L, M1, M2, M3 S? What is Canon smoking?

[aab1]

Why in the world are the qualities on my Canon listed as L, M1, M2, M3, S?

Even the manual doesnt tell you how many megapixels each mode is, I actually had to do the math to figure out the MP of each setting.

What in the world is Canon smoking? This is probably by far the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen a manufacturer do.

 

[Graystar]

Who thinks is terms of megapixels? I go by resolution. Most of my shots are at L. Anything for the web is done at S. M2 is my screen resolution so if I ever want to shoot a new background image I’ll use that.

What they really should have provided is resolutions at printers’ ratios, such as 4:5 for 4X5, 8X10 or 16X20 prints, 2:3 for 4x6 prints, maybe some others. I think picking resolution by print size would be useful. But by megapixels? That doesn’t mean much to me.

But considering that L, M1-3, S,and postcard are the same ratio, I would say that all but L is pretty useless.

 

[aab1]

Who thinks is terms of megapixels?

Doesn't everyone? I do. All cameras are rated in MP.

But considering that L, M1-3, S,and postcard are the same ratio, I
would say that all but L is pretty useless.

My A630 is set at M2, ever since I had digicams above 3MP I have maintained my shooting res at 3MP, anything more is a waste of storage for me, plus you can zoom to 6.4x with no quality loss at M2 on the A630. At L your maximum zoom with no quality loss is limited to the optical 4x, the 6.4x zoom is more useful to me than 8MP (yes, I could shoot at 8MP and then crop the center 3MP, but why waste hours and storage space doing that when the camera can do it for me?).

 

[Sean Nelson]

Why in the world are the qualities on my Canon listed as L, M1, M2,
M3, S?

For most people, the number of horizontal and vertical pixels are more important than the overall number of pixels in the image. When you choose one of these modes the LCD shows you the pixel dimensions (ie, "3072 x 2304"). That's the way I prefer it.

 

[aab1]

For most people, the number of horizontal and vertical pixels are
more important than the overall number of pixels in the image.
When you choose one of these modes the LCD shows you the pixel
dimensions (ie, "3072 x 2304"). That's the way I prefer it.

I know it lists the resoltuion in ????x???? but that's still no reason to use ridiculous made up letter combinations rather than showing 1MP, 3MP, 5MP, 8MP.

I just think it's ridiculous having to get out a calculator to figure out which setting is 3MP for example (and I really did have to take out a calculator, how else was I suposed to find the 3MP mode? Even the manual doesn't tell you the MP anywhere).

 

[Sean Nelson]

...how else was I suposed to find the 3MP
mode?

I guess the question I have is: why do you need to find a "3MP" mode in the first place? What's the significance of an image having 3 million pixels? It says nothing about how much space it will take on the memory card, and it's very difficult to figure out from "3MP' what the picture dimensions will be.

For example, if I plan to print a picture with a resolution 100 dots per inch, then it's really easy for me to see that a picture with 1600 x 1200 pixels can be printed at up to 16 x 12 inches. Likewise, I can easily tell that such a picture will more than fill my 1280 x 1024 computer monitor. The fact that such a picture is about "2MP" really doesn't tell me anything useful.

I'd wager that telling you my TV set displays "2MP' wouldn't mean very much to you, but saying it had 1920 x 1080 pixels would probably make it much easier to understand.

Despite the fact that "MP" seems to have become a handy marketing spec for digital cameras, I really don't see the usefulness of the term as far as selecting a picture resolution goes.

 

[tocar]

I agree, resolution is more informative than an overall mp rating. LCD screens are rated at resolutions and not megapix.