Still using a 16 year old D700 at 12.2MP, still producing stunning looking images, with incredible depth, clarity and image quality that blows my mind...! Best overall DSLR ever made, IMHO.
Great.I used a D700 for years doing Wedding photography. Was excellent. Left it and sold all my gear but now semi retired and returning to photography with a Z6 II. Not sure that I am better off. Cheers from Australia.
Quite agree. I replaced my D700 with a Z 7. The only advantage the 46mp Z 7 has is croppability- in fact the D700 images look better. The Z 7 pics look a bit gritty, like the camera can see better than your eye can. I've kept the 700!
The best video I've seen on Megapixels. You did a great job at explaining it and you did it in less than 15 minutes. I think the second most asked question I get from amateurs, right behind; "What kind of camera do you have," is "How many megapixels is it?"
A friend of mine from photo school shoots with a Canon with around 20 MP and has his work on magazine covers and billboards. He shoots for a few different boating and water Skiing companies.
Now I feel embarrassed and inadequate with my "mature" 16 MPixel Olympus OMD5 😂 BUT I recently won the silver medal in an international underwater photography competition in Egypt. I was competing against the Z8's, R5 and the like. I hope to be able to get OM1 MARK II soon 😊
No you were competing against the others vision not their gear. Gear is only a part of the equation. Sometimes a very small part. No different than a hammer or a wrench. It is a tool thereby an extension of the Craftsman but I suspect you know that. This is for the others lol.
I use a PhaseOne IQ3-100, a 100mpx digital back, for fashion photography. It gives me an incredible amount of options for both significant cropping, as well as amazing details for retouching. In the end however, when all is done, the ending images will always get scaled down for social media / online use.
Thank you so much @david for taking up my question. Coming from an APSC with 24, I went for the R5 in the meantime, as I expect the 45 will give me ample room for straightening out the unavoidable but unwanted angles in certain architecture shots as well as a lot of freedom for my studio portraits. The first couple of sessions were absolutely great so far. 🙏🙏🙏 Cheers, Achim
I've just part exchanged a Fujifilm X-T3 (26MP) for a shiny new X-T5 ((40MP). What persuaded me was the IBIS in the X-T5 - I would have been very happy to have 26MP again, with better dynamic range etc etc. But when travelling, which is when I take most of my photographs, the IBIS makes a huge difference for interior shots. And of course you can't go back and reshoot if you're on a trip!
There is no significant difference in dynamic range between X-T4 and X-T5, the only difference are that you can shoot 1/3 of a stop faster with the X-T4 which not is much and more than zeroed out with the IBIS in the X-T5, but you will have a BIG advantage with the X-T5 having more megapixels.
Hi Dave I’m 76 & been taking photos since the late 50’s I use a Fuji xe2s 16 megs APSC and just enlarged a photo to 16x24 & wow it came out incredible (taken with Fuji 18-55 zoom) so you are correct great video
You nailed it. "The marketing hype says we need more and more megapixels". In real world use not needed except for cropping. Lower MP = cleaner image. Thanks explaining this in a straight forward manner.
'You need more pixels!' - who says? - Camera sales department! After 25 years of experience in printing and photography industry I confirm you can absolutely get by with 12 megapixels for offset or digital prints. In case I might need a crop, I rely on optics, not megapixels, so I take more zoomed shots. Also mind the limits or sweet spots of your optics, beyond them you'll get blurry images, the more megapixels the more blurry.
Individual sensor character combined with lens rendering has always felt significantly more important to me. My current body is 12 years old as of 2024. I can use the photos SOOC, which was never the case for my newer kit. Great videos. Covers the basics perfectly for new users.
8 years I was using 18 megapixels crop sensor camera from 12 years ago model lineup and was completely happy with it. Half year ago I upgraded to the 24 megapixel camera and still with the crop sensor. It’s more than enough for all my needs, even when I do relatively big prints (110x70cm). To my own opinion the megapixel race is way overhyped. Yes, I understand that in some cases, like wildlife photography, for example, it can be necessary, but in most of other cases… You can have 24,18,12, even 10 megapixel camera with fast medium range glass and get much better results than some other with 100 megapixel cameras. Just stick with your skills and art vision first, and later you will see if you need more resolution or not.
In my photo days, I shot mainly Tri-X on any of the cameras I had. That ranged from the Pentax Spotmatic F to my current Nikon F2. No matter what, grainy Tri-X produced great 11x14 prints. Looking at that photo from the correct distance, you don't notice the grain. You see an image that is sharp. Today I am happy with a 24/26 mp camera, though I do have a 61mp camera for those times I shoot macro. The one thing to consider when taking portraits of people is that you will capture every pour, every hair and every flaw on that person's face. A 61mp camera (Sony A7CR or the 42mp A7R3) will make extremely sharp photos worthy of a 20x24 inch and larger poster. I actually think the 42/44mp sensor to be perfect. The rest is gravy.
I use a A7 III (24mp) and it´s more than I need for the large prints of my landscape photos. For portraits, that are printed in medium size, is also more than enough. So it´s like you said, from 20 to 24mp is good enough for professional photographers and more than enough for us amateurs.
The D700 is full frame, whereas the XT30 is crop sensor… The D700 WOULD produce better images with the “lower” megapixel count due to the 12mp being larger photo sights spread over a full frame sensor. The 24 megapixels are crammed into a smaller sensor thus creating smaller photo sights, leading to a lower quality image.
This is about the best explanation and rundown on the subject as I have seen. Excellent. Thank you David, and Adorama. Great question, Achim H. Many will be glad you asked. I am.
For a 6x4 inch print that you hold in your hands, you need 2 megapixels; printers and paper usually can't handle more, and you won't notice additional detail anyway. This doesn't scale proportionally because we tend to view larger prints from a greater distance, so a larger print from the same 2MP image might still look good, while with 4MP, you can inspect closer and see more details. Therefore, even 10MP is adequate and allows for some generous cropping. As for digital viewing, it depends on how strongly you want to do pixel-peeping, which isn't necessarily reflective of typical photo viewing, it's a different kind of activity. Without zooming in, a 2MP image is still a suitable size for sharing online. With a 2x zoom and bilinear filtering (typical for photo viewers), a 2MP photo doesn't appear pixelated, 2x zoom permits seeing more detail on a typical 26-inch full HD display, placed at an arm's length from the eyes without apparent pixelation. I believe this video addresses all these points effectively, but some aspects may be missing or perhaps I didn't pay close enough attention. One crucial aspect is the actual resolution of the lens. Some popular yet pricey lenses like the EF 28-70mm f/2.8L can provide up to 19MP at best, while some inexpensive kit lenses can't exceed 8MP. However, because of the characteristics of sensors, particularly those using the Bayer matrix, increasing megapixels does indeed enhance resolution. Here, pixel-shift technology stands out (not present in Canon or Nikon to my knowledge). It counters the Bayer matrix's limitations by virtually aligning each pixel (red, green, blue) behind one another by quickly shifting the sensor during the capture, eliminating the need for actual debayering. This process helps to mitigate some of the limitations of the Bayer matrix arrangement, such as color moiré and aliasing artifacts and improves apparent resolution of the image. Therefore, the type of sensor significantly impacts resolution too, not just the pixel count. But again, if the lens does not offer sufficient resolution, even the most advanced sensor won't improve the situation. And, after all, eventually you scale everything down, as mentioned in the first paragraph, so this becomes irrelevant. What matters in your picture is how it's composed, the lighting, the shadows - that's what defines a good picture, not the number of megapixels.
An excellent presentation on the whole topic. For my purposes, I do like to crop and prefer higher resolutions for that reason & I chose the Nikon Z8 for its 45 MP resolution.
My current cameras are 26, 33 and 61MP. Whenever I do a shoot with the 26 or 33 and the shoot goes really well I'm disappointed that I didn't use my 61. I love doing Dutch twists and other unusual crops in post and want a high resolution image at the end of the process.
My philosophy for everything, not just mega pixels is "It's better to have it and not need it that to need it and not have it." Sometimes I make insanely tight crops for posting on social media and they work very well from my 42 MP camera, not from my 6.2 MP original DSLR.
If you expose and compose correctly it's amazing how little you need. I shot a wedding last year with a Nikon D300S (12mp) because it was outdoors and I could get 8fps. The clients wanted some enlargements as large as 12x18 and were still amazed at the images. I've never had a client ask how many megapixels my camera has.
I recently shot a concert from a relatively far away seat, on a Sony RX100M7 (20.1MP); and once I dialed in my settings - I got great results. Mainly shutter speed, getting a good focus mark, and keying my white balance and exposure off a guitar player wearing a white jump suit - the pics were amazing! Settings and patience matter more than megapixels.
Thanks for your detailed explanation David. I have more modern mirrorless and higher res kit but I still reach for my 12mp D700 regularly. I just can't part with it. I think it was ahead of its time. If picky, no bluetooth, wifi, video and it blows highlights more readily in a very bright sky but thats it, Combined with a good prime better, than more mp in my view.
The higher the MP rate on a sensor you go, physics start kicking in in terms of light gathering capabilities. And whilst there are certain technologies to counteract that (backside illumination, or some 'cute' software tweaks) the size of the photosite on the sensor is critical in terms of how many photons are going to be detected per site. In most circumstances, up to 20 MP will be plenty for most, especially when printing (and in most homes that'll tend to be no higher than A4 sized). If you are the kind of person who needs to crop viciously into images, either because of your choice of lens at the time, or, just for composition reasons, then a higher pixel count will counteract loss of resolution when you blow up the image. As most people share on social media and other places like that, you don't need a megapixel machine frankly. It depends on four general things: 1) do you crop a lot? 2) do you print a lot (large format especially, 3) are you limited by optics at your disposal? 4) is dynamic range/ high ISO performance important to you?
One of the best videos on here about this topic… RUclips needed something like this … I recall looking that info before my upgrade and never found it !!!
As a fun point of physics and optics, the denser (smaller and more compacted) your sensor sites are, the more prone you are record defraction errors in your lenses. Given the physics and limitations of light and lenses, there is an optimum density of pixels before you hit the point of diminishing returns and cross over into unnecessary technological "overkill." With a crop sensor, that point is about 24 mp. With a full frame, it's about 45 to 50 mp. With a medium format sensor, it's about 100 to 150mp. Bigger sensors (woth the appropriate circle size lenses) can get a much narrower depth of field at a given focal length. But, of course, your printing process can and does cost you resolution, in which case a lot of defects in resolution go unnoticed. You can enlarge a 10 to 12 mp image as well as you can do the same with old 32 ASA pan film before the image goes to heck in a hand basket. Personally, I like the max megapixels I can get for given format so I can crop to my heart's content. I still professionally shoot everything between an old 5D MK II up to a R5 depending upon what I want or need.
I shoot with the Canon R6 I with 20 mp. Love the low light capability. I can even crop and print portraits with really no problems.Yes. invest in good glass and take some photo lessons.
I upgraded to a 5DSR 50.6 mp from a t3i 18mp and a 645 120 film (hobby photographer). the price of 50mp is the focus and technique have to be on the money or there is going to be camera shake blur, so it's not a snap shot kind of camera. other than that, I kind of love the "extensive room to grow" it affords me, as it forces me to slow down and think about what I'm doing.
I still shoot weddings with my Nikon D3s, LOL! You are right about cropping so I am constantly aware that eacg sgot HAS to fill the viewfinder. Not entirely sure how you arrived at your “needed” MP size for printing as I’ve had clients print 24x36 prints with a 10MP image shot from a Canon 1D3., and one client printed a wedding photo 30x45 from a 12 MP photo. That said, today’s cameras as stellar. I still like the high ISO performance from my Nikons so I don’t plan on changing anytime soon but new photographers looking at cameras nowadays have exciting choices to choose from.
I've been shooting in the 20-30MP range for quite a while and have no real need or desire to make my main camera body higher resolution for the bulk of my shooting. I do have an R5 that I use for very specific use cases, but otherwise, it's all R6 and R6II bodies, and man, they are excellent.
My current Cam is "only" 24MPs but many of my old photos taken with 10 and 12MP cameras have been printed in field guides and authors of those books never had any issues with no of MP used for taking photo as long as the photos were sharp.
An amazing job is subjective; your comment would have been complete if you had stated what is the maximum print size you can get from your camera when printed at 300 DPI without digital manipulation
My main camera was the Canon 6D (20mp) for many years. Excellent camera - one of the best Canon dSLRs ever made. Still a worthy camera for astrophotography. It would be a worthy camera to pickup second hand for beginners.
And if you do find you suddenly need more resolution after the fact, Adobe's new AI Super Resolution does an incredible job of upscaling RAW files. Effectively indistinguishable from the pixel shift function found in many modern cameras. As long as your image is in focus, properly exposed, and not shot too high on the ISO scale, it works brilliantly. At this point, I think 24MP on FF and APS-C cameras is plenty good enough for 95% of applications.
Need an addendum to explain the fact that the higher the MP, the sooner diffraction sets in. E.g., if for a given lens, diffraction sets in at f/11 on a 45MP FF sensor, it will set in at f/8 on a 60MP FF sensor.
Great video, I would add that the extra MP are like adding a 3x, 4x, or more teleconverter because of the huge ability to crop with little loss. Also, higher res means you need to use higher shutter or tripod to not record any shake. Lastly, having shot Kodachrome as a young man, my D850 is my current Kodachrome.
Thankx for the video, good thoughts on all the aspects surrounding Megapixels ! I have an EOS R with 30 MP. I think it is a good middle ground. The files are not too overwelming in size (30-40MB) but it still gives plenty of cropping capability. A year ago I added a Canon 5DC with 12.7 MP. The filesize here is really small (12-15MB). Small correction cropping is still possible but heavier cropping is not adviced, meaning you have to be a bit more determined when you take the photo which is o.k. .... Image qualitiy wise, I do the love the raw photos coming from the 5DC better. Richer colour, nicer rendering. I hardly have to do anything to the files in post whilst with the EOS R it's always a bit more tweeking. Some say that the lesser and bigger pixels on the 5DC sensor account for better colour seperation. Not sure if that is true but there surely is something different with the photos coming from that camera.
I have a Sony A1 and A7R5 with plenty of detail. But when I travel to European I used an OM-1 at 20MP and can print a 24x30 at home on my Canon Prograph 2000 and it really would be hard to tell the difference. Just less flexibility if you do crop a lot obviously.
I'd say the lens you use for the right application has more importance for results as processing can deliver much of what is necessary. I'm happy with full frame images at 24MP
I have Sony A7iii with 24mp and I am tempted with A7iv 33mp, that I decided I will jump to only if I have to. 24mp is a sweet spot for all styles of photography with me, but I do crop a bit in wildlife photography and my pictures would benefit from a small jump in pixels. As to the video - good job! 👍❤️
David I LOVE your videos!! Short, concise, to the point. And as an fyi I bought my first SLR, a Minolta SRT101 as a three lens kit at Adorama in 1973!!!!!
Simple answer: all of them. LOL My first digital camera was a 2mp Kodak, it was fine at the time but looking back, I do wish I had more pixels. My first dSLR (Canon 20D) was just over 8mp - on a 4k monitor, the images still hold up fine. I've had several other cameras since, including my newest camera the Sony A7R V - a 61mp monster - with an option to create 240mp composite images too. Early on, there was a race for more megapixels - but today, we have reached a spot where the megapixels are enough for most folks, thus other features are more important. Today, there are just pros/cons. For example, I know my A7R V doesn't have best-in-class low-light performance and the video capabilities are impaired because the sensor is _too_ big. However, I wanted that camera for landscape, not video. I already have a very capable A7C (24mp) that is an excellent hybrid camera (a travel version of the A7III) - which is still my general travel buddy. I would say, for today, the sweet spot is in the 20-30mp range. That's a decent starting point for new mirrorless/dSLR cameras. Only go higher if you know you want it and are willing to put up with the compromises more pixels introduces - but that range provides enough megapixel overhead that folks can crop a bit and still have exceptional prints and/or look amazing on a 4k display.
This was a good, clear, discussion of real-world resolution requirements. One point about resolution needs for large prints: the human eye can only resolve down to one radian (1/60 of a degree). For reference, in a normal, well-designed, movie theater, if you sit in the middle row, the screen will take up approximately 30 degrees of your horizontal field of vision--an image which hardly looks small. Given that our eyes can't see any detail smaller than one radian, once the resolution reaches 1800 (30 X 60) horizontal pixels it will appear perfectly clear on that movie screen; adding more pixels won't make it any clearer to us. Now, if we're talking about large prints, virtually nobody looks at a print where it occupies more than twice the field of vision that one gets in the movie seat just mentioned; an image at that relative scale would require 3600 horizontal pixels and 2400 vertical pixels, or 8.6 megapixels.
I have the R5 and the R6. The latter never gets any use. It is just a backup or for a second lens. If I shot only landscapes or portraits then either would work well. If I never printed images, again either would work well. Having switched to shooting birds, Those extra pixels were more than just nice to have. With the 100-500 or the 200-800 zoom I don't need to be as close to get a great shot. When reviewing in post I can choose whether to fill the frame with the bird or show the environment along with the bird. For that the 45MP really shines. On the other hand, fast action sports is easier with 24mp and the file sizes are less. With the R5 I have switch to C-raw without feeling that I am giving up a lot. Given the size of my files I run all shoots thru Photo Mechanic to cull the bad shots and then Brin the rest into LR. That is an extra step but well worth it.
I do fashion and beauty photography for a living and most of the assignments are shot with 50 or 100MP Hasselblad or 47MP Leicas. Usually the client requests a minimum of 7000 pixels on the long side. That results in approx. 40MP. It gives them manouverability for print. The image editor however, is more concerned with bit depth. They usually love the 16bit of a Hasselblad. It provides for easier color editing. Having said that, 20 years ago we’d publish 12MB images with a bit depth of 8 or 10. Still beautiful images. For personal work, I use a Q2 or M11 when I really go out and take time to create deliberate images. For travelling, casual shooting and flexibility my absolute fav camera is the Lumix G9 with the Leica 12-60. ‘Only’ 20MP, but an absolute gem, even today. It handles like a dream and for image quality the lens makes all the difference. My advice? Buy what you’re able and willing to carry.
The other issue is equipment size and lenses to suit the larger sensors which can get very large and heavy. My Olympus E-M1 Mk II uses much smaller glass so when I go on holiday I have much less weight to cart around and I can take 2-3 lenses in a small shoulder bag. This is more convenient and even makes it so you take the camera more locations. When I had a bigger camera and glass I would sometime just not take it because either it was too big or heavy. I am very happy with the 20mp picture quality so that’s my compromise… and it is always a compromise, if only because of price of larger sensor gear and glass. Really liked the article and great examples… Thanks mate👍😊
Good analysis... with the same answers I've heard for decades, just higher pixel counts. The greatest advance over that time has been in smartphone cameras, which are what most photographers now use to shoot most of their stills and videos. To answer the question of what you "need" from a digital camera today, I'd ask where the phone is not meeting your needs.
Great video as always. I mainly shoot with my 5DSR camera for macro and still life and 80D for zoo photography (my 100-400 lens becomes a 160-640 lens). Yes, the 5DSR has more noise especially when underexposed, but when I have the perfect exposure, watching on monitor and printing my photos is magical. However, for majority of people the difference may not be discernible. This is like a wine connoisseur versus an average drinker. The connoisseur will pick up more nuances.
To scan most of the detail on a 35mm photo, you'll need about 864 x 0.1, or 87 Megapixels. That's about 8128 DPI. But in practice, consumer lenses and higher ISO films don't record that much detail. Scanning more than about 3048 DPI (12.4 MP) usually just increases the visibility of grain
It all comes down to the real estate adage, “Location, location, location.” WHERE are the final images going to be displayed? And from how far away? Years ago, one of my images was used on a billboard…after it was cropped. It was shot with a Canon 30D. Yes, an 8mp 30D. It looked great. OTOH, large prints viewed closer..? Not as much. For display on social media…it’s even less important. These days I mostly use 30-50mp bodies because they make great prints at sizes that I prefer. The caveat being that sometimes HUGE amounts of detail really can be too much. Unless someone has perfect skin, anything over 20mp will mean spending time smoothing said skin.
I'd say for most printing at normal viewing distances (say anywhere from 12 inches or 1 foot to say 60 inches or 5 ft away) 240-300 dpi should be a good target, and by doing some math, even for a larger print at 240 dpi (say a 13x19 print) you can still easily do that with a 20MP camera (technical 18MP if you don't crop at all). So I think the real big question you need to ask yourself is what is the print size (and viewing distance) and how much do you usually crop. If you're a heavy cropper, than maybe go a bit higher on resolution (you may not need 45MP if you're only doing 13x19 prints and crop a lot, but something like 30 or 36 MP may be more reasonable and a bit cheaper in terms of cost of the camera and you're not paying for pixels you may not need). As for the file size concerns, many cameras do have a lossless compressed mode, which can compress even a 45MP image into around a 50-70MB image depending on the manufacturer. Of course you can also use a lossy compression format which will cause you to lose some detail but those files can be much smaller (perhaps even half or 2/3 the size of alossless compressed file from the camera camera) but you may lose some image quality in the process. But memory cards are quite cheap and so are HDDs and even larger SSDs (like 1-2TB SSDs can be had for about $80-$130 depending on what you get). HDDs are even cheaper now and you can easily get a 4 or 8TB for about $80-$150 as well. So I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about file size unless you shoot A LOT of images, bu even so card capacities have gone up significantly and costs have come down drastically both on memory cards, SSDs and HDDs. So I wouldn't necessarily let file size dictate what resolution camera you buy or what file format you use, again UNLES you are limited on space and/or your shoot A LOT of photos (like 1-2 TB or more per year of photos, which is a lot -- and some people do, but for most people -- the average enthusiast, it's usually not a huge issue and again, memory and storage has become quite cheap lately).
Like you shooting concert photos, I shoot thousands of movement photos in dog shows. My go-to lens is a Nikon Z 70-200mm f2.8, although occasionally I use a Z 24-120mm f4; a Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 or a couple others lenses. If I'm using two camera bodies then I can usually fill the frame with the shot, but all too often I have to crop, especially when using one camera and lens and something far away strikes my fancy. Sometimes I have to crop a lot. So for me, I really don't like shooting with less than the 45.6 MP of the Nikon Z8 or Z9.
You nail a point I've been talking about for years... mega pixels means didly squat, when stretching an image for a billboard. I shot an image for a rural school that was used on a billboard advert on a Canon 70d, and at that size and viewing distance, the mega pixel count was just fine... I can attest that there was nothing wrong... even my pixel peeping butt was totally satisfied with the results, and I usually disavow All my photos every 6 months. (It's an artist perfection thing)
I have a 24 and 42 MP camera. On the high resolution camera I love the possibility to crop the image and do large prints without thinking about resolution. Other then that, 24 is enough. For the larger files you not only need more storage, but the processing is much more demanding for your computer.
It depends on your requirements. The latest high megapixal cameras, need correspondingly better optics, to get the advantages. I use a 60mp camera. On large banners 4m x 1.5m you can definitely see the benefits.
I'm shooting with the classic Canon 5D II (in production 2008-2012). It's a 21.1MP, and I'm really impressed with the image quality! I paired it with a 24-105 L f4, 70-200 L f4 non-IS, and a nifty f1.8 stm.
Related to this question. Sensor size. Some people a sensor size snobs. “I’d never shot with anything less than a full frame sensor.” I am an amateur and shoot street photography. I don’t need bokeh. As a matter of fact, I shoot around f5.6-8. I shoot in the day so don’t need great low light performance. How much difference can I see between M43, APSC, and FF sensors? Forget medium format. Mask On Nurse Marty (Ret)
I've had 8 MP photos from my 1D2N printed on billboards and city buses and they look amazing. 24 MP on my R6 II can be used for anything. I've also upscaled to match the R5 and I can't see any difference most of the time, even viewed at 100% on a 5K monitor. If I use any sort of advanced upscaling, I can make my R6 II files look more detailed/better. But even then, when printed, I don't see much difference from either cam. That's why I saved $2000 and got the R6 II and got a lens. Also the AF accuracy made a bigger difference to sharpness than MP... and the R6 II has better AF than the R5. And everything said above also applies to cropping. Again, you just upscale your output from LR or ACR to what you want, or use Superscale feature (or a good AI upscaler). But I don't crop.
I have been shooting professionally since way back in the film days and for the last many years have been shooting APS-C and FF. Everything is so good now that it functionally doesn't matter. Whatever works best in a given situation. My clients can't tell the difference and they never ask. I love FF in the studio and for landscape stuff and my APS-C gear is light and easy to lug around on location and terrific for video. Great tech explanation, David, and yes, glass rules!!!
Similar experience. I find most interchangeable lens cameras today to have better quality when printed than even my medium format cameras from back then. I think the main reason is the film, which was much grain. I've looked through many of my old prints and compared them and am hard pressed to find something sharper and cleaner (less grainy or noisy) than what my digital cameras have produced in the past 15 years. The prints I have made from my digital cameras (I've printed up to 20X30 outsourced, up to 13X18 on my Epson and Canon wide format Printers at home) are much cleaner than similar prints from my film cameras. Add to the cameras quality the ability to improve the image with software, resizing, noise reduction, etc. and it's not contest. Yet, people are not satisfied unless they have the latest and greatest.
More than 45 you then start having diffraction issues. Diffraction kicks in at f7.1 with the 45 mp of the R5 and f6.3 with Sonys 61 mp camera. For landscapes typically shot at F11 you’d need to focus stack if you want to have maximum sharpness. And also most lenses are at their sharpest at f5.6-f8. Gets tricky
My camera, as set shoots ~26 MP raw files on a nominally 20 MP sensor, I haven't figured that out yet. For me, 20+ is going to be the sweet spot, enough for the cropping I would do, mostly correcting the horizon and still gives nice results. You did bring up a good point about when one needs to crop massively that more is better. But I personally never have been in that situation.
YOU HAVE GOT IT EXACTLY RIGHT. i shoot for prints .I have a Epson stylus pro 9800 a canon 6d and a 5ds and use photoshop cs6 all of which are obsolete in todays world but there is no logical to upgrade any of these they all work .For prints i do not need high dynamic range or 40 frames per second ..The 5ds with a good lens is still a good camera today
I used to shoot weddings and senior portraits with 5-6 megapixel cameras, and frequently printed 16x20 prints with no problem. (Does anyone remember the Olympus E-20N??) I love being able to shoot at 20-30 megapixels so I can crop in tight if needed.
Yeah but what is the maximum print size you can get at 300 DPI?; occasionally even seasoned amateurs will need to make 48"x36" prints, or 48"x12" panoramic prints with a viewing distance of 5'ft, unless a 24MP sensor can deliver that with very little image deterioration it isn't enough.
That .... was an excellent explanation of the main issues ..... and it was short enough to keep me engaged. All the facts in one place. This should be a reference guide for anyone wanting to splash the cash. Thank you ... much enjoyed and appreciated.
i use the nikon d810 for family, groups and some portraits work.my other camera is a nikon d780 and always try and fill the frame. with the camera level.
Thank you for this great tutorial, David. I photograph mostly small birds with the R5 + RF 100-500. I crop, A LOT. I've thought about the R3, but now I understand why this most likely wouldn't be a good choice for me.
I still have pics on my walls that are from a 4 meg crop sensor that people can’t tell from my 45 meg camera. Unless you’re an inch away from the pic, you can’t see much difference in print. Great video.
A follow up question. How about software that enlarge images in post production. How many pixels does it add and is the quality good enough that you can actually crop even closer to your subject without losing quality?
Megapixels sells cameras. PixeL size can be forgotten but should always always be included in the discussion So when they rate megapixels it should say this many and this size on this area of sensor
Back in the day, one of my shop's NC2000e image went 20 x 24 and did not look bad at all at standard viewing distance. That is 1.3 MP so you don't have to look it up. It did take some work in Photoshop but since my troop exposed it well and we did not have to crop. It became a VIP presentation favorite not to mention ran in some newspapers nationwide. I had a series of Nikons after Kodak lost the biz culminating with the D800. That 36 MP is a good size. I now have gone Sony with the A7IV and I am happy with 33MP. Kind of the sweet spot, at least for me, between cropping and file size. I am old school and still use Photoshop as my primary and wind up with layers. I do shoot everything RAW. Being semi-retired now, I don't see needing any more MPs in the near future. First digital I used on the job? Kodak DCS 200. BTW the only films I miss are good B&W and Kodachrome. Just can't get those looks with digital. Close but no cigar. While most of us shooters are geeks and get lost in the tech sometimes, the image itself is what really matters. Light, content and (most of all) the moment will always sell an image. (unless you pixel peep like some of the stock folks) Remember the old Nat Geo adage: f8 and be there. I bend that one a bit and say: What is the best camera in the world? The one you have in your hands. The one back at the shop or shiny new in the camera store is not going to make the image you are shooting now. The photog is what really makes the difference. Quick question: Is anyone else here versed in dealing with noise manually in PS? Every time I use one of these cool new tools that magically deal with the noise, I get reminiscent. Happy shooting.
I like being able to crop heavily, especially when photographing sports and wildlife and when making videos. So I’m very happy with my new Fuji X-T5 with its 40 megapixel sensor.
I went to a Nikon Z8 from a D780. The "quality" of the images on the D780 was better. but the Z8 is definitely very good. However I can crop my wildlife photos extensively if needed when using the Z8. All that said, I have a D700 (12 megapixels) that's about 15 years old and it does just fine if not doing significant crops!
Another consideration related to file size *may* be your computer. With an older machine, trying to process 50-60mp RAW files in Lightroom might test your patience. In other words, a high megapixel camera might be even more expensive than you think if you have to upgrade your computer hardware along with it.
Still using a 16 year old D700 at 12.2MP, still producing stunning looking images, with incredible depth, clarity and image quality that blows my mind...! Best overall DSLR ever made, IMHO.
Great.I used a D700 for years doing Wedding photography. Was excellent. Left it and sold all my gear but now semi retired and returning to photography with a Z6 II. Not sure that I am better off. Cheers from Australia.
Quite agree. I replaced my D700 with a Z 7. The only advantage the 46mp Z 7 has is croppability- in fact the D700 images look better. The Z 7 pics look a bit gritty, like the camera can see better than your eye can. I've kept the 700!
I totally agree.
@@baobo67 you are. You have excellent 4K option now 🙌
The best video I've seen on Megapixels. You did a great job at explaining it and you did it in less than 15 minutes. I think the second most asked question I get from amateurs, right behind; "What kind of camera do you have," is "How many megapixels is it?"
16 to 24 Mp is the sweet spot
You can use old lenses with lots of character and 3D
36 and up need oversharped lenses with flat clinical rendering
A friend of mine from photo school shoots with a Canon with around 20 MP and has his work on magazine covers and billboards. He shoots for a few different boating and water Skiing companies.
Now I feel embarrassed and inadequate with my "mature" 16 MPixel Olympus OMD5 😂 BUT I recently won the silver medal in an international underwater photography competition in Egypt. I was competing against the Z8's, R5 and the like. I hope to be able to get OM1 MARK II soon 😊
Bravo! I just purchased an OM1 MII. Went from a ff Sony a74 and couldn't be happier. The size and ergonomics so much more fun to use.....
Remember om-1 only have 20MP 😉 but that's more than enough 💪 unless you want to print humongous posters.
No you were competing against the others vision not their gear. Gear is only a part of the equation. Sometimes a very small part. No different than a hammer or a wrench. It is a tool thereby an extension of the Craftsman but I suspect you know that. This is for the others lol.
That’s because you wont it not because of your gear- because it’s you. You create the image, not your OMD5 or if you had it, the Z8 or R5. Congrats!
Pics?
I use a PhaseOne IQ3-100, a 100mpx digital back, for fashion photography. It gives me an incredible amount of options for both significant cropping, as well as amazing details for retouching. In the end however, when all is done, the ending images will always get scaled down for social media / online use.
I love PhaseOne cameras. I've rented a few for shoots. The IQ3 100MP Trichromatic digital back for Hasselblad H is outstanding.
Thank you so much @david for taking up my question. Coming from an APSC with 24, I went for the R5 in the meantime, as I expect the 45 will give me ample room for straightening out the unavoidable but unwanted angles in certain architecture shots as well as a lot of freedom for my studio portraits. The first couple of sessions were absolutely great so far. 🙏🙏🙏 Cheers, Achim
R5 is a fantastic camera!
Great video! I am a hobbyist and shoot with a Nikon D750 (24 megapixel). I like it because it’s a good low-light camera.
I've just part exchanged a Fujifilm X-T3 (26MP) for a shiny new X-T5 ((40MP). What persuaded me was the IBIS in the X-T5 - I would have been very happy to have 26MP again, with better dynamic range etc etc. But when travelling, which is when I take most of my photographs, the IBIS makes a huge difference for interior shots. And of course you can't go back and reshoot if you're on a trip!
There is no significant difference in dynamic range between X-T4 and X-T5, the only difference are that you can shoot 1/3 of a stop faster with the X-T4 which not is much and more than zeroed out with the IBIS in the X-T5, but you will have a BIG advantage with the X-T5 having more megapixels.
Well upscaling from 26 to 40 is pretty good and if your glass is good a lot of times you can make them essentially the same image
Hi Dave I’m 76 & been taking photos since the late 50’s I use a Fuji xe2s 16 megs APSC and just enlarged a photo to 16x24 & wow it came out incredible (taken with Fuji 18-55 zoom) so you are correct great video
You nailed it. "The marketing hype says we need more and more megapixels". In real world use not needed except for cropping. Lower MP = cleaner image. Thanks explaining this in a straight forward manner.
'You need more pixels!' - who says? - Camera sales department! After 25 years of experience in printing and photography industry I confirm you can absolutely get by with 12 megapixels for offset or digital prints. In case I might need a crop, I rely on optics, not megapixels, so I take more zoomed shots. Also mind the limits or sweet spots of your optics, beyond them you'll get blurry images, the more megapixels the more blurry.
Well said ‼️👍🏻
Not for high end commercial work
Yes. more cowbell.
nobody's talking about your prints
Answer is obvious. if you don't know what your deliverables are, then you have a bigger problem than megapixels.
Hey man, what do you mean by optics sweet spots? And how do I find it for my lens?
Individual sensor character combined with lens rendering has always felt significantly more important to me. My current body is 12 years old as of 2024. I can use the photos SOOC, which was never the case for my newer kit.
Great videos. Covers the basics perfectly for new users.
8 years I was using 18 megapixels crop sensor camera from 12 years ago model lineup and was completely happy with it. Half year ago I upgraded to the 24 megapixel camera and still with the crop sensor. It’s more than enough for all my needs, even when I do relatively big prints (110x70cm). To my own opinion the megapixel race is way overhyped. Yes, I understand that in some cases, like wildlife photography, for example, it can be necessary, but in most of other cases… You can have 24,18,12, even 10 megapixel camera with fast medium range glass and get much better results than some other with 100 megapixel cameras. Just stick with your skills and art vision first, and later you will see if you need more resolution or not.
In my photo days, I shot mainly Tri-X on any of the cameras I had. That ranged from the Pentax Spotmatic F to my current Nikon F2. No matter what, grainy Tri-X produced great 11x14 prints. Looking at that photo from the correct distance, you don't notice the grain. You see an image that is sharp. Today I am happy with a 24/26 mp camera, though I do have a 61mp camera for those times I shoot macro. The one thing to consider when taking portraits of people is that you will capture every pour, every hair and every flaw on that person's face. A 61mp camera (Sony A7CR or the 42mp A7R3) will make extremely sharp photos worthy of a 20x24 inch and larger poster. I actually think the 42/44mp sensor to be perfect. The rest is gravy.
I use a A7 III (24mp) and it´s more than I need for the large prints of my landscape photos. For portraits, that are printed in medium size, is also more than enough. So it´s like you said, from 20 to 24mp is good enough for professional photographers and more than enough for us amateurs.
I never used all 6 mp on my Pentax Wipio. Chose the "2mp" setting so most files were around 1mp. Printed detailed, colorful 8x14 prints on my HP.
I sold my Fuji XT30ii (24MP) and continued shooting my Nikon D700 (12MP) - For the images are just better, despite the lower resolution.
The D700 is full frame, whereas the XT30 is crop sensor… The D700 WOULD produce better images with the “lower” megapixel count due to the 12mp being larger photo sights spread over a full frame sensor. The 24 megapixels are crammed into a smaller sensor thus creating smaller photo sights, leading to a lower quality image.
Damn, you don’t know about full frame vs. aps-c?
This is about the best explanation and rundown on the subject as I have seen. Excellent. Thank you David, and Adorama. Great question, Achim H. Many will be glad you asked. I am.
For a 6x4 inch print that you hold in your hands, you need 2 megapixels; printers and paper usually can't handle more, and you won't notice additional detail anyway. This doesn't scale proportionally because we tend to view larger prints from a greater distance, so a larger print from the same 2MP image might still look good, while with 4MP, you can inspect closer and see more details. Therefore, even 10MP is adequate and allows for some generous cropping. As for digital viewing, it depends on how strongly you want to do pixel-peeping, which isn't necessarily reflective of typical photo viewing, it's a different kind of activity. Without zooming in, a 2MP image is still a suitable size for sharing online. With a 2x zoom and bilinear filtering (typical for photo viewers), a 2MP photo doesn't appear pixelated, 2x zoom permits seeing more detail on a typical 26-inch full HD display, placed at an arm's length from the eyes without apparent pixelation.
I believe this video addresses all these points effectively, but some aspects may be missing or perhaps I didn't pay close enough attention. One crucial aspect is the actual resolution of the lens. Some popular yet pricey lenses like the EF 28-70mm f/2.8L can provide up to 19MP at best, while some inexpensive kit lenses can't exceed 8MP.
However, because of the characteristics of sensors, particularly those using the Bayer matrix, increasing megapixels does indeed enhance resolution. Here, pixel-shift technology stands out (not present in Canon or Nikon to my knowledge). It counters the Bayer matrix's limitations by virtually aligning each pixel (red, green, blue) behind one another by quickly shifting the sensor during the capture, eliminating the need for actual debayering. This process helps to mitigate some of the limitations of the Bayer matrix arrangement, such as color moiré and aliasing artifacts and improves apparent resolution of the image. Therefore, the type of sensor significantly impacts resolution too, not just the pixel count. But again, if the lens does not offer sufficient resolution, even the most advanced sensor won't improve the situation. And, after all, eventually you scale everything down, as mentioned in the first paragraph, so this becomes irrelevant. What matters in your picture is how it's composed, the lighting, the shadows - that's what defines a good picture, not the number of megapixels.
An excellent presentation on the whole topic. For my purposes, I do like to crop and prefer higher resolutions for that reason & I chose the Nikon Z8 for its 45 MP resolution.
My current cameras are 26, 33 and 61MP. Whenever I do a shoot with the 26 or 33 and the shoot goes really well I'm disappointed that I didn't use my 61. I love doing Dutch twists and other unusual crops in post and want a high resolution image at the end of the process.
I always want more. I use large format film sometimes for this reason.
My philosophy for everything, not just mega pixels is "It's better to have it and not need it that to need it and not have it." Sometimes I make insanely tight crops for posting on social media and they work very well from my 42 MP camera, not from my 6.2 MP original DSLR.
If you expose and compose correctly it's amazing how little you need. I shot a wedding last year with a Nikon D300S (12mp) because it was outdoors and I could get 8fps. The clients wanted some enlargements as large as 12x18 and were still amazed at the images. I've never had a client ask how many megapixels my camera has.
Excellent breakdown David. Thank you!!
Also, how good are the lenses used? Older lenses won’t benefit from high mp cameras.
Excellent coverage of the topic. Also, a great example of when higher resolutions are useful.
I recently shot a concert from a relatively far away seat, on a Sony RX100M7 (20.1MP); and once I dialed in my settings - I got great results. Mainly shutter speed, getting a good focus mark, and keying my white balance and exposure off a guitar player wearing a white jump suit - the pics were amazing!
Settings and patience matter more than megapixels.
A great video that can explain the concepts clearly within such a short time. Very well done! Great job David!
Thanks!
Thanks for your detailed explanation David. I have more modern mirrorless and higher res kit but I still reach for my 12mp D700 regularly. I just can't part with it. I think it was ahead of its time. If picky, no bluetooth, wifi, video and it blows highlights more readily in a very bright sky but thats it, Combined with a good prime better, than more mp in my view.
The higher the MP rate on a sensor you go, physics start kicking in in terms of light gathering capabilities. And whilst there are certain technologies to counteract that (backside illumination, or some 'cute' software tweaks) the size of the photosite on the sensor is critical in terms of how many photons are going to be detected per site. In most circumstances, up to 20 MP will be plenty for most, especially when printing (and in most homes that'll tend to be no higher than A4 sized). If you are the kind of person who needs to crop viciously into images, either because of your choice of lens at the time, or, just for composition reasons, then a higher pixel count will counteract loss of resolution when you blow up the image. As most people share on social media and other places like that, you don't need a megapixel machine frankly. It depends on four general things: 1) do you crop a lot? 2) do you print a lot (large format especially, 3) are you limited by optics at your disposal? 4) is dynamic range/ high ISO performance important to you?
One of the best videos on here about this topic… RUclips needed something like this … I recall looking that info before my upgrade and never found it !!!
As a fun point of physics and optics, the denser (smaller and more compacted) your sensor sites are, the more prone you are record defraction errors in your lenses. Given the physics and limitations of light and lenses, there is an optimum density of pixels before you hit the point of diminishing returns and cross over into unnecessary technological "overkill." With a crop sensor, that point is about 24 mp. With a full frame, it's about 45 to 50 mp. With a medium format sensor, it's about 100 to 150mp. Bigger sensors (woth the appropriate circle size lenses) can get a much narrower depth of field at a given focal length. But, of course, your printing process can and does cost you resolution, in which case a lot of defects in resolution go unnoticed. You can enlarge a 10 to 12 mp image as well as you can do the same with old 32 ASA pan film before the image goes to heck in a hand basket. Personally, I like the max megapixels I can get for given format so I can crop to my heart's content. I still professionally shoot everything between an old 5D MK II up to a R5 depending upon what I want or need.
I shoot with the Canon R6 I with 20 mp. Love the low light capability. I can even crop and print portraits with really no problems.Yes. invest in good glass and take some photo lessons.
I do some extreme cropping, so 24 is better than 12. Also more versatile for use as stills in video that are zoomed/panned in post.
I upgraded to a 5DSR 50.6 mp from a t3i 18mp and a 645 120 film (hobby photographer). the price of 50mp is the focus and technique have to be on the money or there is going to be camera shake blur, so it's not a snap shot kind of camera. other than that, I kind of love the "extensive room to grow" it affords me, as it forces me to slow down and think about what I'm doing.
I still shoot weddings with my Nikon D3s, LOL! You are right about cropping so I am constantly aware that eacg sgot HAS to fill the viewfinder. Not entirely sure how you arrived at your “needed” MP size for printing as I’ve had clients print 24x36 prints with a 10MP image shot from a Canon 1D3., and one client printed a wedding photo 30x45 from a 12 MP photo. That said, today’s cameras as stellar. I still like the high ISO performance from my Nikons so I don’t plan on changing anytime soon but new photographers looking at cameras nowadays have exciting choices to choose from.
I've been shooting in the 20-30MP range for quite a while and have no real need or desire to make my main camera body higher resolution for the bulk of my shooting. I do have an R5 that I use for very specific use cases, but otherwise, it's all R6 and R6II bodies, and man, they are excellent.
My current Cam is "only" 24MPs but many of my old photos taken with 10 and 12MP cameras have been printed in field guides and authors of those books never had any issues with no of MP used for taking photo as long as the photos were sharp.
Canon EOS R6 is my main camera and only has 20mp and it does an amazing job.
An amazing job is subjective; your comment would have been complete if you had stated what is the maximum print size you can get from your camera when printed at 300 DPI without digital manipulation
My main camera was the Canon 6D (20mp) for many years. Excellent camera - one of the best Canon dSLRs ever made. Still a worthy camera for astrophotography. It would be a worthy camera to pickup second hand for beginners.
And if you do find you suddenly need more resolution after the fact, Adobe's new AI Super Resolution does an incredible job of upscaling RAW files. Effectively indistinguishable from the pixel shift function found in many modern cameras. As long as your image is in focus, properly exposed, and not shot too high on the ISO scale, it works brilliantly. At this point, I think 24MP on FF and APS-C cameras is plenty good enough for 95% of applications.
Need an addendum to explain the fact that the higher the MP, the sooner diffraction sets in. E.g., if for a given lens, diffraction sets in at f/11 on a 45MP FF sensor, it will set in at f/8 on a 60MP FF sensor.
I have a 32MP Crop Sensor Canon 90D so I was very interested in your video! Thank you for sharing!
Great video, I would add that the extra MP are like adding a 3x, 4x, or more teleconverter because of the huge ability to crop with little loss. Also, higher res means you need to use higher shutter or tripod to not record any shake. Lastly, having shot Kodachrome as a young man, my D850 is my current Kodachrome.
Thankx for the video, good thoughts on all the aspects surrounding Megapixels ! I have an EOS R with 30 MP. I think it is a good middle ground. The files are not too overwelming in size (30-40MB) but it still gives plenty of cropping capability. A year ago I added a Canon 5DC with 12.7 MP. The filesize here is really small (12-15MB). Small correction cropping is still possible but heavier cropping is not adviced, meaning you have to be a bit more determined when you take the photo which is o.k. .... Image qualitiy wise, I do the love the raw photos coming from the 5DC better. Richer colour, nicer rendering. I hardly have to do anything to the files in post whilst with the EOS R it's always a bit more tweeking. Some say that the lesser and bigger pixels on the 5DC sensor account for better colour seperation. Not sure if that is true but there surely is something different with the photos coming from that camera.
I have an old t3 that I've been shooting with. It does the job, but im wanting to get a full frame. This helps a lot with my want to upgrade.
Thank you David for such an insightful talk on the most talked about topic in digital photography.
I have a Sony A1 and A7R5 with plenty of detail. But when I travel to European I used an OM-1 at 20MP and can print a 24x30 at home on my Canon Prograph 2000 and it really would be hard to tell the difference. Just less flexibility if you do crop a lot obviously.
I'd say the lens you use for the right application has more importance for results as processing can deliver much of what is necessary. I'm happy with full frame images at 24MP
I have Sony A7iii with 24mp and I am tempted with A7iv 33mp, that I decided I will jump to only if I have to. 24mp is a sweet spot for all styles of photography with me, but I do crop a bit in wildlife photography and my pictures would benefit from a small jump in pixels. As to the video - good job! 👍❤️
Old A7R would give higher quality image 🤪 why you throwing away thousands of dollars?
David I LOVE your videos!! Short, concise, to the point. And as an fyi I bought my first SLR, a Minolta SRT101 as a three lens kit at Adorama in 1973!!!!!
Wow! What was the price back then?
Simple answer: all of them. LOL
My first digital camera was a 2mp Kodak, it was fine at the time but looking back, I do wish I had more pixels. My first dSLR (Canon 20D) was just over 8mp - on a 4k monitor, the images still hold up fine. I've had several other cameras since, including my newest camera the Sony A7R V - a 61mp monster - with an option to create 240mp composite images too. Early on, there was a race for more megapixels - but today, we have reached a spot where the megapixels are enough for most folks, thus other features are more important. Today, there are just pros/cons. For example, I know my A7R V doesn't have best-in-class low-light performance and the video capabilities are impaired because the sensor is _too_ big. However, I wanted that camera for landscape, not video. I already have a very capable A7C (24mp) that is an excellent hybrid camera (a travel version of the A7III) - which is still my general travel buddy.
I would say, for today, the sweet spot is in the 20-30mp range. That's a decent starting point for new mirrorless/dSLR cameras. Only go higher if you know you want it and are willing to put up with the compromises more pixels introduces - but that range provides enough megapixel overhead that folks can crop a bit and still have exceptional prints and/or look amazing on a 4k display.
This was a good, clear, discussion of real-world resolution requirements. One point about resolution needs for large prints: the human eye can only resolve down to one radian (1/60 of a degree). For reference, in a normal, well-designed, movie theater, if you sit in the middle row, the screen will take up approximately 30 degrees of your horizontal field of vision--an image which hardly looks small. Given that our eyes can't see any detail smaller than one radian, once the resolution reaches 1800 (30 X 60) horizontal pixels it will appear perfectly clear on that movie screen; adding more pixels won't make it any clearer to us. Now, if we're talking about large prints, virtually nobody looks at a print where it occupies more than twice the field of vision that one gets in the movie seat just mentioned; an image at that relative scale would require 3600 horizontal pixels and 2400 vertical pixels, or 8.6 megapixels.
Minor correction: Of course you meant to name an angular resolution of one arc minute, not one radian.
@@brygenon My bad!
One of the most helpful videos I've watched ! Thank you !
I have the R5 and the R6. The latter never gets any use. It is just a backup or for a second lens. If I shot only landscapes or portraits then either would work well. If I never printed images, again either would work well. Having switched to shooting birds, Those extra pixels were more than just nice to have. With the 100-500 or the 200-800 zoom I don't need to be as close to get a great shot. When reviewing in post I can choose whether to fill the frame with the bird or show the environment along with the bird. For that the 45MP really shines. On the other hand, fast action sports is easier with 24mp and the file sizes are less. With the R5 I have switch to C-raw without feeling that I am giving up a lot. Given the size of my files I run all shoots thru Photo Mechanic to cull the bad shots and then Brin the rest into LR. That is an extra step but well worth it.
I do fashion and beauty photography for a living and most of the assignments are shot with 50 or 100MP Hasselblad or 47MP Leicas. Usually the client requests a minimum of 7000 pixels on the long side. That results in approx. 40MP. It gives them manouverability for print. The image editor however, is more concerned with bit depth. They usually love the 16bit of a Hasselblad. It provides for easier color editing. Having said that, 20 years ago we’d publish 12MB images with a bit depth of 8 or 10. Still beautiful images.
For personal work, I use a Q2 or M11 when I really go out and take time to create deliberate images. For travelling, casual shooting and flexibility my absolute fav camera is the Lumix G9 with the Leica 12-60. ‘Only’ 20MP, but an absolute gem, even today. It handles like a dream and for image quality the lens makes all the difference. My advice? Buy what you’re able and willing to carry.
The other issue is equipment size and lenses to suit the larger sensors which can get very large and heavy. My Olympus E-M1 Mk II uses much smaller glass so when I go on holiday I have much less weight to cart around and I can take 2-3 lenses in a small shoulder bag. This is more convenient and even makes it so you take the camera more locations. When I had a bigger camera and glass I would sometime just not take it because either it was too big or heavy. I am very happy with the 20mp picture quality so that’s my compromise… and it is always a compromise, if only because of price of larger sensor gear and glass. Really liked the article and great examples… Thanks mate👍😊
Good analysis... with the same answers I've heard for decades, just higher pixel counts. The greatest advance over that time has been in smartphone cameras, which are what most photographers now use to shoot most of their stills and videos. To answer the question of what you "need" from a digital camera today, I'd ask where the phone is not meeting your needs.
Thank you !
Great video as always. I mainly shoot with my 5DSR camera for macro and still life and 80D for zoo photography (my 100-400 lens becomes a 160-640 lens). Yes, the 5DSR has more noise especially when underexposed, but when I have the perfect exposure, watching on monitor and printing my photos is magical. However, for majority of people the difference may not be discernible. This is like a wine connoisseur versus an average drinker. The connoisseur will pick up more nuances.
To scan most of the detail on a 35mm photo, you'll need about 864 x 0.1, or 87 Megapixels. That's about 8128 DPI. But in practice, consumer lenses and higher ISO films don't record that much detail. Scanning more than about 3048 DPI (12.4 MP) usually just increases the visibility of grain
It all comes down to the real estate adage, “Location, location, location.” WHERE are the final images going to be displayed? And from how far away? Years ago, one of my images was used on a billboard…after it was cropped. It was shot with a Canon 30D. Yes, an 8mp 30D. It looked great. OTOH, large prints viewed closer..? Not as much. For display on social media…it’s even less important.
These days I mostly use 30-50mp bodies because they make great prints at sizes that I prefer. The caveat being that sometimes HUGE amounts of detail really can be too much. Unless someone has perfect skin, anything over 20mp will mean spending time smoothing said skin.
I'd say for most printing at normal viewing distances (say anywhere from 12 inches or 1 foot to say 60 inches or 5 ft away) 240-300 dpi should be a good target, and by doing some math, even for a larger print at 240 dpi (say a 13x19 print) you can still easily do that with a 20MP camera (technical 18MP if you don't crop at all). So I think the real big question you need to ask yourself is what is the print size (and viewing distance) and how much do you usually crop. If you're a heavy cropper, than maybe go a bit higher on resolution (you may not need 45MP if you're only doing 13x19 prints and crop a lot, but something like 30 or 36 MP may be more reasonable and a bit cheaper in terms of cost of the camera and you're not paying for pixels you may not need). As for the file size concerns, many cameras do have a lossless compressed mode, which can compress even a 45MP image into around a 50-70MB image depending on the manufacturer. Of course you can also use a lossy compression format which will cause you to lose some detail but those files can be much smaller (perhaps even half or 2/3 the size of alossless compressed file from the camera camera) but you may lose some image quality in the process. But memory cards are quite cheap and so are HDDs and even larger SSDs (like 1-2TB SSDs can be had for about $80-$130 depending on what you get). HDDs are even cheaper now and you can easily get a 4 or 8TB for about $80-$150 as well. So I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about file size unless you shoot A LOT of images, bu even so card capacities have gone up significantly and costs have come down drastically both on memory cards, SSDs and HDDs. So I wouldn't necessarily let file size dictate what resolution camera you buy or what file format you use, again UNLES you are limited on space and/or your shoot A LOT of photos (like 1-2 TB or more per year of photos, which is a lot -- and some people do, but for most people -- the average enthusiast, it's usually not a huge issue and again, memory and storage has become quite cheap lately).
Like you shooting concert photos, I shoot thousands of movement photos in dog shows. My go-to lens is a Nikon Z 70-200mm f2.8, although occasionally I use a Z 24-120mm f4; a Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 or a couple others lenses. If I'm using two camera bodies then I can usually fill the frame with the shot, but all too often I have to crop, especially when using one camera and lens and something far away strikes my fancy. Sometimes I have to crop a lot. So for me, I really don't like shooting with less than the 45.6 MP of the Nikon Z8 or Z9.
You nail a point I've been talking about for years... mega pixels means didly squat, when stretching an image for a billboard. I shot an image for a rural school that was used on a billboard advert on a Canon 70d, and at that size and viewing distance, the mega pixel count was just fine... I can attest that there was nothing wrong... even my pixel peeping butt was totally satisfied with the results, and I usually disavow All my photos every 6 months. (It's an artist perfection thing)
I have a 24 and 42 MP camera. On the high resolution camera I love the possibility to crop the image and do large prints without thinking about resolution. Other then that, 24 is enough. For the larger files you not only need more storage, but the processing is much more demanding for your computer.
It depends on your requirements. The latest high megapixal cameras, need correspondingly better optics, to get the advantages. I use a 60mp camera. On large banners 4m x 1.5m you can definitely see the benefits.
Very detailed and informative, thanks.
I'm shooting with the classic Canon 5D II (in production 2008-2012). It's a 21.1MP, and I'm really impressed with the image quality! I paired it with a 24-105 L f4, 70-200 L f4 non-IS, and a nifty f1.8 stm.
I had started with kodak cx with 2MP and a Nikon D70 with 6MP.
Related to this question. Sensor size. Some people a sensor size snobs. “I’d never shot with anything less than a full frame sensor.”
I am an amateur and shoot street photography. I don’t need bokeh. As a matter of fact, I shoot around f5.6-8. I shoot in the day so don’t need great low light performance. How much difference can I see between M43, APSC, and FF sensors? Forget medium format.
Mask On Nurse Marty (Ret)
In good light at low ISO, you will be hard pressed to see a difference.
I've had 8 MP photos from my 1D2N printed on billboards and city buses and they look amazing. 24 MP on my R6 II can be used for anything. I've also upscaled to match the R5 and I can't see any difference most of the time, even viewed at 100% on a 5K monitor. If I use any sort of advanced upscaling, I can make my R6 II files look more detailed/better. But even then, when printed, I don't see much difference from either cam. That's why I saved $2000 and got the R6 II and got a lens. Also the AF accuracy made a bigger difference to sharpness than MP... and the R6 II has better AF than the R5.
And everything said above also applies to cropping. Again, you just upscale your output from LR or ACR to what you want, or use Superscale feature (or a good AI upscaler). But I don't crop.
I have been shooting professionally since way back in the film days and for the last many years have been shooting APS-C and FF. Everything is so good now that it functionally doesn't matter. Whatever works best in a given situation. My clients can't tell the difference and they never ask. I love FF in the studio and for landscape stuff and my APS-C gear is light and easy to lug around on location and terrific for video. Great tech explanation, David, and yes, glass rules!!!
Similar experience. I find most interchangeable lens cameras today to have better quality when printed than even my medium format cameras from back then. I think the main reason is the film, which was much grain. I've looked through many of my old prints and compared them and am hard pressed to find something sharper and cleaner (less grainy or noisy) than what my digital cameras have produced in the past 15 years. The prints I have made from my digital cameras (I've printed up to 20X30 outsourced, up to 13X18 on my Epson and Canon wide format Printers at home) are much cleaner than similar prints from my film cameras. Add to the cameras quality the ability to improve the image with software, resizing, noise reduction, etc. and it's not contest. Yet, people are not satisfied unless they have the latest and greatest.
More than 45 you then start having diffraction issues. Diffraction kicks in at f7.1 with the 45 mp of the R5 and f6.3 with Sonys 61 mp camera. For landscapes typically shot at F11 you’d need to focus stack if you want to have maximum sharpness. And also most lenses are at their sharpest at f5.6-f8. Gets tricky
My camera, as set shoots ~26 MP raw files on a nominally 20 MP sensor, I haven't figured that out yet. For me, 20+ is going to be the sweet spot, enough for the cropping I would do, mostly correcting the horizon and still gives nice results.
You did bring up a good point about when one needs to crop massively that more is better. But I personally never have been in that situation.
YOU HAVE GOT IT EXACTLY RIGHT. i shoot for prints .I have a Epson stylus pro 9800 a canon 6d and a 5ds and use photoshop cs6 all of which are obsolete in todays world
but there is no logical to upgrade any of these they all work .For prints i do not need high dynamic range or 40 frames per second ..The 5ds with a good lens is still a good camera today
David is always a pleasure to watch your videos please keep making them
I used to shoot weddings and senior portraits with 5-6 megapixel cameras, and frequently printed 16x20 prints with no problem. (Does anyone remember the Olympus E-20N??) I love being able to shoot at 20-30 megapixels so I can crop in tight if needed.
Yeah but what is the maximum print size you can get at 300 DPI?; occasionally even seasoned amateurs will need to make 48"x36" prints, or 48"x12" panoramic prints with a viewing distance of 5'ft, unless a 24MP sensor can deliver that with very little image deterioration it isn't enough.
That .... was an excellent explanation of the main issues ..... and it was short enough to keep me engaged. All the facts in one place. This should be a reference guide for anyone wanting to splash the cash. Thank you ... much enjoyed and appreciated.
Thank you David for a great technical explanation. I would like to hear your thoughts on some of the new upscaling programs out there.
i use the nikon d810 for family, groups and some portraits work.my other camera is a nikon d780 and always try and fill the frame. with the camera level.
Thank you for this great tutorial, David. I photograph mostly small birds with the R5 + RF 100-500. I crop, A LOT. I've thought about the R3, but now I understand why this most likely wouldn't be a good choice for me.
I still have pics on my walls that are from a 4 meg crop sensor that people can’t tell from my 45 meg camera. Unless you’re an inch away from the pic, you can’t see much difference in print. Great video.
Great information! And in one take! Nice job!
lol thanks! I usually do these in one pass, although I can cut when I’ve got b-roll / images on screen. 😜
A follow up question. How about software that enlarge images in post production. How many pixels does it add and is the quality good enough that you can actually crop even closer to your subject without losing quality?
Great explanation!
Cropping in to achieve greater depth of field is without question the largest advantage of having more megapixels
Thank you David ...You are a leading asset !!
Megapixels sells cameras.
PixeL size can be forgotten but should always always be included in the discussion
So when they rate megapixels it should say this many and this size on this area of sensor
Back in the day, one of my shop's NC2000e image went 20 x 24 and did not look bad at all at standard viewing distance. That is 1.3 MP so you don't have to look it up. It did take some work in Photoshop but since my troop exposed it well and we did not have to crop. It became a VIP presentation favorite not to mention ran in some newspapers nationwide. I had a series of Nikons after Kodak lost the biz culminating with the D800. That 36 MP is a good size. I now have gone Sony with the A7IV and I am happy with 33MP. Kind of the sweet spot, at least for me, between cropping and file size. I am old school and still use Photoshop as my primary and wind up with layers. I do shoot everything RAW. Being semi-retired now, I don't see needing any more MPs in the near future. First digital I used on the job? Kodak DCS 200. BTW the only films I miss are good B&W and Kodachrome. Just can't get those looks with digital. Close but no cigar. While most of us shooters are geeks and get lost in the tech sometimes, the image itself is what really matters. Light, content and (most of all) the moment will always sell an image. (unless you pixel peep like some of the stock folks) Remember the old Nat Geo adage: f8 and be there. I bend that one a bit and say: What is the best camera in the world? The one you have in your hands. The one back at the shop or shiny new in the camera store is not going to make the image you are shooting now. The photog is what really makes the difference. Quick question: Is anyone else here versed in dealing with noise manually in PS? Every time I use one of these cool new tools that magically deal with the noise, I get reminiscent. Happy shooting.
I like being able to crop heavily, especially when photographing sports and wildlife and when making videos. So I’m very happy with my new Fuji X-T5 with its 40 megapixel sensor.
Hi David, if ever you’re shooting any gigs in the UK, I’d love to shadow you and be mentored by you. I’m so sure I’d learn a lot from you.
Great summary. Maybe left out 8K displays? That is what i use and the difference between my R3 and A1 shows
Yes!
Dave, I have the 30 megapixal R. I have been very satisfied with the results I have gotten.
I went to a Nikon Z8 from a D780. The "quality" of the images on the D780 was better. but the Z8 is definitely very good. However I can crop my wildlife photos extensively if needed when using the Z8. All that said, I have a D700 (12 megapixels) that's about 15 years old and it does just fine if not doing significant crops!
Good info, thanks.
Great video, I learnt a lot from that! Thank you so much David and all the great people at Adorama! God bless you all!
Another consideration related to file size *may* be your computer. With an older machine, trying to process 50-60mp RAW files in Lightroom might test your patience. In other words, a high megapixel camera might be even more expensive than you think if you have to upgrade your computer hardware along with it.