konstantinl Wrote:
Meatbone Wrote:
re:also Wrote:
konstantinl Wrote:
99.9% of people don't need a 3 megapixel camera nevermind 6 or over.
i agree. i still use my canon 2 mp and it prints 4x6s just fine. i think 6 mp takes up a lot of room on the card and you only need it for 8x10s or higher. or if you crop a lot.
I couldn't disagree more. Have you ever seen an 8 MegaPixel shot? It is absolutely amazing. Even Mr. Bean could take a quality shot with a camera of that quality. Mine is only a 3 MP SLR and it is seriously outdated. My friend, who does portraits at least for now, just spent 9 grand on a 17 MP camera. It's a 35 mm. but it takes shots of medium format quality. It makes my brain vibrate just thinking about it.
But, I recognize that almost no one can or will spenf that much on a camera. However, a 2 MP camera is the equivalent of the disposable cameras you can buy at wal-mart, IMO.
The quality of the camera sensor is what determines the quality of the picture not the number of pixels. It's quite conceivable that a good quality 2mp camera could take much better pictures than a cheaper 5mp camera with a less capable digital sensor.
Higher pixels equate to how large a photo can be printed and still retain a good quality resolution. Since the vast majority of people aren't sending off disks to specialist printers to get poster sized prints of their holiday snaps, I'm sticking to my opinion that 99.9% of people will never need more than 2 - 3 mp. A 3mp, 2048 x 1536 photo can give a good quality print up to 28 x 21 inches, far in excess of the printing capabilities of any home printer.
In fact higher pixel density within standard sized photos can produce far poorer results than a lower pixel density due to 'pixel overcrowding' producing 'spots' and 'noise' in the photo.
I have a 9mp camera and can't envisage any circumstances that I'd take photographs with it at that setting. People just want more megapixels so they can have bragging rights over others and it has very little to do with the actual requirements of the user.
I understand your point to a certain extent, but taking photos with my 3mp slr and my friend's 6mp slr, I have to disagree, at least only because of my personal experience. The more pixels, the clearer the photo will be on a print. If you take the same shot (or at least as closely as you can) with the same brand, let's say Canon, and one is 3MP and the other is 6MP, I am confident, and have seen that the quality and crispness of color, point of focus, and general aesthetic value of a 4x6 print is greater. No, it is not solely due to the MP, but it certainly is important.
I have never noticed noise as a result of high megapixels. In fact, I have seen a greater likelihood for noise in cameras that have low MP count. I mean, maybe if you took a 4x6 photo with 17 MP camera you could have that overcrowding, but I have used 3, 6, and 8 MP Canon SLR's and the shots were increasingly of greater quality in terms of clarity and resolution. I have never used one higher than 8MP. That's where experience stops for me. But, I do know that my friend who has the 17MP camera does portraits and some signifcant poster sized prints of weddings, landscape, etc. It's a different use for that than I would use a camera for.
I wish I had the Canon 20D. I can't afford it, but I have become increasingly less satisfied with the results from my 3MP camera. I don't even remember the model.