How many Megapixels is enough?

[Schroder]

How many megapixels is enough for the field that you are in? I am a Pro Wedding photographer and feel that anything over the current 6.3MP of the 10D is overkill for weddings. Maybe just maybe 8MP would be OK, but anything over that to me would just be too much of a hassle to handle in post editing (600 images per wedding). What do you think?

Louis Schroder
http://www.Digital-Photography-Forums.com

[Webster]

I would think that the formal shots - the ones that would be shot using medium format - could use an even higher density than 8MP. Perhaps even as high as 16MP. It's kind of hard to say, since mathematical comparisons do not necessarily correspond with what we observe. Doing the math lead people to predict that 10BP would be needed to match 35mm film. But anyone who switched from film to D60/10D knows full well that these cameras produce better pictures than the film equivalent.

For anything you'd use a 35mm camera for, I think 6MP is good enough.

[lightandlife]

When IBM PC was first introduced around 1985 (perhaps earlier), 20 or 40MB hard disk was thought to be an overkill. I am quite sure that many experts were debating what size hard disk would be "sufficient."

Might we not expect a gradual increase in Megapixels in digital pictures as well?

[DaveG]

I think that we will see an increase in MP over the next while. I would even expect a pro camera in five years to be somewhere around 20-25 MP.

I'm also not sure if anyone will be able to tell the difference at that size. It'll be like stereos: You can hear six, you own seven and they're trying to sell you eight!

But there will be other features that ad writers can hang their "we are the best for ..." on. Perhaps dynamic range or some such. All I know is when you can make a 20X24 that looks like it came from an RB67, then the MP argument is over.

[lightandlife]

Dave, that is a good point.

When Canon digital cameras produce 20 Mb pixels, all the medium format cameras, if not the large, will bite dust?

With increasing Mega pixels, what is the advantage of the medium and large format cameras? I smell blood, a lot.

[cubfan]

schroder,
I do weddings professsionally on a part time basis and have owned a D30,D60, and 2 10D's. All are adequate for weddings. I have made 16x20's that rival my mamiya 645's. I remember talking to professionals(a couple of years ago) using D30s for weddings and they were very happy up to 11x14 size pictures. I made many 8x10's with the D30 and they were 35 mm film quality. So, the 10D and D60 are great and you really don't need more megapixels in my opinion unless you take tiny croppings and blow them way up. Focusing errors and lack of a full size sensor are the two main weaknesses with my 10D's. I use them anyway in spite of this and produce very nice wedding pictures. I shoot about 150 digitals at a wedding and 150 film pictures. I edit the digitals to about 75. They are especially nice for time exposures and I do a lot of PS manipulation with them....clients love the sepia,bw,montages etc...good luck to you

[Schroder]

Some of you guys missed my point. Hard Drive storage is one thing, but Picture quality is another ballgame. Hard Drives can never be big enough, but would you want to shoot 100MP files at a wedding?

My point is that for weddings there is definetly a line where you do not need to cross in order to get the job done extremely well. The 6 to 8 MP range seems to be more than enough to satisfy 99.999% of all the print sizes you will be making for wedding clients.

Of course if we are talking product photography in a controlled studio enviorment than 6-8MP may not be enough and the more MP's may be the merrier.

What about Newspaper Sports Photography, do they need 14 MP resolutions? Probably not.

Louis Schroder
http://www.Digital-Photography-Forums.com

[boobops]

My take on the MP limit for DSLR would be a max out at about 16Mp. Why, simply after this point even "L" series lenses will be the limiting factor.

Oh, that's for a full frame sensor

[Webster]

Once we get above somewhere around 25MP then digital zoom will become a meaningful term. If you could set your "zoom" so that you always got at least 6MP, then it would make sense to crop in the camera when the conditions were right. When we get up to around 50MP zoom lenses may well become a thing of the past, as prime lenses with digital zoom will probably produce better pictures.

[boBquincy]

*As an estimate*, probably 99+% of the printers sold can print up to 8x10. Out of the remaining 1%, 13x19 is probably the largest print available for most of them. This pretty well covers the prosumer group (and no, I don't care for that word either). ;)

When we have enough MP to print a really good 13x19 then prosumer cameras will probably reach a plateau in MP. 6MP may already be enough, when I get my 10D I will see how much better it is for 13x19 than my D30 (13x19 is really pushing it for 3MP but they do look good).

In the meantime, when we shoot without a camera support (as most of us do most of the time) we are probably only kidding ourselves when we ask for more resolution.

Real pros, those who don't blink at paying $7K for a camera, will continue to push for more MP, and will get it.


boB