head to toe portraits mixed with head shots. I am sure in retrospect it was all good enough for someone trying to get noticed for some modeling work. But the cost of the portfolio was not exactly small.

We looked at the full body portraits with an eye loop and saw eye lash detail.
We then looked at the negatives and the detail wasn’t there. It was inked in on the prints with a fine point.

This was probably a common practice? Perhaps if a quantity of such images were ordered a medium format camera could have been used for such shots.

Digital Resolution now far exceeds that of 35mm film.

When have we reached
“It’s Good Enough?” It depends on the intended use.

Best Regards,
Bernard
Click to expand...
I shot hundreds of weddings in 35mm, before digital, and never even thought about hand-retouching prints. I wasn't making enough to spend that much time, and the B&Gs didn't care as much about sharpness.

My B&W photojournalistic style had lots of grain and weren't the sharpest prints around, and everyone loved them.
 
We have reached "it's good enough" at around 8mp, and by 10mp we have reached "it's definitely good enough". Any picture around 10mp (let's say 3660x2745 pixels) taken with a reasonably good lens looks totally sharp and wonderful from any reasonable viewing distance. If you get close enough to it that only a very small section of it is in your sharp field of view (which is only about 2 degrees) then you may "see pixels". But that's not how most pictures are meant to be viewed at all, and even then, it's not a terrible thing.
 
MNE said:
MNE wrote:
My B&W photojournalistic style had lots of grain and weren't the sharpest prints around, and everyone loved them.

Mark
Click to expand...
Mark,
The first digital camera I had was a 4mp canon point and shoot with a zoom lens that took AA Batteries.

If the subject was one or 2 faces that filled the screen, and was in focus
the results were darn good. And at lower ISO
There was so little grain.

My understanding was that 3 or 4mp was the turning point where digital was beginning to overtake film?

These types of images made great 5 x 7s and even 8 X 10s.

Best Regards,
Bernard
 
WilyKit said:
We have reached "it's good enough" at around 8mp, and by 10mp we have reached "it's definitely good enough". Any picture around 10mp (let's say 3660x2745 pixels) taken with a reasonably good lens looks totally sharp and wonderful from any reasonable viewing distance. If you get close enough to it that only a very small section of it is in your sharp field of view (which is only about 2 degrees) then you may "see pixels". But that's not how most pictures are meant to be viewed at all, and even then, it's not a terrible thing.
Click to expand...
Wily,
Agreed

But when someone bought a 4 or 500 dollar camera he didn’t necessarily think it took better pictures than a Pentax K1000.

A Nikon FM probably an extended range of shutter speeds, slower ones being electronically timed.

Perhaps the more expensive camera had more accurate shutter speeds.

The ability to take better pictures and enlarge more tied in to buying better lenses? Everyone didn’t buy a much better lens just in case 3 or 4 times a year they made an 8 X 10 or larger.

For a long time the mp race was how companies sold new cameras.

We have exhausted that.
Camera sales will never b like that again.

And the need for 80 or 100 mp cameras to allow for greater cropping possibilities combined with lessor reach.
Top of line camera mayb could go there.

Interesting times.

Best Regards,
Bernard
 
Bernard de Clairvaux said:
In looking at a recent thread here, I saw an advertisement for bridal gowns and dresses. Head to toe images of models.

This reminded me of someone long ago paying for their daughter to get a modeling portfolio. The family had prints in different smaller sizes and had the negatives.

They were shot with 35mm film. This occurred 30 plus years ago.

For the money spent I wondered y it wasn’t done with medium format because there were head to toe portraits mixed with head shots. I am sure in retrospect it was all good enough for someone trying to get noticed for some modeling work. But the cost of the portfolio was not exactly small.

We looked at the full body portraits with an eye loop and saw eye lash detail.
We then looked at the negatives and the detail wasn’t there. It was inked in on the prints with a fine point.

This was probably a common practice? Perhaps if a quantity of such images were ordered a medium format camera could have been used for such shots.

Digital Resolution now far exceeds that of 35mm film.

When have we reached
“It’s Good Enough?” It depends on the intended use.

Best Regards,
Bernard
Click to expand...
Ah yes, the good old days of film. I once sat in a waiting room and noticed a pile of old Nat Geo mags. Wow, I can while away the time looking at excellent photography. It turns out, they were film era mags. What a disappointment. The subject matter and composition may well have been excellent, but to my digitally accustomed eyes, this was overshadowed by the abysmal IQ, not sharp, noisy, grainy and lacking in contrast. Of course, poor printing would have had a lot to do with it too.
 
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People these days love using the loupe! It’s called “pinch to zoom”.
 
Bernard de Clairvaux said:
In looking at a recent thread here, I saw an advertisement for bridal gowns and dresses. Head to toe images of models.

This reminded me of someone long ago paying for their daughter to get a modeling portfolio. The family had prints in different smaller sizes and had the negatives.

They were shot with 35mm film. This occurred 30 plus years ago.

For the money spent I wondered y it wasn’t done with medium format because there were head to toe portraits mixed with head shots. I am sure in retrospect it was all good enough for someone trying to get noticed for some modeling work. But the cost of the portfolio was not exactly small.

We looked at the full body portraits with an eye loop and saw eye lash detail.
We then looked at the negatives and the detail wasn’t there. It was inked in on the prints with a fine point.

This was probably a common practice? Perhaps if a quantity of such images were ordered a medium format camera could have been used for such shots.

Digital Resolution now far exceeds that of 35mm film.

When have we reached
“It’s Good Enough?” It depends on the intended use.
Click to expand...
when there so much time and money invested in post processing, especially sharpening and noise reduction it suggests that we are still in the ‘not good enough’ era.

i.e isn’t DXO sharpening and all of the AI tools akin to touching up the eyelashes by hand?

jj
 
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Bernard de Clairvaux said:
WilyKit said:
We have reached "it's good enough" at around 8mp, and by 10mp we have reached "it's definitely good enough". Any picture around 10mp (let's say 3660x2745 pixels) taken with a reasonably good lens looks totally sharp and wonderful from any reasonable viewing distance. If you get close enough to it that only a very small section of it is in your sharp field of view (which is only about 2 degrees) then you may "see pixels". But that's not how most pictures are meant to be viewed at all, and even then, it's not a terrible thing.
Click to expand...
Wily,
Agreed

But when someone bought a 4 or 500 dollar camera he didn’t necessarily think it took better pictures than a Pentax K1000.

A Nikon FM probably an extended range of shutter speeds, slower ones being electronically timed.

Perhaps the more expensive camera had more accurate shutter speeds.

The ability to take better pictures and enlarge more tied in to buying better lenses? Everyone didn’t buy a much better lens just in case 3 or 4 times a year they made an 8 X 10 or larger.

For a long time the mp race was how companies sold new cameras.

We have exhausted that.
Camera sales will never b like that again.

And the need for 80 or 100 mp cameras to allow for greater cropping possibilities combined with lessor reach.
Top of line camera maybe could go there.

Interesting times.

Best Regards,
Bernard
Click to expand...
Yeah actually even the cheap tiny Canon PowerShot S cameras had mechanical shutter. In S80 from 2005, which has 8mp, it's from 15s to 1/2000s. It's possible to get fantastic looking pictures even with these cameras.

People don't realize that with higher resolutions there's also worse sensor performance but not nearly as subtle as they imagine, it's actually much worse than they imagine, because it's not a "linear" difference. The overall "look" of the image can differ a lot. There's always a bunch of tradeoffs, it's not like a 61mp full-frame sensor gives an image that looks very similar to an image from a 24mp sensor from the same generation, it doesn't, there are differences in favor of the lower resolution sensor beyond what it may seem initially, EXCEPT the absolute "resolution", pixel-wise. So yeah, people who plan to crop a lot may benefit from the higher resolution sensor, but not always, and sometimes the opposite, because often a lower resolution segment with better tonal balance and much less noise which is focused especially at lower frequencies (dark areas) is much better. Even in abundant sunlight there's a huge difference in the dark areas, between the high and "low" resolution sensors.

Yeah now the focus is gonna stay mainly on AF performance, "AI", and reducing noise and increasing dynamic range. But it's all very slow compared to the old megapixel race. When global shutter with fine performance becomes widely available at a decent price, then I'll be really happy.
 
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jjbinx said:
Bernard de Clairvaux said:
In looking at a recent thread here, I saw an advertisement for bridal gowns and dresses. Head to toe images of models.

This reminded me of someone long ago paying for their daughter to get a modeling portfolio. The family had prints in different smaller sizes and had the negatives.

They were shot with 35mm film. This occurred 30 plus years ago.

For the money spent I wondered y it wasn’t done with medium format because there were head to toe portraits mixed with head shots. I am sure in retrospect it was all good enough for someone trying to get noticed for some modeling work. But the cost of the portfolio was not exactly small.

We looked at the full body portraits with an eye loop and saw eye lash detail.
We then looked at the negatives and the detail wasn’t there. It was inked in on the prints with a fine point.

This was probably a common practice? Perhaps if a quantity of such images were ordered a medium format camera could have been used for such shots.

Digital Resolution now far exceeds that of 35mm film.

When have we reached
“It’s Good Enough?” It depends on the intended use.
Click to expand...
when there so much time and money invested in post processing, especially sharpening and noise reduction it suggests that we are still in the ‘not good enough’ era.

i.e isn’t DXO sharpening and all of the AI tools akin to touching up the eyelashes by hand?

jj
Click to expand...
Yes, essentially same thing.

But now everybody can do this sort of post processing yourself at home. Without any risk of permanently destroying your negative :) . Makes DIY learning easy.

Whereas in the film days that was a service provided by professional labs, as it needed considerable retouching skills with a very fine pointed brush.

Here I found a video showing the simple art of spotting (removing the spots on a print caused by dust or scratches on the negative). Eyelid enhancing etc is similar, just harder and needs more experience with different techniques :) . You now understand, why professional quality prints in the film days were that expensive - there was lots of manual and skilled labor time involved.



With larger format negatives, retouching was done on the negative itself. That way one did the work once, and then could make many identical prints from it. But it is even harder to retouch negatives, needs lots of experience and a steady hand. Retouching the prints as in above video is almost trivial in comparison.

For those interested in history, here a video demonstration 19th century photography retouching techniques:
 
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Goonies and Cyndi Lauper, anyone? Ah, the good old days...

Anyway, that reminds me, a wise man once said: "Good enough is always good enough. Unless it's not. Then you need better."

For me and what I typically shoot, that means - usually - 16-20MP for stills. On some rare occasions, when I'm traveling and before something particularly incredible, I do fancy having more. But as I'm just a humble nobody, 16-20MP is usually good enough.

Oh, you were also interested in video? No? Of course not. Too bad, I'll tell you anyway. A whopping 2 MP (1920x1080) is usually plenty - as long as we're talking about the very good quality Lumix video codecs, not Olympus which just doesn't hold up as well. On some occasions, I will shoot 8MP (4k / 3840 x 2160) but my need for it fairly rare so it's usually for cases where I know I'll want to crop and reframe or maybe extract stills. Again, humble hobbyist thing, and although I do like nice video quality, I also like smaller file sizes.

What is good enough for me ... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ... Is it good enough for you?
 
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I am fine with 20-25 MP cameras for most of what I do.

I found the 12 MP sensors to be a bit low, since I do shoot birds and small things, and crop, not infrequently.

The 16MP sensors were ok in terms of resolution, and if they had been better with DR and fine tonal and color gradation/separation, I would not have been looking for "more" after using them. But they were limited in that department, and the 20MP sensors were a big step up....but camera sensor improvements have not been improving with leaps and bounds anymore, as technology has grown, so ongoing improvements in the existing (before OM1) 20MP department have been primarily through internal processing of the initial capture in camera, and, of course, more sophisticated software in PP.

The OM1 is a better sensor, but still only 20MP, and I think trying to get a higher MP sensor in M43 still ends up with the noise/DR compromise that brings output down. Panasonic has tried to work around that in their G9II body, but there really is some artifacting from their processing algorithms that pops up in some situations, that can be a bit unpleasant, so that's kind of a wall that the format may end up being stuck at.

However, I will tell you, in decent light, the output of the 20MP bodies (G100, G95) is damned good...and yeah, it is actually "good enough". I have a bunch of flower images from last year, taken with the 90mm OM macro on both the G100 and G95, yes at low ISO and in good light, and they are all I could want in terms of color, dimensionality, noise, etc. The lens, in that case, really enables the sensor to rise to the occasion. And, no, more resolution, with the compromises that come with it, would not be "good enough" in that case...certainly not better than what's available now in the format.

Now, given these limitations, if you want to work outside the optimal shooting envelope of the format, you might find a larger sensored body to be advantageous. I do, but even there I am fine with the 24 MP bodies. Higher MP in FF starts running you into, again, noise problems, and also, processing high MP files is a pain in the butt. Sure, if you want to shoot long, but not carry big lenses, you can use a high MP FF and a shorter lens and crop...but that starts getting you into diminishing returns territory, as you lose some performance (noise, DR) advantages of FF when you go to a high MP FF sensor, and the lenses are still big...so using a long M43 lens on a 20MP sensor turns out to be not such a bad idea, after all. :)

Anyway, everyone has their own "good enough" line that they bump up against. And I agree, pretty much every current interchangeable lens camera is an embarrassment of riches, capable of producing "good enough" work. And whether you need "more" or not to make you happy is just one of those individual things....

-J
 
I think it depends on subject matter and viewing conditions. Landscapes have fractal properties, so there is always colour separation detail finer than you can capture or display.

A 60Mpix Bayer CFA sensor has 15Mpix “blue”, 30Mpix “green” and 15 Mpix “red” pixels. Demosaicing reconstructs 60Mpix of RGB spatial information. If you compare landscapes between Foveon and Bayer sensors, it seems that demosaicing 60Mpix produces the same spatial colour information as about 28Mpix of RGB data.

I’d like to be able to view one quarter of a landscape on a 32” 4k screen from fairly close up, ie immersive. I’m a digital photographer!

That’s 8.3Mpix of RGB pixels x 4 = 33Mpix.

I find a 61Mpix sensor does the job OK. So, for the most demanding landscapes, 61Mpix is a good fit. What could Sony have been thinking!

Composing images at that scale is very different from using a lower resolution or smaller display medium, for example an A3 print. You need to make the whole image interesting at different scales and depth of field vs diffraction becomes quite a challenge. You also need to understand your lenses.

Of course there are many subjects for which 20Mpix is fine, even 16Mpix.



4a7de52c3fc24dadb58e9bb9db957e88.jpg



b74ea87d4512463096b4c204d8c2654c.jpg



793861f964ec474682bf3e8b0d763e22.jpg

Another challenge is that posting from an iPad works better for DPR because the images are downsized, but then you can’t post full size images. DPR really struggles with 60Mpix resolution.

Andrew

--
Infinite are the arguments of mages. Truth is a jewel with many facets. Ursula K LeGuin
Please feel free to edit any images that I post
 
I'm still holding onto my 2MP Oly 2040 compact f/1.8 lens from over 2 decades earlier. It's the only digital camera I kept when I sold all my mirrorless and aps-c compact cameras during lockdown.

559kb file size from my 2MP Oly C2040 compact f/1.8 lens. Released 2000. Photograph 2020.
559kb file size from my 2MP Oly C2040 compact f/1.8 lens. Released 2000. Photograph 2020.

When Gfx100 drops under £1K with warranty from camera retailer in around 5-7 years, I'm picking one up.

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.
 
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jalywol said:
I am fine with 20-25 MP cameras for most of what I do.

I think trying to get a higher MP sensor in M43 still ends up with the noise/DR compromise that brings output down.
Click to expand...
I think there's room for more MP. The pixel density in e.g. a Sony RX100 1" 20 MP sensor suggests to me that there's plenty of room to grow. The higher MP m43 sensors do actually exist, just not in any cameras we'd be buying.

jalywol said:
However, I will tell you, in decent light, the output of the 20MP bodies (G100, G95) is damned good...
Click to expand...
Absolutely!
 
Reminded me something, that makes an interesting story.

Back in my film days (early 80s) I just learned to handle a small manual RF camera. After some starter tips from my father, I got great shots. I just felt that I was talented at taking photographs.

Fast forward to late 80s and early 90s. There was a new crop of automated 1-hour printing services using some Konica machines. They were popular. I dropped off the roll, went for a coffee/snack, and came back to pick up the prints. I suddenly discovered that my prints were bad, and often worse.

Then I realized that the studio where they took a couple of days to develop and print my roll earlier were actually doing all the work to cover up my bad exposures.

As for resolution on digital cameras, the 24 to 25MP I've been getting since 2013 served me well, but I always desire for more and at the same time hate to process larger files. As s/w algorithms to upscale images get more sophisticated, that might become a moot point.
 
Satyaa said:
Reminded me something, that makes an interesting story.

Fast forward to late 80s and early 90s. There was a new crop of automated 1-hour printing services using some Konica machines. They were popular. I dropped off the roll, went for a coffee/snack, and came back to pick up the prints. I suddenly discovered that my prints were bad, and often worse.

Then I realized that the studio where they took a couple of days to develop and print my roll earlier were actually doing all the work to cover up my bad exposures.
Click to expand...
Satyaa,
Long ago I took my rolls to a local place that processed exposures accurately. One Lady did everything, and would write notes to me about getting good at composition /technique

To your point if I did enlargements she took care
and cropped as discussed.

But my colors were accurate. If I sent a negative to Kodak for
Christmas cards along with reference print, the cards were never right. If a Yankee or Met jacket was in card, colors were never right.
If a shirt had pin stripes, the cards were over exposed and detail almost washed out. Busy time of year and not giving a damn.

Pathmark had cheaper prints, but consensus was they never changed chemicals frequently enough, not giving great results.

Eventually printing machines had ability to “see the print” before it was printed. They could adjust for pictures taken under florescent lighting without wasting a print.

It was at this time that local commercial printing kinda died as people started using online services such as Shutterfly. Photo printers mostly disappeared. Not immediately but eventually. Digital had not completely taken over yet.

Best Regards,
Bernard
 
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jalywol said:
I am fine with 20-25 MP cameras for most of what I do.

I found the 12 MP sensors to be a bit low, since I do shoot birds and small things, and crop, not infrequently.

The 16MP sensors were ok in terms of resolution, and if they had been better with DR and fine tonal and color gradation/separation, I would not have been looking for "more" after using them. But they were limited in that department, and the 20MP sensors were a big step up....but camera sensor improvements have not been improving with leaps and bounds anymore, as technology has grown, so ongoing improvements in the existing (before OM1) 20MP department have been primarily through internal processing of the initial capture in camera, and, of course, more sophisticated software in PP.

The OM1 is a better sensor, but still only 20MP, and I think trying to get a higher MP sensor in M43 still ends up with the noise/DR compromise that brings output down. Panasonic has tried to work around that in their G9II body, but there really is some artifacting from their processing algorithms that pops up in some situations, that can be a bit unpleasant, so that's kind of a wall that the format may end up being stuck at.

However, I will tell you, in decent light, the output of the 20MP bodies (G100, G95) is damned good...and yeah, it is actually "good enough". I have a bunch of flower images from last year, taken with the 90mm OM macro on both the G100 and G95, yes at low ISO and in good light, and they are all I could want in terms of color, dimensionality, noise, etc. The lens, in that case, really enables the sensor to rise to the occasion. And, no, more resolution, with the compromises that come with it, would not be "good enough" in that case...certainly not better than what's available now in the format.

Now, given these limitations, if you want to work outside the optimal shooting envelope of the format, you might find a larger sensored body to be advantageous. I do, but even there I am fine with the 24 MP bodies. Higher MP in FF starts running you into, again, noise problems, and also, processing high MP files is a pain in the butt. Sure, if you want to shoot long, but not carry big lenses, you can use a high MP FF and a shorter lens and crop...but that starts getting you into diminishing returns territory, as you lose some performance (noise, DR) advantages of FF when you go to a high MP FF sensor, and the lenses are still big...so using a long M43 lens on a 20MP sensor turns out to be not such a bad idea, after all. :)

Anyway, everyone has their own "good enough" line that they bump up against. And I agree, pretty much every current interchangeable lens camera is an embarrassment of riches, capable of producing "good enough" work. And whether you need "more" or not to make you happy is just one of those individual things....

-J
Click to expand...
Jalywol,
I know what I’m gonna say is definitely influenced by same generation and lack there of, but an E1 had 5mp or so and one needed 20mp to get twice the resolution.

Diminishing returns. Definitely now as we have hit a wall in sensor development. So 25 vs 20 is negligible?

Best Regards,
Bernard
 
Bernard de Clairvaux said:
Jalywol,
I know what I’m gonna say is definitely influenced by same generation and lack there of, but an E1 had 5mp or so and one needed 20mp to get twice the resolution.

Diminishing returns. Definitely now as we have hit a wall in sensor development. So 25 vs 20 is negligible?
Click to expand...
Well, yes and no. If you crop in, you definitely will notice a difference between 20 and 25MP. It's not earth shaking, but it's definitely there. If you don't regularly crop, not so much.

I'm fine with pretty much anything in that range, though. Going up to 40 or 60 MP is just too much of a PITA to process, though, to gain reach in a FF setup via cropping. And, higher resolution in M43 land will end up sacrificing DR/increasing noise, at least with current levels of technology, so nah on that end for me, also.

-J
 
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