What a dumb blog post!
So we need 8x10 large format for an 8 x 10-inch print, to meet his standards!
Wakey wakey! We don't look at prints with a microscope. I am so glad that some folks can worry about "what matters" and that is the final image. My best photos, are my lowest res, softest ones! Seriously, it's pointless talking about print quality, unless you talk about viewing distance.
I still have that big ISO 6400 DK print he sent me, from the A900. If you put your face up to it, it sucks! Viewed from a normal distance, it looks "pretty good" to me at least.
Megapixel war
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bfitzgerald
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KevinBarrett
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Re: Megapixel war
I think the author made the post as a purely academic exercise, and to demonstrate that we need not concern ourselves overly much with the megapixel wars right now. I thought it was a very sophisticated bit of writing (if technically useless).
Kevin Barrett
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Dusty
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Re: Megapixel war
Not so useless. Most people have never worked with anything bigger than a 35mm camera. They don't realize the abilities you get when using large formats. Shoot something with an 8x10 view camera, and you can take a 1 by 1.5 inch section of the negative and make a decent 8x10 print. In fact, you can tale 53 such sections and make 8x10 prints!
Blowing a 35mm negative up to 8x10 is an 8x enlargement. An 8X10 negative blown up the same amount means a 64x80 inch print! Granted, most of us have no need for such print sizes, but the possibilities with cropping and the finer quality DO make a difference.
My very first use us my 4x5 view camera was to take some family reunion shots for our family. I also took the shots on my 35mm and 120 film cameras. The 35mm shots were good, the 120 better, but the 4x5 - WOOHOO! I could recognize individuals in the negative! Needless to say, prints showed 0 grain. Many times over the years I have found myself heavily cropping to get a small section of the scene I shot blown up. With 35mm. you're severely limited in your ability to do this. The same goes for a 12MP shot. If you had 80 or 100 MP to work with, your ability to take a piece of you shot and enlarge it of a good print is greatly increased.
Dusty
Blowing a 35mm negative up to 8x10 is an 8x enlargement. An 8X10 negative blown up the same amount means a 64x80 inch print! Granted, most of us have no need for such print sizes, but the possibilities with cropping and the finer quality DO make a difference.
My very first use us my 4x5 view camera was to take some family reunion shots for our family. I also took the shots on my 35mm and 120 film cameras. The 35mm shots were good, the 120 better, but the 4x5 - WOOHOO! I could recognize individuals in the negative! Needless to say, prints showed 0 grain. Many times over the years I have found myself heavily cropping to get a small section of the scene I shot blown up. With 35mm. you're severely limited in your ability to do this. The same goes for a 12MP shot. If you had 80 or 100 MP to work with, your ability to take a piece of you shot and enlarge it of a good print is greatly increased.
Dusty
An a700, an a550 and couple of a580s, plus even more lenses (Zeiss included!).
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Megapixel war
The problem with sweeping statements, is that they are just that..sweeping!
Is the blog useless? Well maybe not 100%, but back in the real world..there are more important things to worry about. Folks who make mega prints, have tended to head towards larger formats, the biggest I have is 120 roll film..though it has not seen film for a good bit.
So the discussion becomes more academic, than of great value to photographers.
There is also no doubt that more megapixels will be on the map, and for a long time. Though I have suggested before, resolution is only one part of the story.
The reason most people were shooting 35mm, and not large formats or even MF cameras (which were, and possibly remain popular with landscapers in particular, studio use etc), simply cost, and size. 35mm cornered the mass market, the larger formats the smaller specialist ones. FF digital has replaced that MF/LF desire, APS digital seems to be the new 35mm. Good enough for most. APS film was conspired by many as an unnecessary compromise, hence it's failure to grab the market.
The other problem with film remarks, is the wide variation of emulsions. It's simply not possible to say 35mm, MF = xyz resolution. In the same way high res APS sensors have more pixels stuffed in, low ISO film has more finer grains, and delivers higher resolution, across the formats this is the same. Go up ISO wise, and resolution drops, on film and digital too..though there is no doubt digital is a potent high ISO weapon.
I am sure some do want to make really big prints, hence their pursuit of very high megapixel cameras will appeal. I can only speak for myself..in that I am satisfied with 35mm for my average print size (let's say 18" x 12" would be common, sometimes a bit more..though not much), APS digital I tend to use for high ISO, even the 6mp KM does the job pretty well, for the tasks it is set.
35mm isn't severely limited if you seek sanctuary in the tech pans/adox world, and having seen some prints from those..you would indeed be impressed at the quality of the enlargements, albeit mono..few would want more.
As we all know things will get more with regards res, there comes a point where you reach a "satisfied" level, I am already at that. I honestly think, we hear too much luminous landscape style.."big print thinking"
For me at least, there are better things to talk about. I am now not concerned with "is my image quality good enough", but "are my photos good enough"
This is the most important factor for me, and I continue to try my best. I don't need 100mp, nor do most..and 100mp of not very good images, isn't the match of a great 35mm or lower mp shot. I don't cry myself to sleep worrying about it, so it really is mostly tech academic talk, and not that relevant to most photographers. Simply use what you have, if your needs are not met, get something better.
Is the blog useless? Well maybe not 100%, but back in the real world..there are more important things to worry about. Folks who make mega prints, have tended to head towards larger formats, the biggest I have is 120 roll film..though it has not seen film for a good bit.
So the discussion becomes more academic, than of great value to photographers.
There is also no doubt that more megapixels will be on the map, and for a long time. Though I have suggested before, resolution is only one part of the story.
The reason most people were shooting 35mm, and not large formats or even MF cameras (which were, and possibly remain popular with landscapers in particular, studio use etc), simply cost, and size. 35mm cornered the mass market, the larger formats the smaller specialist ones. FF digital has replaced that MF/LF desire, APS digital seems to be the new 35mm. Good enough for most. APS film was conspired by many as an unnecessary compromise, hence it's failure to grab the market.
The other problem with film remarks, is the wide variation of emulsions. It's simply not possible to say 35mm, MF = xyz resolution. In the same way high res APS sensors have more pixels stuffed in, low ISO film has more finer grains, and delivers higher resolution, across the formats this is the same. Go up ISO wise, and resolution drops, on film and digital too..though there is no doubt digital is a potent high ISO weapon.
I am sure some do want to make really big prints, hence their pursuit of very high megapixel cameras will appeal. I can only speak for myself..in that I am satisfied with 35mm for my average print size (let's say 18" x 12" would be common, sometimes a bit more..though not much), APS digital I tend to use for high ISO, even the 6mp KM does the job pretty well, for the tasks it is set.
35mm isn't severely limited if you seek sanctuary in the tech pans/adox world, and having seen some prints from those..you would indeed be impressed at the quality of the enlargements, albeit mono..few would want more.
As we all know things will get more with regards res, there comes a point where you reach a "satisfied" level, I am already at that. I honestly think, we hear too much luminous landscape style.."big print thinking"
For me at least, there are better things to talk about. I am now not concerned with "is my image quality good enough", but "are my photos good enough"
This is the most important factor for me, and I continue to try my best. I don't need 100mp, nor do most..and 100mp of not very good images, isn't the match of a great 35mm or lower mp shot. I don't cry myself to sleep worrying about it, so it really is mostly tech academic talk, and not that relevant to most photographers. Simply use what you have, if your needs are not met, get something better.
Re: Megapixel war
Look at the wonderful quality of Victorian photography. 8x10 from 8x10. Even enlargements from these negatives have a detail and quality not seen in digital images. I still wouldn't want to carry one around though. Lots of well known photographers are still using 5x4 cameras. The enormous range of detail and tone in the Sutcliffe images make me drool.bfitzgerald wrote:What a dumb blog post!
So we need 8x10 large format for an 8 x 10-inch print, to meet his standards!
Wakey wakey! We don't look at prints with a microscope. I am so glad that some folks can worry about "what matters" and that is the final image. My best photos, are my lowest res, softest ones! Seriously, it's pointless talking about print quality, unless you talk about viewing distance.
I still have that big ISO 6400 DK print he sent me, from the A900. If you put your face up to it, it sucks! Viewed from a normal distance, it looks "pretty good" to me at least.
The older I get the better I used to be.
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jcoffin
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Re: Megapixel war
Maybe. There is a major problem though: anybody who's looked carefully at 35mm lenses knows that you get much worse results at the corners than you do at the center. For a lens that has to cover 8x10, virtually the entire frame is well beyond the extreme corner of a 35mm frame. Yes, there are other factors that compensate to some degree, but the fact remains that you can't get a lens that'll resolve anything like 80 (or even 50) line pairs per millimeter from the center to edge of an 8x10 field. In theory a few might exist, but if so they're certainly not something you can get from even an extremely high-end camera store.Dusty wrote:Not so useless. Most people have never worked with anything bigger than a 35mm camera. They don't realize the abilities you get when using large formats. Shoot something with an 8x10 view camera, and you can take a 1 by 1.5 inch section of the negative and make a decent 8x10 print. In fact, you can tale 53 such sections and make 8x10 prints!
Blowing a 35mm negative up to 8x10 is an 8x enlargement. An 8X10 negative blown up the same amount means a 64x80 inch print! Granted, most of us have no need for such print sizes, but the possibilities with cropping and the finer quality DO make a difference.
It's certainly true that if you start with a lot more information, you can throw more away, and still retain enough to produce a reasonable result. At the same time, in terms of megapixels, that amount is really fairly small -- when it gets down to it, you don't really need a lot more than 3MP (or so) to print a fairly decent 8x10.Dusty wrote: My very first use us my 4x5 view camera was to take some family reunion shots for our family. I also took the shots on my 35mm and 120 film cameras. The 35mm shots were good, the 120 better, but the 4x5 - WOOHOO! I could recognize individuals in the negative! Needless to say, prints showed 0 grain. Many times over the years I have found myself heavily cropping to get a small section of the scene I shot blown up. With 35mm. you're severely limited in your ability to do this. The same goes for a 12MP shot. If you had 80 or 100 MP to work with, your ability to take a piece of you shot and enlarge it of a good print is greatly increased.
Dusty
Hmmm...I see the village idiot has insisted in rearing his ugly head again. He posts DxO numbers as if they were Truth, writ by the hand of God and handed down to us mere mortals. The whole point of the blog entry was that in many cases (such as looking at medium format backs) the observed results run directly contrary to what the DxO numbers would appear to indicate. The question has never been: "what numbers does DxO give to MF back XXX?", but "How much (if any) correlation is there between the DxO numbers and the quality of pictures produced?" Re-posting the numbers, graphs, etc., completely misses the point.
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David Kilpatrick
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Re: Megapixel war
Actually, resolution is a very important part of image quality. I bought a couple of old Kodak DSLRs which arrived today. for experimenting with. One of them, the DCS760C, is probably the best 6 megapixel camera ever made (the Contax with full-frame Phillips sensor might also claim that) and it's been very interesting see exactly what six Bayer megapixels looks like with no visible noise and no anti-aliasing filter, which is what this achieves at ISO 80. The resolution is so good that colour moiré pops up on many subjects, even things like details of tree bark or stone when sharply focused.
But if I take that immaculately sharp almost 3D looking 6 megapixels and blow it up to 24 megapixel size the result is hopeless. It's only a 4 for 1 area, 2 for 1 linear enlargement but no way acceptable. I also have Sigma's SD14 (again, mainly for curiosity, along with the original SD10) and of course I have my KM D7D. No matter what quality of lens I use, how careful the focus and processing is, they just can't begin to compare with the A900 on an A2 print.
What is interesting is that 10 megapixels - which was dismissed as a trivial step up for 6 at the time by many people - does survive inspection when printed to A2, 12 megapixels is better, and by the time you use an A350 file it's really quite hard to tell the 14.2 megapixels from the A900's 24.6. I am only printing to A2. If the A900 was taken up to A1, the gap between it and the A350 would be easier to see but you have to go very big indeed to be sure that you need the extra resolution.
The only medium format back I've shot with other than Mamiya's 22Mpix - very briefly indeed - is the Phase One 65+, which is over 60 megapixels as the name implies. All I can say is that its output is in a different class, again it uses no AA filter. Alastair Innes, a local professional, moved from shooting on D7D to Hasselblad 39 megapixel back last year (one hell of a shift!). I was talking to him about it yesterday, and he says he still uses the KM, because it is perfectly adequate for many jobs - but the H3D II 39 is not something he regrets financing (despite the recession). He does say that if he had not bought it last summer, he would not be buying it now, he would be looking at the Alpha 900 for economic reasons and because it would probably do the job fine.
Don, it would be interesting to see those MF plots shown against the Alpha 900, not the Nikon. That would be relevant, showing Nikon vs MF here is a bit off-topic.
David
But if I take that immaculately sharp almost 3D looking 6 megapixels and blow it up to 24 megapixel size the result is hopeless. It's only a 4 for 1 area, 2 for 1 linear enlargement but no way acceptable. I also have Sigma's SD14 (again, mainly for curiosity, along with the original SD10) and of course I have my KM D7D. No matter what quality of lens I use, how careful the focus and processing is, they just can't begin to compare with the A900 on an A2 print.
What is interesting is that 10 megapixels - which was dismissed as a trivial step up for 6 at the time by many people - does survive inspection when printed to A2, 12 megapixels is better, and by the time you use an A350 file it's really quite hard to tell the 14.2 megapixels from the A900's 24.6. I am only printing to A2. If the A900 was taken up to A1, the gap between it and the A350 would be easier to see but you have to go very big indeed to be sure that you need the extra resolution.
The only medium format back I've shot with other than Mamiya's 22Mpix - very briefly indeed - is the Phase One 65+, which is over 60 megapixels as the name implies. All I can say is that its output is in a different class, again it uses no AA filter. Alastair Innes, a local professional, moved from shooting on D7D to Hasselblad 39 megapixel back last year (one hell of a shift!). I was talking to him about it yesterday, and he says he still uses the KM, because it is perfectly adequate for many jobs - but the H3D II 39 is not something he regrets financing (despite the recession). He does say that if he had not bought it last summer, he would not be buying it now, he would be looking at the Alpha 900 for economic reasons and because it would probably do the job fine.
Don, it would be interesting to see those MF plots shown against the Alpha 900, not the Nikon. That would be relevant, showing Nikon vs MF here is a bit off-topic.
David
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Megapixel war
The only obvious thing to say here is..
How many folks print at A2 and A1? Not that many I suggest.
I don't disagree, 10mp is better than 6mp, at low ISO anyway, however I could not call it "mega dramatic" in some respects..worthwhile yeah, but we know the more you have, the extra few mp has less and less effect. When you get to 14mp, a few more is neither here nor there. Point being..as time passes, we already have fairly decent res as is. At the oldie times 3mp, yeah you def had a point about not enough res, nowadays..it's harder to push the argument.
Now someone will come along and quote from a well known article saying 3mp is almost as good as 35mm. Right..so show me hiccup! lol
How many folks print at A2 and A1? Not that many I suggest.
I don't disagree, 10mp is better than 6mp, at low ISO anyway, however I could not call it "mega dramatic" in some respects..worthwhile yeah, but we know the more you have, the extra few mp has less and less effect. When you get to 14mp, a few more is neither here nor there. Point being..as time passes, we already have fairly decent res as is. At the oldie times 3mp, yeah you def had a point about not enough res, nowadays..it's harder to push the argument.
Now someone will come along and quote from a well known article saying 3mp is almost as good as 35mm. Right..so show me hiccup! lol
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Dusty
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Re: Megapixel war
I started off this thread by saying: "Not to have everyone hash out the same old arguments again, this guy's blog is just talking about resolution the eye can see. He doesn't touch TR, DR, CA, noise or ISO. This is ONLY about resolution and how much we 'need' to see the finest details." However it's obvious the Village Idiot has a problem understanding the written word. Maybe I could put it in the form of a DXO chart.............
Dusty
Not everyone wants a sports camera, maybe that's why Sony doesn't make one. If the market need is weak in a particular area, why would they produce one when others already have one.Sonolta wrote:
Get a CLUE! Post some of your large format stuff! The color, TR, DR, convenience, low light ability, performance, lens availability, and feature sets of today's camera's walk circles around large format in almost ALL shooting environments.
TR and DR of todays sensors beat LF film? NOW who needs a clue! Feature sets? BUILT IN TILT AND SHIFT!
Blowing a 35mm negative up to 8x10 is an 8x enlargement. An 8X10 negative blown up the same amount means a 64x80 inch print!
Get a clue....99.99999 percent of all people will NEVER need a print that large.
Granted, most of us have no need for such print sizes, but the possibilities with cropping and the finer quality DO make a difference.
And didn't I state that right there? Now you're going off on me for agreeing with you.
DR, TR, Color, Subject Strength, Composition, and Light are the primarty factors of good imaging. Resolution is so far overrated it's a joke!
I could recognize individuals in the negative!
I can recognize individuals on 1MP cameras.
Wow what eyes you have! Do you take off the lens and look at the residual image on the sensor to see that? RAW files may be 'digital negatives', but they're a far cry from the real thing in physical format. Take a group photo of 143 people on 35mm film, and look at the neg. Is that Cousin George or Aunt Betty over there on the left?
Needless to say, prints showed 0 grain.
LOL....try shooting in average or low light.
Low light's not the point, is it? LF is all about resolution, the same as this thread is.
Get a clue, you are in fantasy land! NO regular user will ever need 80MP! That is just stupid! We would need new lenses, new storage means, monster processing power and speed, etc, etc, etc. What a JOKE!
Face the music and reality! The majority of ALL shooters are HAPPY with 10 and 12MP and the market numbers clearly prove that fact!
Didn't people say that about digital photography several years ago? Anyone else remember downloading 256 color pics thru a 2400 baud modem on the 286? Don't be a Luddite! Remember the LA Olympics in '84, when Canon transferred it's 400 KILO Pixel images via phone lines to Japan is an astounding 30 minutes! My next computer will have a 4 or more core processor, even though my current dual core seems fast enough. That's the way technology keeps going, UP.
-Sonolta
Dusty
An a700, an a550 and couple of a580s, plus even more lenses (Zeiss included!).
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Megapixel war
A nice 16mp FF would do me just fine, decent res..decent DR, good at high ISO. Happy days.
I very much doubt, most folks would need more. However, don't expect me to unload £2k to get it! If they shoe horned a sensor into a Km5d body, that would be ok
Some of the res fans, probably won't ever have their needs met, 24mp is great..but then 30 is calling them..softly in their ear..once at 30mp, 40mp is on the cards..and it goes on, and on
I very much doubt, most folks would need more. However, don't expect me to unload £2k to get it! If they shoe horned a sensor into a Km5d body, that would be ok
Some of the res fans, probably won't ever have their needs met, 24mp is great..but then 30 is calling them..softly in their ear..once at 30mp, 40mp is on the cards..and it goes on, and on
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David Kilpatrick
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Re: Megapixel war
For my core magazine readership - which is not this site, or anything to do with Sony or Minolta - it isn't printing to A1 or A2 which is vital. 85 per cent are wedding photographers. It matters to be to be able to do an Acerboni panoramic album spread, which certainly needs A2, but mainly it's down to customer requests. If someone wants a head from a group portrait, or a small part of a wedding group, then the extra resolution - like film in the past - means it can be offered. Offering more megapixels is a matter of professionalism - shooting a file which has versatile end uses.bfitzgerald wrote:The only obvious thing to say here is..
How many folks print at A2 and A1? Not that many I suggest.
Don asks how many pix I have on Alamy from cameras with 3.5, 5, 6, 10, 12 etc megapixels and the answer is plenty but I can not replace the files if Alamy ask for a change of licensing (which they have done with a few dozen). The same files which got in five years ago won't pass quality control now and get rejected. This means they are selling a lot of substandard images (by their current standards) and they must now regret forcing people to up-rez files to 50MB. If they had inisisted on native camera file size, minimum 5 megapixels, like they did originally then those old images would be small but sharp not large and soft.
David
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Dusty
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Re: Megapixel war
Uhmmm. It's one of the items on the wants list you posted a bit ago. It's one of the things you are ALWAYS complaining about. Maybe YOU should 'stop repeating yourself silly'?Sonolta wrote:It's not about *sports cameras* you technical infant! You should stop repeating yourself silly self at least long enough to learn something!Dusty wrote:Not everyone wants a sports camera, maybe that's why Sony doesn't make one. If the market need is weak in a particular area, why would they produce one when others already have one.
Dusty
-Sonolta
Dusty
An a700, an a550 and couple of a580s, plus even more lenses (Zeiss included!).
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Megapixel war
I can appreciate that.David Kilpatrick wrote: Offering more megapixels is a matter of professionalism
David
On the other hand, I have a few interesting things to comment on.
I know of one photographer, probably at the top of the price structure, who has a gallery partly filled with "dust bunnies", with some very nice compositions (in most cases), and some pretty bad exposures thrown into the mix, with a nice usual wedding pp vignette etc.
I know of 3 local working photographers, all of which pack L lenses, high end bodies, flashguns, the works. Two of them lack the basic understandings about photography on a technical level, they have no real idea about light, or even composition, when to use flash, when not too...and they mostly use it at the wrong times! The other one shoots in M mode 100% of the time, and that includes flash. He has no concept of any technical area of photography at all, 15 shots to get 1 headlight deer flash shot. Really that bad, and employed by the local rag too, amazingly enough!
So if we are talking about professionalism, sure..print sizes are a part of that. Whilst I cannot print as big and as sharp as these people, I have at least got a command of the basic stuff, and I hope..something decent to offer compositional wise too. If we define someone who earns some or all their income from photography, as professional..that really isn't enough. It's also not enough to have good gear, if the operator is unskilled.
Re: Megapixel war
this forum is getting uglier and uglier..
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