Great debate on whether you really need 24.6 megapixels

I thought you may be interested to read a really informative and wide-ranging discussion / debate about whether amateur photographers really need the 24.6 megapixels offered by the Sony A900. This discussion is still in progress here:

http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/sony-a900-do-you-really-need-246-megapixels_topic49214.html

Some of the topics that have been discussed are:

Are A900 owners really making full use of the high megapixel count, for example, by making large 40-inch wide prints or by viewing their images on large LCD screens?

Are photographers aware that large prints can still be made from A900 images that have been quite heavily cropped? Are photographers cropping images too much and not paying sufficient attention to framing the pictures when they are taken?

Does a 24 megapixel camera really help a truly artistic photographer to obtain better images? Is too much attention paid to the number of megapixels a camera has, instead of concentrating on capturing artistic images?

Would the images of past master photographers have been improved if they had used a 24 megapixel camera?

Because of the high price tag of full frame cameras, is now the right time to upgrade to them? Are the advantages that you obtain from full frame cameras worth the money you have to pay to get them? Is there some “snobbery” attached to owning an expensive full frame camera?

Regards
Rob
http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Sony-A900.html
(Examples of the outstanding resolution of images from the Sony A900)

For me, the high resolution was icing on the cake. What I wanted, and what it took for me to make the jump from film to digital(aside from my aging P&S), is the convergence of all of the following features in one body:

• Full Frame

• DOF Preview

• Mirror lockup

• 100% VF

• Flash sync connector

• Compatibility with the fine Minolta A-mount glass I've acquired over the years

• Image stabilization that works with my lenses

• Memory locations for custom settings

• Better than 3 FPS

Bonuses that sealed the deal:

• 24.6 MP

• AF Micro adjustment

The last item seems like a no-brainer that should be offered on any DSLR... Honestly, I didn't know I wanted it until I saw that it was available on a body that I wanted for other reasons.

The DOF and MLU were features that I sorely missed on my trusty 7000i/8000i bodies; I soldiered on without them but resolved to never buy an SLR without those features again. The FF and Sync were on my list from the beginning, the others were added as the state-of-the--art advanced.

As I see it, technology will continue to advance to the point where one day we might be looking at 50 megapixels in a FF camera - and then we'll be asking the same question - does an amateur really need 50 megapixels?

I simply believe that the A900 has positioned itself in the dslr camera chronology as being a camera that is future proofed - because of its VF, SSS, user interface, build quality, and finally its 24mp. Because, shouldn't 24mp be enough for an amateur when we arrive at 50mp FF cameras?

dw73 wrote:

As I see it, technology will continue to advance to the point where one day we might be looking at 50 megapixels in a FF camera - and then we'll be asking the same question - does an amateur really need 50 megapixels?

I simply believe that the A900 has positioned itself in the dslr camera chronology as being a camera that is future proofed - because of its VF, SSS, user interface, build quality, and finally its 24mp. Because, shouldn't 24mp be enough for an amateur when we arrive at 50mp FF cameras?

I think we might have already arrived at 50 megapixels.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/07/hasselblad-introduces-the-50-megapixel-h3dii-50/

I think the cropping advantage of 50 megapixels would be fantastic, imagine getting a quality 30-inch wide print from just a very small part of an image!

You may even get better results than shown on this page!

http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Sumatran-Tiger.html

Regards
Rob

The 50mp Hassy has twice the sensor size as a FF camera so it has the same pitch as a 24/25mp FF cameras.

Dave_Anderson wrote:

For me, the high resolution was icing on the cake. What I wanted, and what it took for me to make the jump from film to digital(aside from my aging P&S), is the convergence of all of the following features in one body:

• Full Frame

• DOF Preview

• Mirror lockup

• 100% VF

• Flash sync connector

• Compatibility with the fine Minolta A-mount glass I've acquired over the years

• Image stabilization that works with my lenses

• Memory locations for custom settings

• Better than 3 FPS

Bonuses that sealed the deal:

• 24.6 MP

• AF Micro adjustment

The last item seems like a no-brainer that should be offered on any DSLR... Honestly, I didn't know I wanted it until I saw that it was available on a body that I wanted for other reasons.

The DOF and MLU were features that I sorely missed on my trusty 7000i/8000i bodies; I soldiered on without them but resolved to never buy an SLR without those features again. The FF and Sync were on my list from the beginning, the others were added as the state-of-the--art advanced.

I agree that the combination of the above factors certainly makes the A900 an attractive proposition!

In one of my replies on the Dyxum forum, I tried to summarise why I was benefiting from the A900's 24.6 megapixel count, I said this:

"Thanks very much for confirming what I have found myself, namely that “mind-blowing” high quality large prints can be obtained from the Sony A900’s images. At 150 pixels per inch, you get a print that is 40.32 inches wide, 41.6% larger, all things being equal, than you can get from the 12 megapixel Sony A700. If I owned the A700, this factor alone would be sufficient reason for me to decide to upgrade to the A900. It brings pictures to life in a way that is simply remarkable.

Incidentally, the fact that you can print at way below 300 ppi and still get a great result from A900 images, needs to be emphasised because quite a few internet articles say that you need to print at 300 ppi to get the best results.

And of course the ability to crop out say, 50% of the width and 50% of the height of a picture and still get a great 20 inch wide print is a huge advantage of having 24.6 megapixels. This cropping advantage should not be underestimated. You may think that you’ll never gain much advantage from cropping, but it gives you a huge amount of freedom to produce different versions of the same print, all of which give you an excellent print size.

I was asked if I could give a few more examples of how the 24.6 megapixel count is benefiting me, in comparison with a lower megapixel count of say, 10 or 12 megapixels. I have mentioned this before, but it’s not only a 40 inch print that I love looking at, it’s also the huge sharp image on a big LCD screen. Imagine looking at huge images on a 52 inch LCD screen and being able to zoom in and read the writing on buildings or signposts that are a long way away from the camera. Or even being able to recognise people in a picture when you can hardly see them in pictures taken by lower megapixel count cameras. I use the Playstation 3 to view images on a TV screen and I zoom in and out using a games controller. When you zoom in to the maximum extent with A900 images and get even a small part of an image filling the whole screen, you can’t imagine how much more life is injected into a slide show than can be achieved with images from lower megapixel count cameras.

You mention above that: “The sheer image quality that the A900 provides (when paired up with lenses like the CZ 85mm or CZ 135mm) when printing large, is not matched anywhere in dslr-dom….”

This is a huge factor in itself, and your view on this not only matches my experience with the A900, but it is also referred to in the DPR review of the Sony A900, which says that the A900 has excellent out of camera results with superb tonality, dynamic range and colour. Now what more could you ask? This “sheer image quality” as you put it, is probably reason enough on its own for an enthusiastic amateur photographer to upgrade to the Sony A900.

Incidentally, the A900 itself is a ruggedly built camera with heaps of extremely useful features that I haven’t experienced with other cameras. Some of these alone would be justification for upgrading to the Sony A900, but I won’t go into these because it goes beyond the theme of this thread, which is, do you really need 24.6 megapixels!

Now I realise that, to get the above advantages there is a fairly hefty price tag. Because I am a very enthusiastic amateur photographer, the price was well worth it to me, and without question the best photographic dollars I have ever spent! I can fully understand, however, and respect the views of other people who say that the above advantages, to them, are simply not worth the amount you have to pay to get them. And I know my friends respect my viewpoint on cars, which is that, although I would really like to own one, I simply don’t think it’s worth the hefty price tag to upgrade my nice little modern car to the latest BMW saloon!

Regards
Rob
http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Sony-A900.html

p.s. Does anyone else use Playstation 3 for viewing their images. The zoom function on the games controller is most useful, as mentioned above.

Robsphoto wrote:

Dave_Anderson wrote:

For me, the high resolution was icing on the cake. What I wanted, and what it took for me to make the jump from film to digital(aside from my aging P&S), is the convergence of all of the following features in one body:

• Full Frame

• DOF Preview

• Mirror lockup

• 100% VF

• Flash sync connector

• Compatibility with the fine Minolta A-mount glass I've acquired over the years

• Image stabilization that works with my lenses

• Memory locations for custom settings

• Better than 3 FPS

Bonuses that sealed the deal:

• 24.6 MP

• AF Micro adjustment

The last item seems like a no-brainer that should be offered on any DSLR... Honestly, I didn't know I wanted it until I saw that it was available on a body that I wanted for other reasons.

The DOF and MLU were features that I sorely missed on my trusty 7000i/8000i bodies; I soldiered on without them but resolved to never buy an SLR without those features again. The FF and Sync were on my list from the beginning, the others were added as the state-of-the--art advanced.

I agree that the combination of the above factors certainly makes the A900 an attractive proposition!

In one of my replies on the Dyxum forum, I tried to summarise why I was benefiting from the A900's 24.6 megapixel count, I said this:

I saw your other posts, and I'm glad you're thrilled with your results, whatever your reasons. I spent some years working for NEC and Minolta in the 90's, testing color printers, benchmarking the engines and testing firmware and software, so I am well aware of how higher-resolution, better-quality images lead to more printing options and better prints(in the right hands).

The extra resolution is certainly a benefit IMHO, and the fact that you can elect to use lower resolutions may benefit many.

I'm familiar enough with digital workflow that I should be able to get up to speed quickly. I already built a computer a bit over a year ago(pre-i7) with video editing in mind, quad core 3.0, 4G, 2.5TB RAID, GTS8800 @ 1080p on a 24" monitor so file size won't be much of a hindrance for me.

p.s. Does anyone else use Playstation 3 for viewing their images. The zoom function on the games controller is most useful, as mentioned above.

Not so much, because my 5MP P&S writes to mini-CD which the PS3 doesn't like. I do have 750+ pics from my trip to India that I copied on there via USB HDD, but it's more convenient to use the computer. I do have a 60GB PS3(with a CF reader built-in, and it's now a 250GB PS3 ), so I will definitely check this out -- I have a 42" 1080p monitor connected via HDMI so it will be interesting to see how images render, PS3 vs off-camera via HDMI.

Here's a pretty good article called Do you really need an Alpha 900?

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/10/16/do-you-really-need-an-alpha-900/

I think part of the pull if full frame, and not simply megapixels on it's own.

FF is appealing to many, esp getting back to the "normal" focal lengths, and DOF etc.

As for resolution, IMO the numbers may appeal to some who make massive prints, but I suspect few do really need 24mp on it's own. Too much is made of cropping, yes useful at times, but suggesting you need more res for cropping alone, I would start to question the logic of such a comment. You crop if needed, but I would not make a habit of being lazy and reliant on it.

Back to numbers, IQ is, and has always been a lot more than just res. Tonality and hues colour responses etc, are very very important, sadly not talked about enough either.

A900 looks very nice, but if you gave me the buy price in cash, I would not get one. FF is too pricey at the moment.

Possibly 24mp is an over kill, however it was not the primary reason for my purchase. I decided on the a900 for the simple reasons of

1 affordability relative to other FF offerings
2 availability of AF Zeiss glass

3 simple layout of controls and large display of menu items (useful when I have my glasses off)
4 The fantastic viewfinder

The other benefits have been

Plenty of overhead in resolution to enable selective cropping if needed. The use of SSS on all lenses, not specific lenses like in other systems. And above all... I actually like using the system, love the output, marvel at the quality of the lenses.

Very happy overall and could quite possibly settle on this body / lens combination for a very long time.

Barry Fitzgerald wrote:

I think part of the pull if full frame, and not simply megapixels on it's own.

FF is appealing to many, esp getting back to the "normal" focal lengths, and DOF etc.

As for resolution, IMO the numbers may appeal to some who make massive prints, but I suspect few do really need 24mp on it's own. Too much is made of cropping, yes useful at times, but suggesting you need more res for cropping alone, I would start to question the logic of such a comment. You crop if needed, but I would not make a habit of being lazy and reliant on it.

Back to numbers, IQ is, and has always been a lot more than just res. Tonality and hues colour responses etc, are very very important, sadly not talked about enough either.

A900 looks very nice, but if you gave me the buy price in cash, I would not get one. FF is too pricey at the moment.

With regard to cropping, I found this article to be very interesting:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/und-crop.shtml

One benefit of cropping is that you can zoom in and get a lot closer view without the need to use an extra long telephoto lens. This can also overcome the so-called "crop factor" disadvantage of a full frame camera and give you at least the equivalent view of a photo taken with the same lens by an APS-C two-thirds sensor camera.

For example, if you crop an A900 image taken with a focal length of 300mm so that it represents the same view as you would get if you used this same lens on the Sony A700 camera (that is, 450mm with a crop factor of 1.5), then even though the A900 image has been cropped, I think you would get as good (if not better) a quality image as the uncropped 450mm image taken by the A700. Would anyone like to confirm that this is likely to be the case?

Another example can be seen in this photograph:

http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Sumatran-Tiger.html

In the above image, half the width and half the height of this 300mm focal length image was cropped out, so that a lot closer shot of the tiger could be displayed. To get the equivalent of the first photograph on the above page without cropping, you would probably need to use a 600mm lens. That might be OK for a professional photographer, but for amateur use and hand held photography, I use the Sony 70-300 mm G SSM lens.

When you crop in the manner shown in the above image, this is not "lazy picture-taking", because I couldn't get a closer pic of the tiger with the 300mm lens I was using at the time. Neither could I get any closer to the tiger in this instance without jumping into his enclosure!

So despite the fact that a heavy crop was made with the A900 image, I still got a really good 20 inch wide print. With the A700, all things being equal, I would have got only a 14 inch wide image.

To me, this example illustrates how valuable cropping can be and how good it is to have a camera that has 24.6 megapixels, rather than, say, 12 megapixels.

Regards
Rob

Robsphoto wrote:

To me, this example illustrates how valuable cropping can be and how good it is to have a camera that has 24.6 megapixels, rather than, say, 12 megapixels.

Sure you can show examples where cropping is useful. But I cannot agree cropping is an "art". Over a period of time I have come to dislike many articles on the LL site..some very good ones, and some that simply make something out of nothing.

This is one such case. It depends a lot on your subject, I do crop..but avoid it if possible, esp for landscapes..most cropping I do is for print aspect ratios and not making a composition on the pc. I prefer to make that, behind the camera.

We all work in different ways..I like the more hands on photo side of it, some like the post stuff.

Regardless, you can still crop most double digit res cameras, and still get decent print sizes, not sure it's making a case for 24mp on it's own.

Barry Fitzgerald wrote:

Sure you can show examples where cropping is useful. But I cannot agree cropping is an "art". Over a period of time I have come to dislike many articles on the LL site..some very good ones, and some that simply make something out of nothing.

This is one such case. It depends a lot on your subject, I do crop..but avoid it if possible, esp for landscapes..most cropping I do is for print aspect ratios and not making a composition on the pc. I prefer to make that, behind the camera.

This is just a general comment about cropping not directed at Barry.

Is the 35mm (3:2) aspect ratio a crop of the 6x6 frame? Or, is the 6x6 a crop of the 35mm frame? Or, are they both crops of the 8x10 and 4x5 frames? How about 6x7? Which one is it a crop of or are the others crops of the 6x7? It is all so confusing!!! How about 4/3? Oh, it is such a can of worms worrying about photography "rules"! Makes my head hurt. Which one of these is the "true" aspect ratio that all photos should conform to???? For those inclined, maybe Jesus, Buddha, Allah, et al will enlighten us. For others, maybe astrophysics will someday provide the cosmic answer.

Until the "truth" is revealed I am not going to worry about it. There is nothing sacred about the particular aspect ratio that the hardware imposes. If you want a square image but your camera doesn't produce it then crop. Vice versa. Let your imagination be your guide as to how, when, or if to crop. That is my opinion.

Graham Best wrote:

Rob,

I visited your site. You have some fine images of a truly beautiful country. While I'm happy with the US, New Zealand would be my top choice as an alternate.

As far as printing in general, and specifically printing large images, I don't agree with some of the statements offered on your site ( http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Determining-Print-Size-Of-Digital-Images.html ).

You don't mention what device you use to output your photos. I'm going to assume an ink-jet printer, as that is the most popular. All ink-jet printers have a native resolution. In the case of Epson pro printers, and I believe most all Epson printers, that's 360 dpi. Anything else is interpolated up or down to the native resolution.

You may be happy with 40"+ prints from the A900, but at the native resolution (of Epson printers), you're looking at a print size of 11.2" x 16.8". I'm sure printing on canvas or other textured media will allow much greater leeway in what's "acceptable", but I think 40" may be pushing things a bit for a single A900 frame with any detail involved.

Jeff Schewe authored a pretty informative article on printing for Digital PhotoPro magazine you might find interesting. http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/software-technique/the-art-of-the-up-res.html

Thanks very much Graham for your comments. Yes, at present, I have a really good Epson photo printer which uses Epson ultrachrome inks, so perhaps much of the credit for being able to get excellent large quality prints should go to this printer. Thanks for the reference to Jeff Schewe’s article, it is well worth reading.

Several other Sony A900 owners have also reported they get excellent quality prints in the 30 inch – 40 inch range. I would be grateful if other Sony A900 owners could tell us if they have tried making prints in this range, and whether they are satisfied with the results.

Although 40 inches may be getting near the upper limit (because it is printed at 150 pixels per inch) even at this size, I can see no discernible pixelation or loss of detail. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case, when you get up to 40 inches you can see with clarity things in the print that were hard to make out at smaller print sizes.

For example, have a look at the 100% crop of this wide angle image:

http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Wellington-City-2.html

It actually takes quite a big enlargement before you start to see the detail shown in the 100% crop on the above page!

However, a lot depends on the quality / clarity of the original image, and if the original image is slightly blurred, then a much smaller print would probably be appropriate.

I found this article to be of interest:

http://www.have-camera-will-travel.com/field_reports/the_300_dpi_print_myth.html?4974d460

On the web page you referred to:

http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Determining-Print-Size-Of-Digital-Images.html

I concluded that, it seems desirable to use at least 150 ppi, and possibly as high as 200 ppi, to get good quality prints from digital images. In these circumstances, the maximum usable print width for images from the Sony A900, is somewhere between 30 inches and 40 inches.

Note that some people have reported that, after processing A900 images in programs such as "Genuine Fractals", you can get quality prints that are a lot larger than 40 inches in width, but I haven't tried this program. If someone has experience with using this program, perhaps you could comment on the issues referred to above.

Regards
Rob
http://www.robsphotography.co.nz

Henry Richardson wrote:

Barry Fitzgerald wrote:

Sure you can show examples where cropping is useful. But I cannot agree cropping is an "art". Over a period of time I have come to dislike many articles on the LL site..some very good ones, and some that simply make something out of nothing.

This is one such case. It depends a lot on your subject, I do crop..but avoid it if possible, esp for landscapes..most cropping I do is for print aspect ratios and not making a composition on the pc. I prefer to make that, behind the camera.

This is just a general comment about cropping not directed at Barry.

Is the 35mm (3:2) aspect ratio a crop of the 6x6 frame? Or, is the 6x6 a crop of the 35mm frame? Or, are they both crops of the 8x10 and 4x5 frames? How about 6x7? Which one is it a crop of or are the others crops of the 6x7? It is all so confusing!!! How about 4/3? Oh, it is such a can of worms worrying about photography "rules"! Makes my head hurt. Which one of these is the "true" aspect ratio that all photos should conform to???? For those inclined, maybe Jesus, Buddha, Allah, et al will enlighten us. For others, maybe astrophysics will someday provide the cosmic answer.

Until the "truth" is revealed I am not going to worry about it. There is nothing sacred about the particular aspect ratio that the hardware imposes. If you want a square image but your camera doesn't produce it then crop. Vice versa. Let your imagination be your guide as to how, when, or if to crop. That is my opinion.

I know you didn't direct it to me, but a quick example

I used to have a really bad habit, I frequently got wonky horizons. My solution was rather simple, I simply took the time to get it right at capture. I could of course crop and adjust the image (and it will be cropped if I adjust the horizon), on my pc

I think it makes sense to not make mistakes.

Not that cropping is bad..it's not, just don't really need to read some article trying to make it out as an art form in it's own right, it's not, just a handy tool to use as and when needed.