Originally posted by Ian Stuart Forsyth With digital photography has become more of an interactive medium that has no real fixed final display size.
Truth be told, print size requirement is a rationalization of a choice based on how much we are willing to spend and how much weight we are willing to carry. It is so because no one knows in advance how large an image might be displayed in the future.
In practice, we take photos with the equipment we have, and 10 years later when we (or someone else, e.g. relatives) enlarge photos from our older cameras, at that very moment we wished we had a better camera.
Nobody reject image quality and resolution improvements (e.g 108Mpixels) on smartphones, when it's seemingly given for "free". But with an ILC camera, even 40Mpixels is too much resolution if it costs money and carry effort.
Cognitive biases: one new $1000 iPhone every other year looks cheaper than one new $3000 camera every 6 years, while in reality the cost is the same.
Smartphone companies and teleco operators split bills in small chunks so that it looks cheap, but the total amount of money isn't cheap at all.
---------- Post added 21-11-21 at 07:12 ----------
Interestingly, photo labs lowest cost per square inch (highest volumes) is for 50 x 75 cm ( 20 x 30"), which corresponds to mainstream full frame camera images, this has been so since the first full frame DSLR were available, used for professional photo works, wedding, portraits, business portraits. Then comes the very high volumes (consumer market), for which the Fuji Frontier minilab were developed, they still prints a lot from mobiles phones and compact cameras.
---------- Post added 21-11-21 at 07:18 ----------
Originally posted by ramseybuckeye I've never thought of shooting for a target media, I just shoot the largest I can, except I haven't shot in pixel shift. I also shoot for stock photos, and you really don't know what they will need.
That is also my experience, I don't know in advantage the print size especially if the images aren't for me.
Originally posted by ramseybuckeye I know there are companies that will make wallpaper out of stock photos, when I saw that it kind of made me laugh.
Well, wallpapers made from photos (printed at 150ppi) can be amazing, and especially create immersive feeling as if the viewing is there in the scene, this is a feeling that can't be created by small prints.