[normhead]

Now I'm curious, what 24 MP system are you shooting?

[jsherman999]

I think when Pentax releases their 24MP body, folks will fall in.

There just isn't much downside besides storage + throughput + processing time, and that's a transitory, short-lived drawback.

[JohnBee]

if you never intend to print? I highly doubt I will.

What about cropping?

[rawr]

Now I'm curious, what 24 MP system are you shooting?

I believe he has a Nikon D7100. That's why I think the K-5 replacement is likely to be 24MP too. D7000/K-5 were almost sisters, D7100/New-K likely to follow the same path.

[Winder]

DxOMark - SNR evolution over time

DxOMark - More pixels offset noise!

A few years back I was looking at switching to a Sony A900 and using DxO RAW processor. Someone from DxO did an interview where they explained how RAW processors work better with higher density sensors. At that time DxO scanned a radius around every "pixel" to determine what was noise and the more pixels that were inside of the radius the better job DxO could do at determining what was noise and what was detail. This was/is one reason DxO was so slow. I haven't tried a recent version to know if it is any faster.

The Sony A900 was not a "low noise" camera, but its images cleaned up really well. The A900 had the same s/n ratio as my Canon 5D, but produced much better large prints. I think DxO was shipping with the A900 in Europe.

The sensor argument aside. More MPs give RAW processors more information which allows them to produce cleaner images and we have seen more advances in RAW processing than we have in sensor technology over the last 5+ years.

[tabl10s]

What about cropping?

Did that in-camera once and was shocked at the loss of MP's. I plan to take the pic right the first time.

[JohnBee]

Did that in-camera once and was shocked at the loss of MP's. I plan to take the pic right the first time.

Cropping isn't necessarily about missing shots but more along the lines of getting something that isn't normally obtainable. To which I'd add, it looks like there's enough headroom in most lenses to justify 24 or more MP. ie. I made heavy use of cropping in birding.

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Last edited by JohnBee; 04-25-2013 at 03:13 AM.

[bossa]

The Bayer filter chucks away 2/3 of the light so if a 16MP 'colour' sensor could be developed you wouldn't need 24MP becuase the sensor would use 100% of the light AND show increased resolution (like a foveon) and colour accuracy.

Cameras are used for as many applications as anyone can think of (I believe the latest Martian rover has a 2MP sensor) and I really don't need people telling me what I need either...(Timd: "Nobody needs a better camera."). I am a painter, I gather information with cameras for my large paintings and I require as much detail as I can afford.

Maybe we should all go back to crappy lo-res analog TV? Who's 1st? .. I thought so.

[joe.penn]

Now I'm curious, what 24 MP system are you shooting?

I believe he has a Nikon D7100. That's why I think the K-5 replacement is likely to be 24MP too. D7000/K-5 were almost sisters, D7100/New-K likely to follow the same path.

Yes, correct, the D7100.

The Sony A900 was not a "low noise" camera, but its images cleaned up really well.

That is one thing that is really apparent with the D7100. It is a pretty good low noise camera, after clean up (if needed, ISO3200+) the images are pretty amazing with little if any loss of detail.

Back to the print thing - a lot of my gallery work is printed in wide format, 16x9 and 18x8, here are the final outputs:

D7100
16x9 [To Print] = 375ppi
18x8 [To Print] = 333ppi

K5
16x9 [To Print] = 308ppi
18x8 [To Print] = 274ppi

Those are straight size numbers, 90% of the time (with me anyways) there is slight cropping. Before the D7100, most of my gallery work at the print sizes above would end up printing just below the 240ppi mark most aim for, now with the D7100 I am close to 300ppi (and more times over that) on almost everything outputted at those sizes above - that extra detail can be seen immediately and is extremely apparent when viewing prints side by side.

[Winder]

People need to go to a gallery where large high quality prints are on display. People talk about viewing distance and say you don't need a lot of MPs, but watch people in a gallery. A large print with a lot of detail will draw the viewer in. You will see people standing inches away from a poster sized print looking at every detail. That's what you want. Images that engage the viewer and pull them in. Everyone has good subject matter at this level, and everyone is very creative and skilled.

There is a reason people pay $30,000 for a MF camera.

[Jonathan Mac]

Jpegs can be down-smapled but RAWs are RAWs and are always the full resolution. Storage of large numbers of files will always be a problem

There is a reason people pay $30,000 for a MF camera.

Yes. They're rich...

There's a reason I paid $500 for a K200D.......

[Winder]

Jpegs can be down-smapled but RAWs are RAWs and are always the full resolution. Storage of large numbers of files will always be a problem

Yes. They're rich...

There's a reason I paid $500 for a K200D.......

How did they get rich? I'm sure some started that way, but there are a lot of professional photographers who started at the bottom.

[magkelly]

My almost 13 year old niece is a huge fan of one of those boy bands. I gave her the old *ist that someone gave me a while back and a P3 film cam and I have been teaching her the basics of photography. She took the *ist with her to a concert and took a pic of her favorite boy in the band. I then obliged her, added print with his name et all to it, then took that photo to the only real photo lab in town, had them make a near life sized poster out of it so she could put it up on the wall next to her bed.

6MP and she got a NICE poster the equal of any similar thing out there professionally done, most likely, only she had the pleasure of taking the photo herself. Good job too. I think someday soon this kid will be better than I am, concert shot, not easy, and folks, she had it on MANUAL the whole time. I am so proud, lol. But I ask you, if 6MP can do that, then what do we all need 24MP for? Unless you're cropping the center detail from a shot taken from 100 feet away and blowing it up to the size of a billboard I think it's actually a bit overkill with how well they can print these days.

It's not like it was 10 years ago. Even home printers can print amazingly detailed images with far less than ideal resolution. I have yet to figure out how they do it given what I was taught in school about dpi et all. It's like magic. 75dpi and you can now make an 8x6 that doesn't look like crap? If they make 24MP they make it and I am sure some people will use it, but I don't think the average shooter today needs that much, no.

[joe.penn]

Unless you're cropping the center detail from a shot taken from 100 feet away and blowing it up to the size of a billboard I think it's actually a bit overkill with how well they can print these days.

A printer prints what is transmitted, nothing more and nothing less, there is no magic printer that takes an image and can magically up the resolution and print a higher-res photo than what it was given. Printer technologies have advanced in the form of print heads and the maximum resolution the printer can print, but again, a printer can not print a higher resolution photo than the file that was sent to it.

In short, a file that is sent to a printer at a given resolution/size is gonna print at the calculated ppi (which is slightly different than dpi and lpi), the higher the ppi the more denser the ink will be (the more pixels will be printed within that square inch) and the more detailed the final output would be, bar none and there is absolutely no cheating this; you can upsample the file but this destroys fine detail.

So no, there is much more use to higher mp cameras than just cropping.

[joe.penn]

Just came across this good reference video, well worth watching if you don't know much about printing and ppi or are confused about it...

You Tube

You Tube