Number of Megapixels too hyped?

[smittymike19]

Ok I am NOT trying to start a flame war, but I am just coming to this really bad conclusion. Iam in touch with 2 different photo printing places that do PROFESSIONAL quality printing. However you have to compress your files to level 10 jpeg which is a hell of a lot smaller than the 6 meg files that my drebel is serving up.. What is the point of the huge number of MP if it is going to get squashed down to 2 meg (and less) file sizes? I know it helps if youa re cropping pictures but why do we need so many megapixels. (the xt is at 8mp and the others are even higher). WHY??? Like i said, i bought a drebel so its not like I am trying to get people mad, I just dont seem to understand. Thanks.:o

[CyberDyneSystems]

MP has allways been overhyped,. you absolutely right.
And one can get very good images from 4MP or 6MP...

But the high MP cameras have there place too..
Much as I'd like to have one,. I can't see me needing a 1Ds...
And I don't see a big difference between my current 8MP files vs. my old 10D files.

The bottom line is that we need to know what fearures are more important for our needs.

When the Sony 8MP 717 or whatever it was called came out.. there were those that actually thought it was a better camera than a 10D or Drebel.. simply becuase of the two more MP... We had quite a few threads laughing about this type of thing.

The simple fact is that the first truly affordable DSLR's were all 6MP,. becuase thats where the indutry was at the time. Prior to that (10D and D/rebel and D100) you had to spend a lot more.

The biggest differences between the 10D and it's succesor the 20D are not the two MP,.. but in fact all the other bells and whistles.

[elbirth]

as CDS said, yes megapixels are way over hyped. Personally, if I can get a really good quality camera at a high MP (like my 20D) I'll be very happy, because the actual resolution of the images are so much bigger and can therefore be printed out at much larger sizes.

I have to ask, though, what place are you going to that's printing your photos and wanting them compressed? I don't see the point in having people send in compressed images, because it just degrades the quality. When I do digital printing (professionally, but not photographs primarily) I want the absolute best quality to print from.

[Titus213]

Here's some reading for you if you're interested. It helped me with printing and resolution:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/res-demyst.shtml

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/und_resolution.shtml

I didn't buy the 300D just because it was a 6.3Meg camera. I bought it because it was a Canon.

[smittymike19]

as CDS said, yes megapixels are way over hyped. Personally, if I can get a really good quality camera at a high MP (like my 20D) I'll be very happy, because the actual resolution of the images are so much bigger and can therefore be printed out at much larger sizes.

I have to ask, though, what place are you going to that's printing your photos and wanting them compressed? I don't see the point in having people send in compressed images, because it just degrades the quality. When I do digital printing (professionally, but not photographs primarily) I want the absolute best quality to print from.

to be honest virtually all of the shops i have contacted want me to compress them. they claim that the pictures will suffer no loss as the JPEG compression algorithom is a very lossless one. But i have seen the quality from these shops and to tell you the truth it is awesome. I am not sure what you need to do if you want to make huge prints on these sites (as they go up to 45" x whatever size you want...) i guess you send in a larger file? i havet tried it yet.

If I understand it the only reasons for huge MP numbers is:
1. blow up picture to certain size
2. cropping (which basically is the same as number one)

Arent most printers printing at 300dpi, isnt that the maximum resoultion the human eye can perceive anyway?
When i shoot in raw mode i get 6mp file sizes, but then they are compressed naturally in PS anyway right? or is there a way to keep em at 1:1 ratio? Even the large JPEG files are only 3mp, so the file is being compressed already, right on the camera..ie you arent even using the max capability of the camera... Sorry for the confusion, its just funny that the marketing wizards have got us all asking "hey man how many meagapixels is that thing?" and trust me, everyone , and i mean everyone has bought in. whenever i run into someone with the camera i swear the first thing they always say is hey is that digital? I say yes. Wow, nice. HOW MANY MEGAPIXELS??:D what they should be saying is wow what a great CMOS!!

[smittymike19]

here is one of the FAQ's from one of the sites:

Why a level 10 JPEG, don’t you lose quality in the large prints?

JPEG compression is a very efficient, lossy image compression algorithm designed specifically for saving photographic images. It takes advantage of how humans see color versus brightness to only save information needed to reproduce the image for people to view. Image data is lost during compression, but at high levels of quality you will not see a difference between a Level 10 JPEG and a TIFF printed to photographic paper. JPEG compression is perfect for transient files for sending to the lab for printing, but avoid using the compression as a working file type. Also avoid opening a JPEG, making changes, and resaving it again as a JPEG repeatedly. If your workflow calls for this to happen, save your files as TIFF or PSD files until they are complete and ready for output, at which time you should save them as a level 10 JPEG. Any JPEG artifacts you see in your prints come from the JPEG file coming out of your camera, not from saving them as a level 10 for output purposes.

[elbirth]

to be honest virtually all of the shops i have contacted want me to compress them. they claim that the pictures will suffer no loss as the JPEG compression algorithom is a very lossless one. But i have seen the quality from these shops and to tell you the truth it is awesome. I am not sure what you need to do if you want to make huge prints on these sites (as they go up to 45" x whatever size you want...) i guess you send in a larger file? i havet tried it yet.

If I understand it the only reasons for huge MP numbers is:
1. blow up picture to certain size
2. cropping (which basically is the same as number one)

Arent most printers printing at 300dpi, isnt that the maximum resoultion the human eye can perceive anyway?
When i shoot in raw mode i get 6mp file sizes, but then they are compressed naturally in PS anyway right? or is there a way to keep em at 1:1 ratio? Even the large JPEG files are only 3mp, so the file is being compressed already, right on the camera..ie you arent even using the max capability of the camera... Sorry for the confusion, its just funny that the marketing wizards have got us all asking "hey man how many meagapixels is that thing?" and trust me, everyone , and i mean everyone has bought in. whenever i run into someone with the camera i swear the first thing they always say is hey is that digital? I say yes. Wow, nice. HOW MANY MEGAPIXELS??:D what they should be saying is wow what a great CMOS!!

hehe, yeah I generally first get asked if my 20D is digital, then sometimes how many megapixels... usually once they see just see it, they're too busy drooling (while holding onto their tiny P&S camera) to ask many other questions :)
Most do just generally stay around 300dpi (or ppi, if you're talking on-screen) but I think going over 600 is really the point where you really stat to notice almost no difference whatsoever.
Not sure what you mean by the camera's Large Jpegs only being 3mp... the large setting should be the full 6MP of the DRebel. I've been told that, although it's a bit overkill, the best way to keep your photos stored in the best possible quality, is to convert from RAW at 300dpi/ppi and save it as a 16-bit tiff. While huge in filesize, this supposedly keeps everything there for you and you have the least bit of compresson. Plus with having 16 bit instead of 8 bit, you have more room to scale down the filesize later and lose potentially less data.

I'm far from an expert, and I'm reading through those links that Titus213 posted, they have a lot of good info on the misconceptions



here is one of the FAQ's from one of the sites:

Why a level 10 JPEG, don’t you lose quality in the large prints?

JPEG compression is a very efficient, lossy image compression algorithm designed specifically for saving photographic images. It takes advantage of how humans see color versus brightness to only save information needed to reproduce the image for people to view. Image data is lost during compression, but at high levels of quality you will not see a difference between a Level 10 JPEG and a TIFF printed to photographic paper. JPEG compression is perfect for transient files for sending to the lab for printing, but avoid using the compression as a working file type. Also avoid opening a JPEG, making changes, and resaving it again as a JPEG repeatedly. If your workflow calls for this to happen, save your files as TIFF or PSD files until they are complete and ready for output, at which time you should save them as a level 10 JPEG. Any JPEG artifacts you see in your prints come from the JPEG file coming out of your camera, not from saving them as a level 10 for output purposes.

This actually makes sense, I guess. If you're just sending a file to be opened and printed, that's really all you need (though I'd just *prefer* having the best image possible for the sake of mental health :cool:). I've definitely noticed in a few instances where saving jpegs over and over again reduces the quality. If you're storing the images or actively editing them, .psd or .tif is probably your best save option.

[ScottE]

Megapixels are not too hyped if you want to make big enlargements. For example if you want to make a 16x24 inch print at 300 dpi you would need 4,800 x 7,200 pixels, about 35.3 megapixels. Fortunately there are some good extrapolation programs, so you can get quite a good looking print from an 8 mp file, but more would be better.

As for print shops, the shop I use prefers to work from a tiff file that is as big as you can send them. They don't want me doing any of my own extrapolation though, just the number of pixels produced by the camera. They have their own dedicated RIP program for their printer that they say does better job.

Scott

[Nabil-A]

Megapixels are not too hyped if you want to make big enlargements. For example if you want to make a 16x24 inch print at 300 dpi you would need 4,800 x 7,200 pixels, about 35.3 megapixels. Fortunately there are some good extrapolation programs, so you can get quite a good looking print from an 8 mp file, but more would be better.

As for print shops, the shop I use prefers to work from a tiff file that is as big as you can send them. They don't want me doing any of my own extrapolation though, just the number of pixels produced by the camera. They have their own dedicated RIP program for their printer that they say does better job.

Scott

I have a local printshop that also accepts tiff files where processing is done overnight. Print my large panoramas and blows up here and always get the results i want.
For normal prints i dont see the need for tiff as the resolution my camera produces is more than sufficient for 300dpi., even in jpg.

[tim]

The best printer in my area will print from whatever format you like. They charge more than most places, but they quality's superb. Another place, more mainstream, printed a 30*20 image from a L12 JPG, and it came out great.

Is MP overhyped? Yes. Is it important? For large prints or crops, yes. Is it important for most people? Probably not too much.

[neil_r]

I ftp 32Mb TIF files to my lab they are happy to get them and I am happy with the results :D

http://www.colab.co.uk
N

[Jesper]

Megapixels are certainly overhyped. It's just too easy for people to have a single number (the number of megapixels) to compare cameras - it's very easy if you only have to look at a single number to see which camera is better. In reality, the number of megapixels ofcourse doesn't tell you a lot, there are lots of other factors such as the quality of the lens and the size of the sensor which are just as important to determine the image quality a camera can produce.

... the 6 meg files that my drebel is serving up.. What is the point of the huge number of MP if it is going to get squashed down to 2 meg (and less) file sizes?Note that the size of your images in megaPIXELS is not the same as the size of your image in megaBYTES. A 2 megaBYTE JPEG file can easily contain a 6 megaPIXEL image.

[malcolmx]

i am of the opinion that 300 dpi (book quality) is the most acceptable clarity of print that i need . my camera allows 16 mp files and in my opinion it is detail that this benefits. if i wish to print out a full a3 on sra3 paper this will allow this with no interpolation i want what i took the picture of and not what the computer decides to average from my file .jpeg's do loose detail they do loose information and if you examine the final print under a glass you will see a distinct dot size at a lower resoliution as it sprespreads the colour?/tone over a further area . ink jets work very much like screen printing and as in the case of road side posters the larger the page the bigger the dot size and the further away you need to be before the image blends to an acceptable viwable picture.
i see pixels increasing to enable larger poster work to have more definition also to continue to enhance the tonal range to compete against film . in a pro lab lots of work is on 42 and 60 inch roll fed printers

[Andy_T]

The Megapixel size they require would most likely depend on the resolution of their printer and the size you want the pictures printed. If your image has far more megapixels than their printer will be able to deliver (say in a 2x3 image), then it might not make much of a difference.

As Jesper already mentioned, megabytes is not the same as megapixels. High compression makes it easier for them to print (less time) but *might* affect image quality. Out of my *very humble* experience with printing, the only picture I ever had printed that looked really pixelated was a 130 kb file derived from a low resolution shot a friend had sent me from his Sony digicam. All the pictures from my G2 I had printed (1 MB JPEG) turned out really nice in 3x5 pictures.

The suggestion is to try it out and look at the results.

Best regards,
Andy

[Longwatcher]

Speaking as a retired Imagery Analyst... You can never have too many pixels.
Speaking as the requirements researcher I am today... Sometimes you can have too many pixels.
Speaking as a photographer... It depends on my expected output how many pixels I need.

As an Imagery analyst I want every pixel of detail I can get from my sensors, I want to be able to see the smallest detail possible, I can never have enough pixels for my satisfaction. And I abhor jpegs on principle as they are lossy, which means I might miss something I would otherwise see. For the past 5 years though I have been doing requirements research for advance sensors and have found that sometimes you can't afford to have more then enough pixels to do the job, between bandwidth costs or weight costs for comm gear of guys in the field, sometimes small high-quality files are better, thus fewer pixels and jpegs. The guys on the field need to see what they can over what they have, so sometimes a jpeg is good enough.

Finally as a photographer it depends. Now I have a 1DsMkII (along with older 10D, D60, and Kodak DC4800 cameras). For 95% of what I need the 10D has all the pixels I need to produce 8.5x11 prints and allow for some cropping. For that other 5%, so far 16MP has been enough to get what I want out of the pictures I take. The extra MP allow me to enlarge more (either for larger prints or more cropping to get 8.5x11). In my case though I got the 1DsMkII because it gave me full use of all of my lenses, allowed me to change out focus screens, and had twice as many MP as my older camera. Knowing what I do about the physics of light versus digital sensors, I suspect that 22-28MP is the top range for best quality so I am not expecting any significant improvements beyond this in the next few years. I will probably choose my next camera based on features not MP.

I figure I have reached the optimum size of sensor, when I have no burning desire to get a better camera. For example I have no strong desire to get one of the Medium format digitals, but I lusted after the 1Ds series until I got one (and still love it). I still have that Imagery Analyst programing that you can never have enough MP, but it is tempered by knowing that I can't forsee needed anything more then I have now.

BTW: for 8x10 size, I still feel a 3-4MP camera is all you need, 6MP allows you to get 16x24 prints easily if needed (which I have done from my 10D with one level of enlargement) and you can actually go probably twice that without too many artifacts.

In Summary, I don't think number of megapixels is hyped in and of itself. The consumer just needs to know what that number means in terms of output and range of capabilties. In a way 8MP is 8MP in terms of print size, however, in terms of picture quality 8MP of a P&S is like low cost film versus 8MP on a 20D being high-quality film. You get a much nicer picture from the higher quality.

Just my Opinion with appoligizes if I am a bit rambly today (on medication for 3 days)

[rdenney]

Megapixels are not too hyped if you want to make big enlargements. For example if you want to make a 16x24 inch print at 300 dpi you would need 4,800 x 7,200 pixels, about 35.3 megapixels. Fortunately there are some good extrapolation programs, so you can get quite a good looking print from an 8 mp file, but more would be better.

It won't do any good if you are enlarging lens faults and lapses of technique, as well as photon-starved and therefore erroneous pixel readings.

There's a limit to how small a pixel should be before it no longer is fed by enough light to read accurately. I think the 7-8 micron range of the 10D/20D is quite small enough.

If you really want to make 16x24 prints, you will indeed need those 35 million pixels. But you don't want any of the pixels to be smaller than the pixels in current cameras (which are pushing the potential imposed by photon-counting errors). So, if we want 4800x7200 pixels, and we want them 7 microns wide, then we need a sensor that is 36x54mm. In other words, we need a medium-format digital capture device.

(Actually, I find that I get reasonably optimal print output at 240 pixels/inch on the print. So, I would be happy with 3840x5760, or 22MP. That's a sensor that is only 29x43mm, heh, heh. But I wouldn't want a smaller sensor with that many pixels.)

You know, we've always needed medium format to make prints bigger than 11x14 that looked decent. It's no less true with digital. The hype of "more megapixels" is that pixel size 1.) can be too small (just compare 10D images with a 6MP point-n-shoot that uses a tiny sensor), and 2.) isn't the only thing, or even the most important thing, that controls print quality.

So, for CDS, I want a 1Ds because of the larger sensor, not because it has more megapixels. But I'd rather spend that kind of money on a digital insert for my Pentax 645.

Rick "format is king" Denney

[Reminisce]

in my opinion, Megapixels are overhyped from a marketing standpoint on P&S cameras. Before I delved into the world of DSLRs last year, I was dealing with top-end advanced P&S cameras, like the Sony 717, Nikon 8700, etc..This is where Megapixels are enormously overhyped, believe me when I tell you. For example, Nikon and Sony were both ridiculed early on during the release of the 8700 and F828 respectively because all they were were cameras that had more megapixels than their predecessors (5700 and 717/707) with very few mechanical improvements. Some said the 8700 was actually worst than the 5700 in terms of noise and image quality. Nevertheless, anyone who knows very little about how digital imaging works, will "ooooh" at the 8MP 8700 before they "aaahh" at the more superb Digital Rebel, because it has a BIGGER NUMBER printed on the lens barrel, lots of buttons, and it looks cute.

Fuji is notorious for this, and if you've owned a Fuji, you know what im talking about. They make great cameras but for goodness's sake, if they dont overhype MP more than anyone, I dont know who does. They put TWO megapixel numbers on the side of their cameras. One of their 6MP cameras said "12 MEGAPIXELS" printed large on the barrel and "6MP" printed somewhere on it smaller. They have a process where they interpolate and effectively double the amount of megapixels the camera will produce from a much smaller sensor. It looks good on paper, looks like crap when seen, but it sells the camera.

Its gotten to the point, as most of you have mentioned, where people will believe one camera is better than another by far, simply because it has a higher MP count, and this is really whats going to ruin the perception of Digital photography as a whole. Because everyone counts Megapixels, and companies continue to endorse it, and well, it sells.

[thomasrhee]

Megapixel is to cameras what megahertz is to computers. Both are overhyped marketing tools used by companies to sell their products.

General consumers who buy digital cameras often fall for the marketing shtick that higher MP's = higher image quality. That's why you always see 2, 3, even 4 cameras that are all basically the same except one is 4MP, one is 5MP, and another is 7MP.

Try going to any photo gallery site such as pBase or the one over at photo.net and look at the images at the largest size without looking at the exif data. Can you tell consistenly what megapixel camera they were using?

As a side note to all of this, people get way too caught up in their gear. Work on your technique and you'll produce far better images than buying the latest and greatest gear. The reason I say this is because sometimes I come across an image that blows me away and find out that it was taken with a P&S.

[Avalonthas]

MP's only purpose if giving you larger sized prints without losing as much quality as u would if u were to blow up an image from a small source file. The censor is what matters. You can have a 4MP camera with an awesome censor, compared to an 8 MP with a crappy censor -- the 4MP will always come out on top in terms of quality. In size of prints, the 8MP will win, but the 4MP camera will still give u comparible shots with photos blown up to 5 or 6MP, after that the 8mp camera will prolly beat it in terms of quality to size ratio.

A sony will never be as good as a canon lol.

[rdenney]

As a side note to all of this, people get way too caught up in their gear.

Well, of course.

But I don't see a link to your images in your sig. Rather, I see an equipment list. We are all the same; we just can't help it.

The only problem with small formats is when you want to make big prints. It's always been true. Ansel Adams complained that his famous picture of Georgia O'Keeffe snapped off the cuff with a Leica could not be enlarged beyond 5x7, or 8x10 at the outside.

http://www.anseladams.com/images/Adams/AAposLG/GeorgiaOKeefe_poster.jpg

Using sensors with more megapixels is like using finer-grained film. I used to shoot 35mm black and white Panatomic X, at ISO 32, and develop in Rodinal for maximum acutance. I could blow it away with a so-so print made from 4x5 ISO 320 Tri-X developed in D-76 (which has MUCH larger grain and MUCH lower acutance). The larger format trumps the smaller grain or higher pixel density, every time.

Rick "who thinks a 6x9 sensor on a view camera would be heaven" Denney

[cjm]

MP's are a marketing tool as much as they are actually needed. There will be a day when the point and shoot cameras will be 35 MP, 100 MP and so on, for one reason and one reason alone, to sell Cameras. Just as with Computers the MHz/GHz keeps going up because they want you to think that your 1600 MHz computer wont work for anything so they are pushing a 4 GHz (4000 Mhz) computer on you.

I once heard that Film from a 35mm Camera is equivalent to 7 MP. Not sure if that is true but if it is, then Digital Camera’s have already surpassed that.

The DigiCam I currently use is a 2.0 MP and it takes wonderful pictures. They could be better of course but for people, kids, landscapes and other things it works perfectly for. Often I hear from people I know that they put the camera down because it is only 2 MP.

MP in over hyped. I have a 2.0 MP Canon PowerShot and my brother has a Kodak 5.0 MP Camera. I paid $130 for my Camera (because it was old and discontinued) while he paid $450. My camera's picture quality kicks the Kodak’s ass. I was one of those guys DEAD SET against digital cameras then when I got a good one (and not one just for eBay) I was amazed.

MP’s might be important to a point, and I would not mind having a 20D 8 MP, but 8 MP is the most I ever really would want, already at 2.0 MP the full sized nondegraded pictures are 1 MB each! I don’t think I ever want a 100 MP picture because 100 MB would be just too much for a picture and the size of the picture would probably be the size of a billboard! Which is also way too big.

The thing more important then MP I think is the Camera maker. Just as with Film Cameras you get what you pay for and the quality still remains the main issue with me for a camera. Canon makes good cameras, Kodak , Pentax, Samsung, HP and others IMO make good cameras just like the ones we see at Garage Sales.

[cjm]

Can any 20D users tell me how big a file from a 20D gets, such as Size and Memory?

[CyberDyneSystems]

20D Raw files are about 8.5-13MB....

this = approx 48-50MB as a 16bit tiff,..


Also,.. I would be very happy to have a 1Ds MkII with 16MB...
BUT! I would NEED a better faster PC,..

And even if I used every single one of those sixteen million pixels in all of my prints,...

they would still be "overhyped" ;)

[cjm]

Didn't someone post a thread here with a 144 MP camera on some site? I remember seeing a sample picture of it, and I have to tell you, the image I saw looked like it was taken with a 2-5 MP camera.

This might also be something to consider with MPs, the bigger they are doesn't the more time is needed by the Camera's computer to convert the analog signal to digital? Not that even 16 MP would require that much time. But I think we all know that eventually the Camera makers (which is in business to sell cameras) will eventually be pushing very high MP cameras. Even if Canon or Nikon or other high class cameras do not instigate it, Kodak, Samsung or HP will, which will force the better cameras to also push higher ups, which then will require any pros to have to completely upgrade for the sake of MPs because no one will higher them (so I have read here) if their MP is too low. Because people buy the hype, even people I would bet in the actual business. Which is a shame.

Me personally I would be happy with a Canon 20D for 20 years if possible, although I doubt the technollogy will be able to work with a 20 years from now PC. Anyways that's just me, I like to treat my camera like a friend which I wont just dump because something a little better comes out.