pixels and size of print? HELP

[moscow mule]

hello
i am currently setting up a royalty free stock photo library, and collecting together the required kit. being that im just starting i dont have such a huge budget, and have been a die hard SLR fan for years but must upgrade to a digital SLR, which iam quite excited about. i understand that they come with varing megapixels and the higher the number the higher the quality, but if im creating work for repro ready artwork, i need to know that if i want to print work to A3, how many mega pixels do i need for a high res 300dpi image, and what will the quality be like? The reason is that im very interested in the cannon EOS 10D which has 6.3 Megapixels But also the EOS 1-Ds which is massivily times more expensive, but may have the quality of image. Basically If i take a picture with x amount of megapixels what sort of quality am i looking at when sent to repro, therefore is it necessary to spend more on the EOS 1-Ds, And if anyone is selling one at a knockdown rate, i would be very interseted or if you know of another camera, what would you recommend?

[Webster]

As a very general rule of thumb, you can equate 6 MP pictures to 35mm pictures, and 11-12 MP pictures with medium format pictures. Pictures from the Canon 10D that are printed at A3 size are acceptable to some, but not to others. There are so many factors involved other than pixel count that this has to be understood as a gross ofersimplification, but 35mm folks who start using the 10d in general (but not always) tend to use their 35mm cameras less and less. In the same light, there are a whole lot of medium format professionals who are selling off their film cameras and taking up the 1Ds.

[w10d]

moscow mule wrote:
hello
i am currently setting up a royalty free stock photo library,

If you're looking for help from Pro's, it may be better not to mention that; to quote from a recent survey of Professional Photographers in the US:

'On the other hand,Â*Â*those already in the stock photography field are feeling pressure and loss of work from the growing royalty-free market.Â*Â*The feelings were almost unanimous concerning royalty-free images.Â*Â*It is ruining the business for everyone.Â*Â*Photographers who shoot for these companies are considered sell outs and are shooting themselves in the foot.'

Me. I don't shoot stock, but it seems obvious that RF will soon start to suffer from the Law of Diminishing Returns.

I heard of an Ad agency AD on a shoot telling the photographer that they no longer commission Lifestyle, 'RF has got so good, my clients insist I use it - I don't know how photographers can have been so stupid'

Oh well.

[moscow mule]

Thank you for your comments, they are most helpful. as part of the library im looking to enlist the help of university students as a platform to give them advetisment for the future. having only left university a year ago i know its increasing difficulty to find work on leaving due to that we are now in a visual age and the number of creatives is on a huge increase. I realise that the royalty free is on a growing market and has to be thinly spread over a massive number, but i would also like to publish the work of students to get their names and talent out. So it is more of a youth driven market that im hopeing to aim for, away from the buisness, lifestyle and family portraits and more into the experimental, crazyness and emotional.

[w10d]

moscow mule wrote:
im looking to enlist the help of university students as a platform to give them advetisment for the future.

Sounds like a nice idea on paper, but I don't think anyone buying RF will notice the photographer's name, let alone be interested in it. I'm sure students will be happy to take your money, but it still leaves them without an income in the future.

moscow mule wrote:
i know its increasing difficulty to find work on leaving due to that we are now in a visual age and the number of creatives is on a huge increase.

We've been in a 'visual age' for a long time: the problems we all face come from (1), recession in the advertising industry (which had started before 9/11), it's had a severe impact on editorial, as magazines are largely funded by ads. (2) Bottom end of the market clients (those most likely to use an ex-student) deciding to buy a digital camera, because the results should be 'good enough'. (3) The rise of RF - Some friends of mine have shot for libraries for years, and their income from this investment is plummeting.

BTW, RF is only a growing market for the consummer, for individual photographer's it is already shrinking....

moscow mule wrote:
So it is more of a youth driven market that im hopeing to aim for, away from the buisness, lifestyle and family portraits and more into the experimental, crazyness and emotional.

The most popular RF images are 'generic': Businessmen, phone answering, smiling faces, etc. Designers have so many commercial uses for them. In a way it will be a shame if a library such as yours succeeds - experimental, highly personal images seem to be one area where libraries and commissions were safe from RF.

Can't say I blame you for wanting to kill this particular goose.

[Jesper]

moscow mule wrote:
hello
...i need to know that if i want to print work to A3, how many mega pixels do i need for a high res 300dpi image, and what will the quality be like?...

That's easy to compute. A3 format is 297 by 420 millimeters. An inch is 25.4 millimeters. 300 pixels per inch = 300 / 25.4 = 11.8 pixels per millimeter. So you will need an image of 297 x 11.8 by 420 x 11.8 pixels = approx. 3508 by 4960 pixels = 17.4 megapixels.

You can make perfectly good, great quality A3 prints with the 10D even though it's "only" 6.3 megapixels. You don't really need 300 dpi to make great prints of that size.

[bnpndxtr]

Jesper wrote:
moscow mule wrote:
hello
...i need to know that if i want to print work to A3, how many mega pixels do i need for a high res 300dpi image, and what will the quality be like?...

That's easy to compute. A3 format is 297 by 420 millimeters. An inch is 25.4 millimeters. 300 pixels per inch = 300 / 25.4 = 11.8 pixels per millimeter. So you will need an image of 297 x 11.8 by 420 x 11.8 pixels = approx. 3508 by 4960 pixels = 17.4 megapixels.

You can make perfectly good, great quality A3 prints with the 10D even though it's "only" 6.3 megapixels. You don't really need 300 dpi to make great prints of that size.


You can also oversample to hide the pixelation. Of course you don't gain detail by doing this, but you at least drive the pixels into the noise.

Brian