Camera Labs

From what I have read as long as you take a clear picture. you can pretty much blow it up to 10x8 or bigger with an 5mp camera.

I would like to here from you guys and girls opinion on this

Thanks a lot and can't wait to hear.

Hi Jordan,

There's an excellent tutorial on this subject called Understanding Digital Pixels: PPI, Dithering and Print Size (click the link to see it) at the CambridgeInColour site. It includes a handy table which suggests that a 5MP sensor can reasonably be used for 9.1" x 6.1" prints at 300dpi and 13.7" x 9.1" prints at 200dpi. If those print sizes are good for you then it looks like 5MP is too.

Bob.

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Well more mega pixels doesn't mean better quality, just bigger size. So if you don't need to make huge prints (most poeple don't) 5mp is probably just fine.

I agree many of us probably have more Megapixels than we need *most* of the time, but remember having more allows you to crop into the image and still be left with a reasonable amount to make a nice print.

If you rarely crop though, you can get by with relatively few. The 6 Mpixel sensor on the Nikon D40 for example produces really nice results...

And of course the other downside to having more megapixels is the corresponding increase in noise levels and reduction in dynamic range... although it's not always that clean-cut, as modern sensors often make more efficient use of their surface area than older models...

I've got a d40 on the way and 6mp is all I would ever need because I just keep them in my Library and put some on flickr and my resolution is only 1440x900 so there's no need for 6mp+ xD

The biggest print i would print is probably 9x12, would a 6mp work for this size prints?


Thanks for the post.

Opps on my last reply, didn't see Bob Andersson post.

What is a Dpi, like 300dpi or 200dpi. Hope this is not a stupid question

Thanks for the help.

It refers to dots per inch and can be used to measure print quality.

A typical photo print from a lab has 300dpi. So anything lower will look a little less smooth.

Note that inkjets use different technologies though, so when they say 1000 dpi, it's not comparable.

Megapixels is for wimps. Take a look at this!

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

Seriously - I have been taking macromosaics of butterflies, and when you can zoom into your image right down to the individual scales on the wings - it's absolutely fantastic. You can then of course print these images out (at a fairly large size!) - and the resulting image is extraordinary. Stand some distance away and it looks just like a nice big image of a butterfly. But what's odd - is that you can walk right up to the image, get out a magnifying glass - and see the butterfly in incredible detail (like looking down a microscope).

So if you're interested in this sort of photography pixels (up to Gigapixels) matter.

Greg

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Hi guys.
Interested in gigapixel pictures?
Check this out:
http://www.gigapxl.org

Liron

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For me the pixels help if you are making the picture larger because if you have a 5 pixel camera when you enlarge to the extent the picture you will see that the picture will be pixelated.

A higher megapixel count also gives you more freedom in cropping.

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Graham
Flickr