D60, d30, ELPH!! who cares, it's the printer!!!

[D30man MI]

I work at ritz camera and we have the best printer you can use for digital files. Fuji Frontier 390. Most places buy a $10,000 dye-sub or somthing, and charge $8 for an 8x10 sheet, and the quality is yeah.. a bit better than the best home printers, but it's still using dyes or gas. Some so called professional printers even use INK!!! The prints we get come from the SAME printer as do our 35mm film, 35mm slides, 120mm etc output. The paper is REAL photo paper, which means it's exposed, No ink, dye, gas etc. So there are no ink dots, and it will last 80+yrs, not 8-20yrs.

I hate it when people come into my store, they have a 1.3mp, then they buy a 2.1mp, and 6 mo's later they want a 5mp!! They won't listen when I tell them it's their $99 printer!

I've gotten really good 8x10's out of my Canon Elph s100. (with a lot of light :)) i still use the 2 yr old examples when selling cameras.

People need to stop asking themselfs "how big can I print" but more-so "how big WILL I print"

On the right paper, after seeing 100's of my D30 pics, and 1000's of other pics from mosly point & shoot cameras, at a 4x6 size, they are very close. We do 1000's of digital photos a month, and we do about 100 5x7's, and MAYBE 10 8x10 on a good month. So what's the need for all these pixels???

Now I know some people are going to say I'm dead wrong, but lets put it this way, Ritz Camera has 3 Fuji 390's in over 1300 stores! Our store has one of the three, it really is the best, I've seen more pics printed out of a good printer than 95% of the readers on this forum. I know what i'm looking for, and I see it in 4x6's OFTEN.

I read a lot of people asking about more and more mega pixel. For what? what size are you going to print? I make some really, REALLY good 12"X18'' studio prints from my D30. No interp. needed.

Unless you make money useing a D60 in a studio, or love to spend a lot of money on HUGE prints that are going to be stacked up in a pile under your bed, you don't need a d60. Wait 'til the FPS it up to at least 4 like the Elan 7. Thats almost good enough for sports.

In 3 or 4 yrs the same number of people that have their own dark room, will be useing their home printers.
Regular photography didn't get popular 'til you could walk into a lab and have someone else do it for you. When the 2.1 mp camera drops below $200 people are going to need mass printing in 1hr. They don't want to cut out 300 photos from their disney trip. That is the time to get a higher MP camera.

I'm writing this mostly in responce to my fustration with customers who have WAY wrong idea about all this stuff. Hardly from people on here, but I know some of my customers read this forum, and hopfully i'll be backed up on this, and they will see where i'm coming from.

My 2 cents.

Dave

[soumya63]

Your entire comment is based on one assumption that everyone ends up in printing all the picture they shoot. Do you guys at Ritz camera always do Cibachrome of all your color transparency? Well I do not. I am happy with my projector. Similarly I view my D30 images on my monitor and burn them on CD to show them on HDTV. I have a Canon S800, and I only print my pictures when I want to give it to someone.

Moreover higher number of pixel not only allows you to get bigger prints but also allows you to crop your image and still get nice output. Presently I use Genuine Fractal to enlarge my cropped images to full size, but I would still prefer to get a higher resolution original and crop it to smaller usable size than to blow it up with Genuine Fractal.

The quality of each pixel matters than the quantity. I am not sure if you can say Elph and D30 / D60 are all equal in quality. It do matters. Newer Digital cameras are equipped with improved sensor, better firmware and faster RAM. Today whatever is state of art tomorrow it will be a piece of junk, thats the way of Digital Technology. Do anyone buy Pentium II or AMD K6 anymore. You would probably not even touch them even if you get it free. But Two years ago, they were the most priced processors. D60 is definitely superior than D30, but not enough to woo away a D30 user like me. I am still happy with my D30 capabilities. I will consider upgrade once I get a 1:1 sensor or a highly improved technology like Foveon fitted in a nice body like D30 or EOS1D. Moore's law is applicable for Digital Cameras. So I may not have to wait longer than a year, not enough time to save extra 5 grands ;) But everyones threshold is not same. Given an unlimited pocket, I would also like to have a D60 NOW.

[D30man MI]

It's based on the fact that most people do print their pics.

If they look at them on the computer then they don't really need more than 1024X768 which is about .79mp VERY VERY low. Even at 2.1 that's 1600X1200. I would guess most people don't have anything bigger than a 21" monitor, and you don't need a big monitor if you have a nice digi cam.

Is you HDTV more than 6mp?? I have no idea, but I'm guessing not.

And no, the elph isn't as good at the D-slr's but at a 4x6 really.... would most people notice the difference? No. People who are into this like we ar, they MIGHT but we are not most.

foveon hasn't been proved to be that good yet. and the only camera that has it is sigmas, and it has a 1.7x factor!! EUW! Would we have to wait even longer for a 1:1 foveon chip?

As far as digital zooming (or cropping) it's never as sharp as if you were closer. If you hack away half of a d60 image, i doubt you'd get d30 quality if the d30 was 50% closer to the subject. The autofocus can't focus as well when far away either.

I'm just waiting for the day where someone doesn't ask "how many MP?" Once they max out a 35mm chip, no one will ask, they will just know it's good. ANd that time is very near. If they double the D60 chip size, (close to 35mm) and they pack in 18mp (assuming you can get 9mp on the current chip) thats about all you can get. Of course they can't make the chip bigger than 1:1, or all the lenses would be wider. werid to think about.

Dave

[soumya63]

You are missing the point that pixel and Dot per inch are not same. To display an image on computer monitor the maximum dot per inch resolution needed is 72 so an image from a small sensor looks good on monitor, but try to print it on a printer :D

So, it is the printer which pushes the resolution requirement of the sensor.

Blowing up a picture causes more error and pixelation than scaling down. So you will get fantastic image on HDTV which is capable of showing 1920x1080. Remember the DVD movies you see on HDTV are recorded only on 720X360 resolution (Digital Videography is my other hobby). My Canon GL1 3CCD Video Camera produces good enough image to see on TV, but not good enough for any print.

Foveon is no new player in the market. They were catering to diffrent segment and now they are entering into Digital still camera market. Who knows this Silicon Valley based American company may soon give Japanese manufacturers a tough time. At least I will be happy to see superior sensors are available at more realistic price. 3 or 5 grands is lots of money in US and many parts of the world, D30 or D60 are beyond most photographers wildest dream. I wish Foveon and Sigma a great success.

Oh, by the way, no one will ever manufacture sensor size bigger than 1:1 for 35mm format camera cause that will render most lenses useless, not by making them wider but due to vignetting.

[Tom Brown]

For me, D-SLR is about flexability, superb color and detail, and I love and respect the equipment. The compact digitals are about convenience. I?ve gotten tons of shots with my S110 that I would never have gotten with an SLR. The S110 fits into my lifestyle most of the time.

I love the output from my Epson 785EXP. It?s still fairly new so I haven?t had any ink clogs. The Epson 30 year system is plenty good enough for me but I would definitely use a service for the odd shot if I could get equivalent or better quality to my Epson and longer print life.

As far as megapixels go, I agree that everyone seems way too focused on it. I believe it?s a factor but it?s no more important to me than lens quality, color accuracy, or any number of other things. If I read you correctly D30man, you are as annoyed as I am by people who run their check list and look at feature levels with complete disregard to the quality of work they can do with a product.


Regards,

Tom Brown

[paul alford]

I agree as well. I was always amused that I could get a 20x24 out of my 3.25MP, D30, and folks with their 5MP E20 were mad they couldnt. There are many other factors involved... you cant go by just the MP number

Paul

[Foreside PhotoGraphics]

Hi Dave,

I won't attempt to address ALL the issues in your post; however there is one thing that you've overlooked with regards to MP ratings-

Having a camera with more MPs is like using a slower (lower ASA/ISO) film in a conventional camera.

An 8x10 print made from Kodachrome 25 will ALWAYS look sharper, have smoother gradations in tone and better definitions of colors than Ektachrome 400. The reason- smaller grain in the emulsion (to capture/describe the detail).

The very same concept applies to digital sensors. The more pixels (photo sites) on a sensor, the more pixels that can describe the detail of a scene.

If you shoot a group photo (many small faces in a single frame) with a 3 MP camera, (D30) and then shoot the same group with a D60 (6MP), upon making an 8x10 from both, you will see better definition and detail in the D60 8x10. (more MPs allocated to define each face in the shot).

So you see, there is more to MPs then sheer maximum print size; it is also a higher quality image, even at smaller print sizes.

Oh, and BTW, could you show me a link to the info you posted regarding the 80 year archival rating of conventional wet process prints? I've been looking to present hard evidence to people regarding just that point, in an effort to prove that the 200 year archival rating of the Epson 2000P inkjet printer was light years ahead of conventional photographic processes.

Cheers-

Gary Shepard

[D30man MI]

More pixels does NOT mean better picture. If you are useing a big enough chip, then what you said is right, but take a look at the Nikon 5000, or the Minolta 7, or the Sony 707. They all have 5mp, but all use a very small chip. They are much noiser than a 3mp. Now your ISO theory is wrong.

Canon S30 allows you to go up to ISO 800
Canon S40 allows you to go up to ISO 400 because more pixels in a small space is bad. it means all the senors on the CCD have to be a tad smaller, hince not reading the light as well as a bigger sensor.

D30 ISO 1600
D60 ISO 1000 less because more pixels make it more noisy. If the chip size on the D60 was twice as big they what you said would be correct. But it's not, so for most things, as my examples show, more pixels always makes for a more noisy print. Get out there and read any review site.

As far as the ink jet printers go, maybe we at ritz camera should stop spending $300,000 on a printer that's not as good? I don't think so. Spill a cut of water on the print, gone, on a photo, you can whipe it off. Dots are not as good as photons. They arn't as accurate as light, (exposeing the paper). I've said it before, and i'll say it again, the TONAL RANGE needs to inprove.
...on 35mm film whatever color hits the neg, that's what color will be printed. whereas on digital, it has to pick the color blue, out of 256 shades of blue. same for red, and green. that's your 16million colors. (256*256*256) you divide that by something and that makes it 24bit, or 36bit or somthing like that. BUT ANYWAY... film isn't limited by 16,000,000 colors. WHATEVER the film sees, is what will come out.

Same with a wet process. We're printing digital here, why go through 2 steps of limitations? 1st by taking the print, and they relying on an ink jet printer to try to mix the ink into 256 shades of red green and blue? Whereas the light reflected on the paper will be so much more accurate.

We have people drive for up to an hr to print their pics on this machine. Their film 35mm and 120mm negs. They are pros and have never seen such quality. If the ink jet was better, then i guess they should scan in their negs, limiting all the colors to 16million, ONLY 256 shades of color, and then printing them on that ink jet printer?

No way!

Ink jet... BOOOO.

Wet prosses from the Fuji 390, good. Don't knock it 'til you try it. They are rare! there is also a 370 printer out there that will do the same. Fuji makes a pixtography machine or somthing like that, those SUCK!!! make sure it's a frontier 370/390.

Dave

[Foreside PhotoGraphics]

Dave-

Sorry, my friend, but you are wrong. More pixels describe the scene better; more photo sites equals more information, period. That is why the D60 files are 18MB, and the D30 are 8.9MB. More data, plain and simple.

I currently own a D30 and a D60. I have taken the same scene and shot it with both bodies, using the same lens. I then made an 8x12" print on an Epson 1280 printer using Premium glossy photo paper. The increase in detail was immediately evident on the D60 print. On a 16x20", it would be even more pronounced.

Why do you think Canon created the D60, anyway? (I noticed that you said YOU had one on order). It's practically the same camera as the D30, with one major feature change-double the pixels on the same size sensor. The fact that it can make a larger print than the D30 (without software interpolation) is certainly a nice plus; but what I believe they are striving for is higher image quality. I assume from your "handle", you own a D30. If this is correct, why are YOU buying a D60?

As far as your reasoning regarding noise in smaller pixels, I suggest you read Phil Askey's excellent review of the D60 in www.dpreview.com.

In it he states that "Having now removed the element of JPEG artifacts from the test we can see that both the D30 and D60 manage to maintain relatively low noise levels all the way through the available ISO sensitivities. Our measurements reveal the D60 to have lower noise levels compared to the D30, however a visual comparison shows that in effect the differences are hardly noticeable. The fact that Canon's engineers have managed to slightly reduce noise levels while effectively halving the photosite size is an impressive achievement. One thing I'm still curious about however is why the D60 doesn't support ISO 1600, it's clear that noise levels wouldn't have been too bad at that setting."

How can this be true if, as you claim, smaller pixels equal more noise?

Regarding your opinions on inkjet printers, I get the feeling that you are somewhat biased, and your feelings are not based on knowing all the facts.

For example, you stated "Spill a cut of water on the print, gone, on a photo, you can whipe it off." The truth is, if I make a print with my Epson C80 pigment ink printer ($180.), you can spill as much water on it as you want; pigment ink won't run.

(Spill water on a glossy photograph and maybe the colors won't run, but the surface will never look quite the same after it dries. I know, I've tried).

I have worked in professional photo labs printing all types of color materials. All color prints are a compromise - they have an even smaller latitude than slides or negatives. Even the $200. Cibachromes we made for top professionals had to have a contrast mask made on special film and sandwiched to the slide before printing; otherwise the resulting ciba wouldn't match the original chrome. I have no doubt that your customers love their prints; however that doesn't mean that the prints you are making for them on your $300k printer are capturing all the information on their negatives or slides.

Here are some facts:

B&W film: at best 10 f/stops from from D-Min to D-Max.

Color negative: at best 7 f/stops from D-Min to D-Max.

Color Slide: at best 5 f/stops from D-Min to D-Max.

CCD / CMOS sensors: at best, similar to color slide film's latitude.

Typical photolab wet process printer: same, or (more often than not), less than slide film.

Dave, I can make a print for you on my Epson 1280 printer, which I GUARANTEE you cannot tell apart from a wet process print. Have you ever seen a print from a Canon S800 printer in their Pro glossy paper? Talk about stunning!

Oh, and I'm still waiting for your source to that 80 year wet process archival claim you made in your previous post.

I don't expect that I'll change your opinion on anything; I just thought you might want to have some real facts presented in this thread.

We'll just agree to disagree-

Cheers

Gary Shepard
Foreside Photographics

[BobbyC]

All I can say is I took some file to Ritz and the pics came out blurry, the files were not. I was told it was a wet process, but don't know what machine they used.

The prints from my epson 1270 were VERY sharp, the prints from Ritz were actually blurry.

I have yet to have a film print or digital print from any local retail outlet that even comes close to looking as good as my 1270 prints. My Clients also agree and that's who matters to me.

Can't explain why and I'm not saying there isn't anyone out there who can print as well, but I haven't found them yet.

I do get good prints from EZ Prints though.

[CJMORGAN59]

On one hand Dave, if the Elph would do the job, then I probably wouldn't be thinking about a D60.

On the other hand, having worked behind a camera store counter myself for a half a decade (it was eons ago) I can well appreciate that the guy who sees things day in and day out is listened to by the wisest of customers.

And we'll go the extra distance for those folks. Won't we?

CJ

[D30man MI]

I really think we arn't hearing what we are saying. I own an S800 Canon, VERY GOOD, I've seen pics from your epson, VERY VERY GOOD, but our machine blows the S800 away, almost (i'm honest) evey time.

As for bobby, sorry about your bad pics at Ritz but if you don't live in MI for CA, we don't have 390 in those states.

I did read the DP review, and it was right by being amazed on how canon did keep the noise down, because it's a fact that it does get grainier when you increase senors w/o inlarging the ccd/cmos. They prob pumped up the software. And why else would canon lower the ISO? I did read it, and how are they to know it would be good at ISO 1600? They don't make chips, they've never seen a 6mp at ISO 1600, they just test (and very well i will admit) cameras.

If I was useing the Kodak 16mp and only wanted a wallet size i wouldn't use all the pixels, i would shrink it down to a 2.5" by 3.5" and if printing in a high-quality mag for example, i would only need 300dpi.

The kodak is a 4000X4000 CCD. devide 4000 by 300 and that's the print size you can make at 300 dpi. 4000/300=13.3.

So they could print a 13x13'' print in a mag.

I DO understand what you are saying, and I'm fustrated by the fact that I'm agreeing with you more than 95%. But there are some basic facts that are being over looked.

All i can say is, I've tested almost all the cameras out there myself. Yes you get more detail on a higher MP but the limit is really on your DPI. If it's over kill, then you don't really need 6MP. If it's exposted, there arn't any DPI, you get it all. On your computer screen you only see .8mp to 2.5mp anyway, so you have to ZOOM in like crazy to see much difference on the cyber-space end.

I ask my customers, would they really want to cut out 300 pics from their disney vacation?

I bought my D60 only because I sold my D30 on ebay for $1500, and I bought the D60 for $1700, i mean.. why not?

For the most part, people really do print 4x6's. And since digital is thought of as "not as good" people feel a need to have them feel like prints from 35mm neg. I get people in all the time saying they want to buy a camera, I ask them, film or digital, and they say things like, "digital is stupid, it's a waste, i want real pics, i want good quality".

I do like you indepth responces!! I don't log on with the mind set i'm the teacher, I've learned a lot on here, and wanted to get some mixed feedback with this post, to see what other pros think. I'm dealing with fact that only 2% of my customers are REALLY REALLY good photographers. I have to sell canon elph's all day long and only move a D-slr once in about 2 or 3 months. Although that will increase more now with the $2000 price tag.

Take care,

Dave

[greatfallsmt]

Thanks for the fat to chew on. I'm in the market for a D-60, but it's going to take a hefty dent out of my wallet. So you guys are helping me ponder this very seriously.

I want the most quality photos I can get as soon as I can get them. I want to print them at will. And I want the insurance of knowing that, whatever printer they output on, I have the quality of the digital file.

I relate this argument to coffee. I can go to a cafe that serves up the best in town. Or I can get cheap diner coffee, if I'm happy with that. But to get coffee regularly, right away, I can make a really good cup of coffee with the investment of a good coffee maker, grinder and some premium beans. Right at home.

Being a coffee addict, I opt for the latter option.

If I make an Epson print of my 5 mp photo and it is an award-winning photo, I'll send it off to Ritz. But it'll be good enough to hang on my wall in the meantime. If I take a photo that would've been award-winning if only it had more resolution... then I'll be truly disappointed.

Another point that I think is significant... it's FUN to play with photos on my computer and print them out. It shocks and amazes my friends.