How Many Megapixels is Right for You?
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I'm curious to know -- sensors and technology is improving all the time, and while 2MP sensors were the cutting edge 2 years ago, 5 or 6 seems to norm these days.
Now we all know that more is better, as you get more detail, but there's also the practical aspect. If you're capturing in uncompressed format, 22MP filesizes exceed 100MB which is simply impractical for everyday use.
So, what resolution is enough for you?
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You are right about impractical file sizes. I find that when I am scanning film. I like lots of megapixels though - because I tend to crop little bits out of photos and make something new out of them.
The more the merrier - mpx-wise!!
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6mp seems fine for me, I would probably take 8mp
I wish manufacturers would stop working on more megapixels and start working on better lowlight quality and less noise at higher ISO's.
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I think 12mp will be a nice number to use, as long as they are quality MP. It will give nice crisp big prints and like Toad mentioioned, give room to crop. I'm happy with what I have now but it does have limitations when you try to enlarge past 8 x 12.
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I think that anything that can do the normal sized 6x4 prints will do...
because that's all I ever print...
otherwise it's just a lot of room on my computer.
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StudioJ Wrote:I think 12mp will be a nice number to use, as long as they are quality MP. It will give nice crisp big prints and like Toad mentioioned, give room to crop. I'm happy with what I have now but it does have limitations when you try to enlarge past 8 x 12.
I agree with Toad and James.
Cave canem
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EnglishBob Wrote:6mp seems fine for me, I would probably take 8mp
Me too.
I have no trouble getting a 6mp image to 13x19" with a little interpolation, but 8mp would give more flexibility for cropping (assuming it's a quality 8mp.)
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I take most my shots at 2MP but this is mainly due to space restrictions, I would be happy with 4-8MP for full time, but the 6 offerend by the Nikon D70 and D1x would be cool. (D1x intorlopares to very high iirc)
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The 6 to 8 MP range seems sufficient for now, although more is better. I do agree with Bob, though, I would like to see some improvements on sensors and enhanced low light capabilities. I suppose Moore's Law will come increasingly into play with digital photography, although some have said that it is slowing down in the PC and Chip arena. With the continued increase in capacity and decrease in cost for storage, disk and solid state, we should see the trend continue for some time to come. Moore is Better!
Lars
** Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results **
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I have a 3.2 megapixel camera. I do a lot of cropping and get artifacts because I am cropping small details. I need more megapixels, probably 5 at least but I can't afford it.
--Don
Nikon D3100 with Tokina 28-70mm f3.5, (I like to use a Vivitar .43x aux on the 28-70mm Tokina), Nikkor 10.5 mm fisheye, Quanteray 70-300mm f4.5, ProOptic 500 mm f6.3 mirror lens. http://donschaefferphoto.blogspot.com/
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Hahah, I guess it's a common trend, to not be able to afford what we actually want...
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As I said, prices continue to drop on media. If you haven't checked out Slick Deals, check it daily for specials daily. I've gotten some pretty good deals (on more than just media). One caveat is move fast, these are often time/quantity limited.
Here is one from today...
Amazon 512k CF Deal
Happy Holiday Deal Hunting!
Lars
** Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results **
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I'm just like everyone else.. 6-8mp is more than enough. Anything more than that is just overkill for me, as I wouldn't really be using it. I tend to crop my pictures on camera, so that helps too.
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