Quality of an EOS 20D for Potrtraits and Enlargements

Hello everyone,

I have been using a Canon Eos 20d since it came out in 2004. I've always gotten great photos and have historically used the Large Fine setting. For some reason I noticed that on my enlargments (sizes 20x30) the photos look a little....well I don't know what to call it.... fake? pixilated? very digital looking? if that makes sense.

I'm not sure if it's something I'm not doing right with my file settings or if it's the camera itself. Is a 20D good enough for a crisp 20x30 enlargment or should I start looking for an upgrade to a 1dS type camera?

I do these enlargements more frequently now that I'm shooting fire / police department photos. Before that I was just shooting sports and emergency scenes where no one was getting enlargements that big.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!!

Mike Coppola

Well at 20x30 you're dropping down below 120 pixels per inch printed and you may start noticing some drop off of image quality.... you need something with more megapixels, not necessarily a 1-series. A 5D will give you 50% more than your 20D...

Thank you Jim. Like I said I never noticed it before because I never had anything requiring such big enlargments. Now these fire departments want all their equipment and people in the photo and complain they can't see faces clearly.

Also, the whole DPI vs Pixels vs Size confuses the hell out of me so I just upload the original 32.." x 49" 72dpi photo to Exposure Manager and let them figure it out LOL

Mike

mfr301 wrote in post #4288978
Thank you Jim. Like I said I never noticed it before because I never had anything requiring such big enlargments. Now these fire departments want all their equipment and people in the photo and complain they can't see faces clearly.

Also, the whole DPI vs Pixels vs Size confuses the hell out of me so I just upload the original 32.." x 49" 72dpi photo to Exposure Manager and let them figure it out LOL

Mike

Well DPI doesn't mean jack when you view it on the computer as you can zoom in to 100% and have as many pixels per inch as whatever your screen is or whatever else you like... to figure out how many pixels per inch you get when you're printing just divide the printing size by how many pixels are in the image. iirc about 300 is considered perfect quality but that's just a number that's floating around in my head, others may disagree. I can't notice the difference between 200 and 300, tbh.

mfr301 wrote in post #4288978
Thank you Jim. Like I said I never noticed it before because I never had anything requiring such big enlargments. Now these fire departments want all their equipment and people in the photo and complain they can't see faces clearly.

Also, the whole DPI vs Pixels vs Size confuses the hell out of me so I just upload the original 32.." x 49" 72dpi photo to Exposure Manager and let them figure it out LOL

Mike

Mike,

Its not just the size of the enlargement/print its also the subject matter, While the 20D can produce excellent 20x30 prints from shots of say 1 or two people when it comes to large groups it can fall a bit short.

Mike

Thanks Mike...

I somewhat understand... See if I shoot 1 fire chief (or anyone for that matter) as a 16x24 portrait, it looks awesome. Now I shoot 20 guys from that chief's department in front of their engine, and their faces don't have detail. Now I understand MOST of the logic behind it but now I have 20 guys that think I'm a crappy photographer.

What's a good way to rectify this? Go out and buy at 1DS Mark III? LOL

Mike

Jim G wrote in post #4289006
Well DPI doesn't mean jack when you view it on the computer as you can zoom in to 100% and have as many pixels per inch as whatever your screen is or whatever else you like... to figure out how many pixels per inch you get when you're printing just divide the printing size by how many pixels are in the image. iirc about 300 is considered perfect quality but that's just a number that's floating around in my head, others may disagree. I can't notice the difference between 200 and 300, tbh.

Jim,

Regarding this... Does that mean I need to make a 32..." x 49" 72dpi RAW image into a 20x30 300dpi or 200dpi photo to make it look good?

Mike

It'll also have to do with the JPEG compression. I got that with making some enlargements from the JPEG file rather than the RAW.

If you shoot RAW you will have one less problem with enlargements.

Are you upscaling? If so, you might be running into something there.

How close are you standing to the print?

PGH wrote in post #4289265
Are you upscaling? If so, you might be running into something there.

How close are you standing to the print?

All I'm doing is taking the original (after I edit without resizing) file, 32..." by 49.." 72dpi file and uploading it to the Exposure Manager server for printing. I don't resize it at all.

Mike

mfr301 wrote in post #4289040
Thanks Mike...

I somewhat understand... See if I shoot 1 fire chief (or anyone for that matter) as a 16x24 portrait, it looks awesome. Now I shoot 20 guys from that chief's department in front of their engine, and their faces don't have detail. Now I understand MOST of the logic behind it but now I have 20 guys that think I'm a crappy photographer.

What's a good way to rectify this? Go out and buy at 1DS Mark III? LOL

Mike

If the 20D does the job 90% of the time why not just rent a 1DS-II or III for those day's times when you have shoot a large group?


Mike

I may just pick up a 1ds mark iii since I'm doing this all the time. Not sure if I will keep the 20d or sell it.

Thank you for all the help. It looks like the resolution for what I'm trying to accomplish may be too low to get that minute detail that guys are looking for.

Mike