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5mp versus traditional slr's

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rickart

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I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this interest?

So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5 mp and the other traditional slr"?

I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
 
Hope this helps, answers your question indirectly:

Using my UZ, I made a panorama with final dimensions = 3mp. I interpolated up to make an 8 x 14 picture printed at costco (printed as 11x14 and trimmed). Due to absence of grain and sharpness, I believe this is at least as good as a 35mm print.
 
Short answer is, with my 5050 I can get 8x10 prints that beat most of what I can get from my Nikon SLR (an 8008) (I can also get 8.5x11 borerless prints from my printer, BTW).

I think a lot of people will say that at this point film is still inherently superior to digital in terms of absolute quality. The main reasons I disagree are (i) instant feedback - with digital, you can see what you did wrong and retake the shot in most cases, and (ii) the creative control you have over the photo. Get Adobe Photoshop Elements and a decent photo printer and you basically have a color darkroom. Doing it yourself, you can usually beat the results that a film lab would give you. Of course, with (ii) you could also get these results from scanning a film photograph, but then you are relying on the lab to process your film correctly in the first place.

BTW, even though I love my 5050 if I were starting over again right now I'd be looking seriously at the Canon dRebel. Since your wife is already an SLR user she might find it preferable.
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
 
Unda Covalava said:
Hope this helps, answers your question indirectly:

Using my UZ, I made a panorama with final dimensions = 3mp. I
interpolated up to make an 8 x 14 picture printed at costco
(printed as 11x14 and trimmed). Due to absence of grain and
sharpness, I believe this is at least as good as a 35mm print.
Click to expand...
If you feel the end product is quality, then thats exactly what I want to hear. thanks
 
Pov said:
I think a lot of people will say that at this point film is still
inherently superior to digital in terms of absolute quality. The
main reasons I disagree are (i) instant feedback - with digital,
you can see what you did wrong and retake the shot in most cases,
and (ii) the creative control you have over the photo. Get Adobe
Photoshop Elements and a decent photo printer and you basically
have a color darkroom. Doing it yourself, you can usually beat the
results that a film lab would give you. Of course, with (ii) you
could also get these results from scanning a film photograph, but
then you are relying on the lab to process your film correctly in
the first place.

BTW, even though I love my 5050 if I were starting over again right
now I'd be looking seriously at the Canon dRebel. Since your wife
is already an SLR user she might find it preferable.
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Thanks Pov. I would love it if she'd get the dRebel, but alas she is too thrifty for that kind of money. At the moment anyways. We keep some play money to ourselves and I'm pretty sure I'll go with the c-5060. I'm just hoping to get her more interested. I have only recently picked up photography and I went digital right from the start and so don't have any particular loyalty to slr's, digital or otherwise.. Of course I still want impressive results though.
 
rickart said:
Pov said:
I think a lot of people will say that at this point film is still
inherently superior to digital in terms of absolute quality. The
main reasons I disagree are (i) instant feedback - with digital,
you can see what you did wrong and retake the shot in most cases,
and (ii) the creative control you have over the photo. Get Adobe
Photoshop Elements and a decent photo printer and you basically
have a color darkroom. Doing it yourself, you can usually beat the
results that a film lab would give you. Of course, with (ii) you
could also get these results from scanning a film photograph, but
then you are relying on the lab to process your film correctly in
the first place.

BTW, even though I love my 5050 if I were starting over again right
now I'd be looking seriously at the Canon dRebel. Since your wife
is already an SLR user she might find it preferable.
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Thanks Pov. I would love it if she'd get the dRebel, but alas she
is too thrifty for that kind of money. At the moment anyways. We
keep some play money to ourselves and I'm pretty sure I'll go with
the c-5060. I'm just hoping to get her more interested. I have
only recently picked up photography and I went digital right from
the start and so don't have any particular loyalty to slr's,
digital or otherwise.. Of course I still want impressive results
though.
Click to expand...
 
Personally, I can't speak for 5mp cameras, but with my C4040Z (4mp) I can definitively say that the results I get (8x10 size) both printed on an Epson C980 printer and processed by EZprints.com are superior to the results I would get from my previous SLR a Canon A1.

I've had EZprints print enlargements up to 20x24. While the 20x24 shows some grain (probably should call it pixelation) it is more than acceptable if you don't look at the print from close (under a couple of feet) up. The 16x20's that I've had printed are also superior to the 16x20 prints that I've had printed from 35mm negatives. This includes better sharpness, contrast, and color definition.

The control that you have from digital (post processing) makes the choice a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned

Hope this helps...
Ray Palleschi
C4040Z
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
 
Rickart, convince her to go digital; neither of you will regret it!

A large number of members here and on the other DPR forums are 'recovering' 35mm SLR users, including myself. Pros as well as amateurs are increasingly going digital as current technology is capable of producing high quality results.

I have gotten some excellent 8x10 prints out of my HP 7150, from both my 2.1 mp C-2100UZ; 3mp C-3000Z; and 4 mp E-10 Olys.

It is a very different process and does require a little learning, but if I can do it, almost anyone can!! :)

Get her a good digicam and don't look back!

****:)

--
http://www.pbase.com/richardr
E-10&C-2100UZ&C-3000Z&D-380&Fuji2600Z
PBase Supporter
 
I think she'd be happy with the prints from a 5MP camera at 8x10, but I think the bigger question is will she be happy without a true throught the lens viewfinder and real zoom and manual focus rings.
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
 
Hi rickart,
rickart said:
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
Click to expand...
A good 5MP can easily give high quality 8x10s that can rival traditional SLRs, but the thing to keep in mind is that it can not do it in all the situations that your SLR can. With landscapes, for example, that show a lot of fine detail from here to infinity, a well-taken SLR shot may win out. I say may because even here, I think you'd need to go larger than 8x10 to really see it. Or in the case of low light shooting, where a given 5MP camera may not have a wide enough aperture to avoid having to go to higher, more noisy ISOs. Or fast action shooting, where you may not be able to take the shot with your digital at all.

Another difference I notice between many (most) digital cameras and their film counterparts is that digital images often show higher color saturation, although this can be adjusted.

The other thing to keep in mind is that unless you are doing your own darkroom work, you don't have a chance to personally screw up your print with a film SLR after you've taken the shot. This is not true with digital, where many people, at least initially, end up overprocessing their images. Severe oversharpening, for example, can ruin what had started out as a good shot.

Just a few thoughts on the subject. I certainly would not be discouraged about getting a 3MP digicam for 8x10s.

Regards,
--
Brian
Digital Image Gallery:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/spiritmist/MasterWebGalleryAllCameras/index.htm
 
I am a pro with 20+ years of experience in several film formats. I review cameras and I am very picky (I and my coleagues evaluate sharpness with a 2,5 x loupe).

When talking about regular film lenses (not pro ones), and people who shoot in full program modes, good digital will beat 35 mm film in probably all cases. You should have top pro film lenses (costing typically each over 1000 Euros) to make "film" prints in real life that are as sharp as GOOD 5/6 MPixel digital ones.

I regularily make 20x30 cm prints from my 5 MPixel. I even make 20x30 cm prints from my 4 MPixel backup camera when they are almost perfectly shot (the best aperture for my camera and light).

Furthermore, when you take your film to the digital minilab, they scan them prior to the printing. I know of only one lab that supports scanning larger than 2000x3000 pixels. 2000x3000 is the same hight as 5 MPixel camera produces (1920 pixels) but with 2:30 instead of 3:4. And they rarely scan that big since it takes much more time than to scan in smaller sizes. To make it as sharp as digital pic (Nyquist frequency) film should be scanned with 2 times larger resolution than that (in practice 1,5 is OK).

With c-5050, when the picture is perfectly made (good light, f4 or f5,6), godd subject, I have made a 20x30 cm prints that looks very good even in perfect light with the 2,5 loupe, and in normal lightning, it will look perfect even to the pro photographer. Only a experienced pro photographer will be able to tell that 20x30 cm print from the good digital 5 PMixel is not perfect. To mostl viewers (except experienced pros), even 30x40 cm from close distances in normal light looks great (but is not, same as from 35 mm film).

To the experienced eye, prints from home color photo printers never comes close to the minilab printed ones (different printing technology enables minilab prints to looka same as film ones we are accustomed to).
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
 
asdf said:
When talking about regular film lenses (not pro ones), and people
who shoot in full program modes, good digital will beat 35 mm film
in probably all cases. You should have top pro film lenses (costing
typically each over 1000 Euros) to make "film" prints in real life
that are as sharp as GOOD 5/6 MPixel digital ones.

I regularily make 20x30 cm prints from my 5 MPixel. I even make
20x30 cm prints from my 4 MPixel backup camera when they are almost
perfectly shot (the best aperture for my camera and light).

Furthermore, when you take your film to the digital minilab, they
scan them prior to the printing. I know of only one lab that
supports scanning larger than 2000x3000 pixels. 2000x3000 is the
same hight as 5 MPixel camera produces (1920 pixels) but with 2:30
instead of 3:4. And they rarely scan that big since it takes much
more time than to scan in smaller sizes. To make it as sharp as
digital pic (Nyquist frequency) film should be scanned with 2 times
larger resolution than that (in practice 1,5 is OK).

With c-5050, when the picture is perfectly made (good light, f4 or
f5,6), godd subject, I have made a 20x30 cm prints that looks very
good even in perfect light with the 2,5 loupe, and in normal
lightning, it will look perfect even to the pro photographer. Only
a experienced pro photographer will be able to tell that 20x30 cm
print from the good digital 5 PMixel is not perfect. To mostl
viewers (except experienced pros), even 30x40 cm from close
distances in normal light looks great (but is not, same as from 35
mm film).

To the experienced eye, prints from home color photo printers never
comes close to the minilab printed ones (different printing
technology enables minilab prints to looka same as film ones we are
accustomed to).
rickart said:
I am hoping to buy the c-5060 in the near future. Currently, I'm
using a 2 megapixel canon and my wife uses a minolta slr. The slr
broke recently and I am trying to convince my wife that she'd be
happy with the prints from a 5 megapixel camera. Of course I
support her spending the money to get her slr fixed, but I also saw
the first real hint of interest in digital, when I showed her a
c-5060 at a camera store. Wondering if I should encourage this
interest?
So my question to all you olympus afficianadoes out there is " is
there any noticable difference between two 8x10 prints, one being 5
mp and the other traditional slr"?
I am looking for a sense of presence/ life in my photography and
yes, I know this maybe makes the question purely subjective. But
all the same please let me know your thoughts.

P.S I've noticed how loyal everyone can be to their own particular
models ( c5050 v.s c5060 debate) so rather than basic functions and
ease of use I'd rather know if people are getting 8x10 prints to
rival traditional slrs.

appreciate any thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Thankyou everyone for your opinions . I know the question was somewhat subjective but I did heard what I wanted. It sounds like everyone enjoys their 5mp 8x10 prints and feel confident about the quality. I know my wife will be pleased with the functionality of digital.
thanks, Rick
 
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