What is Digg?76 Comments
- NedreN, on 10/12/2007, -4/+52It's not that hard to change the domain to "duggmirror.com" rather than "digg.com" in your browser's address bar and hit enter.
http://duggmirror.com/design/13_Photo_Sizes_Compared_Megapixel_Chart_explains_the_Megapixel_Myth/ - theRIAA, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36"A 3 MP camera pretty much looks the same as a 6 MP camera, even when blown up to 12 x 18!"
then i odviously need a 12MP - captinherb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28Quick! We need more people to post links to the duggmirror!
- devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25I couldn't find the mirror! But here's a link to a comment where they link the mirror! Just in time, too!!
http://digg.com/design/13_Photo_Sizes_Compared_Megapixel_Chart_explains_the_Megapixel_Myth#c3354059 - devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Well, then you need to be getting a good camera, not just a high MP one. You need a good sensor with a good lens and good post-work if you want a professional level of quality. Digital SLRs are the way to go, too - versatility is more important than pixels by far.
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Quick, let's ask jawshy, addrake, jmcd37, nedren, and devildotcom to see if they have a duggmirror link!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18It seems we get a submission likethis once a month or so. I think we all know this by now.
But again, it doesn't take into account CROPPING. That is really the biggest benefit of higher megapixel cameras. IF you just want to get 4X6 prints made out of your camera and never plan on cropping, you can easily get by with a 2 Megapixel camera, maybe even a 1 Megapixel one. Getting a 3 Megapixel camera lets you crop a bit. 5 Megapixels lets your crop a lot more, and even change your mind about the orientation of a picture. Wanna chance a landscape picture to a portrait one? Just crop it to make it so. You will still be left with an image plenty good enough for a normal print. (I've done this with a 3 Megapixel image before and even that looks pretty good.)
If you are a "normal person" and never plan on making huge posters, you simply don't need more than 6 Megapixel. You are not going to get any real benefit from it. Unless you plan on cropping a picture so that just a tiny corner of the field is the final product, focus your money efforts on other features. - invader, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16> It's not that hard to change the domain to "duggmirror.com" rather than
>"digg.com" in your browser's address bar and hit enter.
it is for some people!! don't be hatin'.. maybe all he has is a mouse. no keyboard, just a mouse.. now what do you have to say for yourself? - evilpanda, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17"Pretty much the same" isn't the same as _the same_. If I can get any more detail I want that much more detail; it is never ok to be simply mediocre.
- donatj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Why doesn't digg just put a link next to the actual link "(mirror)"
- nroose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Hey people:
You probably know this, but...
Focus, light gathering ability, sensor size, sensor sensitivity, and camera software also make a difference.
If you get a portable camera with 7 MP and a tiny lens, you probably get a much worse image than if you have a 5 MP SLR camera with a big lens, especially if there is any motion in the scene.
As more cameras get more and more megapixels, this is going to matter more and more. - Nessguy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14In that case he just needs to copy and paste the letters one by one from other text. :P
- Suplyndmnd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@invader
Start/All Programs/Accessories/Accessibility/On Screen Keyboard
:) - xtr3m, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Damn! I was just about to buy a 39 MP version of Hasselblad H3D...
- InsaneShow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7While this is good information, it is important to remember that 7MP is basically the same 'resolution' as 400iso 35mm film. There are about seven million silver halide crystals on a 35mm piece of film.
- Surefoot, on 10/12/2007, -9/+16Anyone got a dugmirror link?
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The Megapixel race makes about as much sense as the GHz race.
Lets compare the Nikon D50/D70 (6.3MP) sensor to the Nikon Coolpix P4 (8.3MP)
pixel density = photon sites / surface area
D50/70:
= 6300000 pixels / 372mm2
= approximately 17 photon sites per square micro metre.
Coolpix P4:
= 8300000 pixels / 58mm2
= approximately 218 photon sites per square micro metre
So comparing these particular cameras, the DSLR pixels are over 12 times the size of the P&S camera!
Not all photon sites are created equal. Even a 4MP DSLR will outperform quality wise a 10MP P&S. It is not simply about the number of photon cells, but the accuracy of the measurments they make.
MP is little more than a selling tool, most 5+ MP P&S cameras simply are not matched with glass to take advantage of it, or have such strong noise reduction to smooth out the noise from the smaller photon cells that any quality benefit from having more is lost. - TonyCubed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5What I would like to see is a comparison of images for each MP, so we can see the quality difference.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5From the article: "Notice that as the print size doubles, the megapixels required increases exponentially."
Exponentially! That's overstating things a bit. Last I checked there was a big difference between n^2 and C^n. - emorphien, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Oh hell not another one of these megapixel myth sites. Yes, megapixels are drastly exaggerated in importance but at the same time they get so many things wrong and take their idea too far in the opposite direction. I can guarantee that at 12x18, a 3mp camera will not look at good as a 6 or 8 mp camera. But once you get above 6mp you see diminishing returns.
Obviously there's a heavy dependence on printing method and viewing distance and the intended purpose. What is photo quality exactly? Well it depends on the viewer, at 16x20 a more discerning viewer might demand medium or large format, or 16+ megapixels but often enough if printed well on various continuous tone printers such as a Durst Lambda, dye sub, etc then 8mp can easily accomplish an admirable print at those dimensions. - grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5errr, any professional photographer would prefer a D80 or 400D with a quality lens to a D200 or 30D with some slow piece of crap cheap lens. The investment is always the glass, flash and tripod. The colour and sharpness of an image has a lot more to do with the glass than the number of MP the sensor is able to manage.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://airbrushme.blogspot.com/2006/10/1-8-megapixel-comparison-photo-print.html
I've just uploaded an image I created to compare 1-8MP photos, as you can see from about 5MP it is hard to tell the difference between the photos (if you print it on your average 300dpi photo printer), this is a direct pixel-pixel comparison created from the same 8MP image so its not effected by using different cameras.
I use a 5MP camera myself mostly (and reguarly print A4), I have tried higher ones (& own a 8MP one also) but anything below $1000 is not worth it as they are just too slow to handle the higher resolution.
It is not the MP that makes the most difference, as others have said its the lenses, sensors etc. - plus some people just dont know how to take a good photo.
I would always advise to go with better quality lower MP camera, rather than a higher MP (in the same price range). - grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3At that sort of size, you are hardly sticking your nose against the photo. It is hanging on the wall so a much lower quality is acceptable. Most people do not realise that a DVD frame is under 0.5 MP.
6MP can handle around 20x30 when resized using appropriate software. Depending on what the photo subject matter, you could probably push to 24x36, but 8 - 10 MP would be preferable.
You are going to need to use resampling software unless you can find yourself a 78MP camera. - kumari82, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ok, looking the same on a computer doesn't mean the picture is so. Most monitors have an effective resolution of around 72dpi, compared to the 200-300dpi resolution that you need for printing. In other words, you may be able to blow it up on your monitor but that doesn't mean that you can print it out.
I realize that megapixels don't equal resolution, but megapixels feed resolution.
With that said, what's important in a camera is how the components balance one another. You can have all the megapixels in the world, but if you have a crappy lense and low color fidelity, then your pictures are going to look like junk.
And on a lot of the cheaper high megapixel cameras, they do. - krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -2/+5why is lakawak getting buried? everything he's said is true, and good points. however, the article ragging on best buy's fake imaging was better. the best buy mpx comparison chart makes it look like 3mpx is grainy as ***** at normal sizes.
- rob215, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3All of this converation makes my head spin. Here are some points that might be helpful:
1) I made a mistake on my page by using the word "exponentially". I meant "geometrically" and I corrected it. What's important to realize is that going from a 3MP to a 5MP camera is drastically better than going from 10MP to 12MP. Manufacturers would have you believe otherwise.
2) The chart uses the "photo quality" standard of 300ppi (pixels per inch) as a reference point for comparison. As Ken Rockwell states, "...a magazine like Arizona Highways simply does not accept images from digital cameras for publication since the quality is not good enough, even from 11 megapixel cameras, to print at 12 x 18."
3) The maximum size that YOU can print your 6 megapixel image is entirely up to YOU. Print it as big as you think it looks good. Subject matter, lighting, exposure, post processing, and printing media all play a role in "how big looks good".
4) Someone pointed out on the design215 page that billboards are only printed at 16 to 20dpi. That's about right. Billboards look horrible up close but they look great as you pass them in your car from 100 feet away.
5) Most people never make prints larger than 4x6 or 5x7. Think of the thousands of photo labs that crank out nothing but 4x6s all day. Given this fact, most people don't need anything more than a good 5MP camera.
6) Sensor size, optics, flash, and the camera electronics all play a part in the quality of the images you can produce. I could not produce professional images for my clients without professional tools. - invader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3judging a camera on it's resolution is like judging a car's speed by nothing but horsepower, ignoring torque, power-to-weight ratio, etc.
or the size of a house based solely on the number of bedrooms, ignoring square footage.
or a computer's speed based on the cpu clock speed, ignoring cpu cache, RAM, bus speed, etc..
though the article could have been written just as well by Captain Obvious himself, the chart is nice to have. - MedHead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3From the site:
"Don't be fooled by manufacturers' claims that say you can make 16" x 20" prints from an 8 megapixel camera. While you certainly can make a print that size, it will not be true photo quality."
What exactly is "true photo quality"? - dusanmal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Article also completely misses Foveon sensors that industry have "burried" although immensly better... Adding them into the picture one can realize that the size of the enlargement possible is not so much related to "pixelation" but to the total information amount available. I have made many high quality enlargements of 21x13 size from my 10.5MP Foveon based Sigma. From the experience I can say that for Foveon 10MP sensor going higher than 21x13 would introduce artefacts, etc. I agree with some posts mentioned that at such point you start to see overall optical quality of the camera (lens...) dominating the issue, but still you can notice that number of pixels is not everything. (PS Foveon has every pixel carrying all three colours information vs. traditional sensor where 4 pixels typically carry one blue, one red and two green "pieces of information").
- polyfrolic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Numbers junkies just throw their money away.
The comment about the Pro needing no more than 5MP. For professional work we did an analysis of out needs for our graphics company. We came up with EXACTLY the same number. 5MP is where you have decent quality. We chose a camera on low light image quality. Our final decision was a Canon 20D. An 8MP camera. this is good enough to print great A0 posters and we will be using it for the next decade.
If someone offered to swap our current 8MP for a 12 MP for free we would refuse. Quality does not come from MP and it just wastes your time on burst mode and your storage on the field, especially when shooting in raw... Don't you think 12-20MB files are big enough already?! For most print you don't need RAW unless you do a TON of postprocessing. RAW is good for Film, Slides, and HDTV.
I do have to disagree with the original article on some points. Working in and exact PPI is not a cheat when every print studio does it for every print job in every graphics and layout program. In fact it is NECESSARY. Which brings up my second point. Most magazines do not work in 300 DPI for their graphics. Well not around most of the world. They ask for submissions in 300 to give some wiggle room, but most layout is so slow, and 250 DPI is visually so close to 300 DPI, almost every image is resampled to 250. This may not be true for Vogue or Playboy, but I have never worked for a magazine that lives or dies off the images only.
The only things that are impossible to work with are Web graphics (like company logos on their web page), magazine scans (the plates they are printed off cause dots that cant be worked with), and CSI/Movie trickery.
The CSi/Movie thing is possibly the worst of the problems. The people that believe that to make a woman in the background with no lighting, out of focus, half her face obscured takes a few clicks of the mouse anywhere on the screen to bring her up for a brochure front page. And NO, it is not possible to remove the car from in front of the truck, and then turn the photo of the truck around so you can see the other side of the truck because the companies logo is printed on the other side... not without painting the truck from scratch which may take days of work from the highest payed staff member.
The funny thing is that in these threads it is always the amateurs who have never used the pro equipment who lecture the real Pros as to what equipment we should use. Trust me, you don't hire a wedding photographer based on his MP. If he is a good photographer he will have chosen the best and most suitable equipment for a great result. In fact I was a backup photographer at a wedding not long ago. I was on 8MP and the senior photographer was taking BETTER images on his 5MP, but that is why he was in charge. He had 20 years experience on me. - srg13, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'm probably getting a 10.1 MP DSLR. I want the 10 mp over the cheaper 6 mp model because the extra resolution is really handy if you want to crop small areas in the photo, or if you want to enlarge your photos up to A1 size.
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3of course if you stick the same lens on both cameras, the 30D will outperform, but the reasons for purchasing the more expensive bodies are durability and speed. The problem is that there is ~ US$600 difference between the body only price of 400D and 30D. That can go towards some very nice glass.
If money is no object, then of course you would take the 30D AND get the glass. Actually, you would probably go for a FF like a 1Ds MkII. But if have a budget of US$1500, you would be ill advised to take the 30D.
For PC folk without much experience in photography, that is like buying a US$500 video card for a computer with 256MB RAM. - nesibus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ok so you totally missed the point of what I was saying then, don't even know why you are reading this "boring" article to begin with...forgot about the ADHD in young people...should I use more colorful pictures next time to keep your attention so you don't keep digging down the post? ....let me bring it back down to a digg level then so you can understand...
meh. teh site is cool. now back to the wii article! - zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What I also think is when Digi cams were first started to come out they sure put out better picture quality for what mega pixel they had then.
Now mfg's are pushing SLR where big money is, they make lower quality point and shoot cameras. - nesibus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4....to also add to this. the site says..**At 150ppi, printed images will have visible pixels and details will look "fuzzy".....that is the biggest crock of $hit...we have printed 11x17 from 72dpi at local drag racing events....and the stuff looks fantastic, apperantly his printer blows ass.
- zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I want to print my pictures on D Sheets!!!! How much Mega pixel would I need!!
- aeiou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2mmmmmmmm..... Hassie
- DigitalCorpus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I wonder who else actually gets that. But, only under certain circumstances when you hit the sweet spot of a lense, you can make a 24 MP print from an 8 MP image. But you will only get an image like that in 1 out of like 1000 shots from those worth printing. That is unless you know your lenses well enough to take the pictures in the sweet spots.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@nesibus
Yes, you are right - the newer $1000+ 8MP+ cameras will be fast (as I said), I'm talking about cameras in the 5MP price range, if your spending maybe £200/$400 which is about the average an average users pays it is best to buy a better quality lower MP camera than one with a higher MP for the same price as many of the manufactures are just banging in higher MP sensors to suit the marketing as people think they are better.
As for the image, the lower MP ones do not have the extra detail, the images were not averaged when reducing, extra pixels were removed. - polyfrolic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You are right. Film grain does not scale well. Pixels scale nicely though. We would never think of scaling 35mm film scans more than 50%, though we were using a 2MP camera to do A4 prints until recently. In fact the Print studio next door still uses their 1.4MP Nikon as their only camera, and they scale nicely as well.
- polyfrolic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually you are wrong. You may be right if you wanted to print an A3 photo at home, but they don't sell A3 printers for the home market.
Canon sell professional printers to the print studios by printing low res images to prove what can be done with normal files. Now I have one complaint when a 4MP photo is printed at A0 size, but it is not that important when the image is viewed from a normal distance. All the people that have had prints printed at A0 from a 3 or 4 MP photo have never had anything but awe and gratitude when they have seen the result.
Most of the Pro equipment cant perform miracles, but they have software built in that automatically sharpens and removes pixillation. These guys know their printers and know how to make the software work well without any user input. - drunkjack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I say it every time this 'megapixel myth' comes up.
Most people, consumers, take ***** PICTURES. They can't frame, they don't use zoom, they just take poor pictures.
But, with software like Picasa(for basic fixes) and Photoshop, one can easily fix the problems. And most people realize they can't take great pictures, and often can figure out how to fix the problems. Most people KNOW a good picture, but taking them, in the moment, isn't all that easy.
And the more megapixels you have means you have more information to work with, less chance of cropping a picture into unprintability.
Not everyone is a pro at taking pictures.
But with photo editing software, mediocre pictures can be fixed.
And that's why I think a 4-5MP camera is a sweet spot for most people. Whenever someone asks I tell them anything more is kind of overkill. But it's not gonnna kill anyone if someone has a 6MP camara.
Plus, the detail that can be found on a 4-6MP camera is pretty neat. Just as a geek it's neat to see how far you can zoom in on these things before you see pixels. - animefx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2actually, not using a zoom is a good thing. prime lenses are much sharper and generally high quality than any zoom lens.
- polyfrolic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I forgot to add why layout artists like to work in lower resolutions. Have you ever tried keeping 100 pages of text and images open at the same time while being productive? Yes you can link files for a speed increase but the few people I know who do that never get a good result when sending images out of office because there are always dead links. More often than not they send the file and not one image is linked. Files this big are not emailed, ISPs have a fit when you ask to send emails of hundreds of MB. They are sent in the mail or via courier on disk. Which means on a tight deadline, broken links are more of a problem than any home user could imagine.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The system works!
- TortfeasorG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://www.photokina-show.com/0422/hasselblad/digitalcameras/digitalslrcamera/
- ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1300 ppi is the standard print resolution of offset printing because that is the maximum resoltion a 150 line screen can work with. Anything over 300 dpi is superfluous unless you use a 175 line screen. For most home users, 150 dpi would be acceptable output for a poster. It depends more on content than actual pixels for quality of print.
For example, if you have a picture with no hard contrasty edges like say a foggy morning, you could get away with 72 ppi for a poster with no loss in quality. Any soft blend can work at lower resolutions perfectly. However, when there are hard edges in the image, you will notice stair stepping of these edges in low resolution. Still, if you are doing a poster, the user looks at it from a further distance so 150 dpi is excellent quality.
Unless you are a pro, a 6 megapixel camera will be all anyone ever needs. - rob215, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I meant "Geometrically". Thanks for the alert, I fixed it.
- chillout, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4It's pretty rare my in camera shots are the exact shot I want to print. While the article has a point, the more megapixels the camera has the more room I have to crop the shot to get the exact image I want on paper.
- nesibus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2That is not accurate, you cannot scale down a picture and say its what smaller MP would look like. You are taking the detail of an 8mp image and going down to a 1mp, you cannot do that, because the information from the 8 is already there and a 1mp image would have never captured all that in the first place.
If you took the same picture with a 1mp camera it would look like a camera phone most likely cause it would have a cheap sensor and collect low amounts of pixel information.
Small MP is not scaling, 5mp can only capture 5million pixels of information, 8 megapixel is 3 million more, there is alot more information collected...color, detail, etc. The quality of sensor is also a HUGE factor..infact it makes the entire picture detail or not.
"the higher resolution cameras take more time processing the shots, and ofter need lower shutter speeds so catch more noise." That phrase not accurate, the lower end cameras can only support writing to a card so fast...the high end SLR's can handle for example...a SANDISK EXTREME III....the SLR will buffer tons of shots...and write them to the card in lightning speed if you have a high end CF card.
The Canon Rebel cannot handle writing fast...its a slow 6mp camera...the new Rebel XT can write just as fast as the 20D. You get what you pay for in Digital Cameras.
"ofter need lower shutter speeds so catch more noise"...I dunno where you got your information but that is way off also, The DIGIC II sensor in the 20D is one of the most clear of noise sensors in a camera, no non-slr camera will ever compare. Higher MP has nothing to do with shutter speed what so ever. -
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