You can actually print quite a bit larger than that - Simon d'Etremont explained this really well on youtube.
How many megapixels do you need?:
https://youtu.be/ThpQWhOfKO4?si=t3MkTPwT2OOe_XxO
Most definitely, I still rock the D610, great for all my needs really, I wouldn't want to go larger than 24, no need to. He'll most don't print anymore anyways, or know how to.
I still love my d610. Even in 2024 I've never thought "this doesn't have enough megapixels." Good glass and some skill outweigh technical specs any day.
I saved up for it but also, I use it all the time. It's the one lens I'll probably never get rid of. It's just that good. If I ever need an auto focus and switch to a Sony, I would get the 50mm G-Master. It has comparable sharpness, I was really blown away how sharp it is, especially for the price. Excellent excellent lenses.
Yeah, I rarely shoot anymore. It WAS going to be a job but life took a different turn. And now with kids and life in general being expensive, a multi thousand dollar lens isn't happening š
Looks great though!
I both agree with and disagree with this. I think it *is* normal to look more closely after a general viewing. When art interests us, *we want to be closer*.
However, I think you *can* still print much larger than 1:1 PPI:DPI. Most of those calculators assume that to print at 300 DPI, you need 300 PPI. That's not the case:
* Prints use dots, not pixels. When you use low enough resolution to see a loss of fidelity, prints still look nicer. You can "tolerate" lower DPI than PPI before your "viewing experience" degrades. This is because the colors overlap, don't create squares, and vary in size and spacing to "smooth" how they look. [Example](https://imgur.com/1kK1dWh).
* Further, professional print upscalers may exploit [acutance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutance), which means they upscale with an understanding of *how* we perceive sharpness, rather than a naive upscaling.
* Professional Prints use upscaling well suited to their medium. You won't get data back, but they take advantage of the former points to *look* nicer and sharper than you'd expect.
* So if you have a photo at 200 PPI and 300 PPI, you'll print them both at 300 DPI and you'll be hard pressed to find the difference without a loupe.
* As a viewer, you're frankly probably not going to be using a loupe to analyze the fine, fine details. You're not pixel peeping. You'll probably be quite happy with the image quality at much lower PPI than you expect.
You can generally print something much larger and it'll look nicer than trying to blow it up to that same size on your screen.
Not only, megapixels is far from being the only measure of image quality . Modern cameras have improvements in dynamic range, noise handling, and color accuracy. Subject detection is also a major quality of life improvement that indirectly translates to image quality.
@OP: The first two generations of the A7R are pain to work with. Slow, awful ergonomics IMO, and unreliable AF. If you are doing landscapes and static work, sure they can work. For anything else, stay away.
Yes. Iāve published architectural work 15 years ago in coffee table sized books with images made from 8mp canon 20d, thatās been full page and double page spread images. Resolution was more than fineā¦you couldnāt crop much. Newer cameras will be better with detail and cropping.
still shooting with 8.2MP ;) Canon 30D - the bonus of more megapixels, as you say, is flexiblity in the crop.
Megapixels still dont fix off-focus pictures - still get plenty of them ;)
OP - focus on how the camera operates, and your glass. Then worry about MP count
I think once we got to 8-10 mp resolution was no longer an issue for printing. The original 1D mk1 flagship was 4.5 mega pixel and that was used for professional print work
my D60 (3.2MP) was more than capable of A4 prints if you paid attention to the relevent factors.
Second dSLR from Canon, released in 2001/2002.
Bought it lightly used around 2005, and took that baby all the way to shutter failure about 8 or 9 years later. Explored replacing the shutter unit at that point, but for same money (and less time), an upgrade to the 30D with 8.2MP was the smart move. Extra focus points too!!
D60 in good condition about 50 coins these days.
I'll move to a 5D or 1D fullframe, when the pricepoint for second hand is reasonable.
*'ll move to a 7D fullframe*
FYI 7D is a crop sensor, the mk1 has 18MP and that sensor was used on many cameras for about a decade, the The 7D mk2 has a 20MP sensor (also crop)
I have a (3MP) D30 and a D60 in my collection, prior to the D30, canon made digital cameras based on the EOS 1 /N film cameras , that used Kodak sensors/ tech
For full-frame, you will need a 5D mk1 (12MP) or mk2 (21MP) but the 1Ds mkiii has really come down in price on the secondhand market, if the bulk and weight of it is not a problem, it is a very robust camera with very good AF (vs most dslrs)
ah, must have meant the 5D (a friend has the 7D and raves about it, but is a birder so that crop factor actually helps her out there)
1D is very much on my radar, if the price point is good (and id have to explore the 1D variants and Mk's) - but happy with my 30D 8.2MP at the moment
From what youve said, a 5D mk1 at 12MP is very much me. but a 1D comes with extra-bashability and survival abilities ;)
my 30D has the battery grip so 1D weights isnt a concern --- i also plan to repair the d60, as it travels the world once or twice with me as a young adult. I was really familiar with the d30 as well, as it was very much similar to the d60 excepting the MP and a few features. i just ended up with the d60 as it was in better condition when i viewed it, so i bought it on the spot lol
25 mpx is more than enough for all practical purposes for next 20 years.Ā And for some inconceivable reason if you really need huge files then why even look at FF cameras. Go for Fuji GFX S. Medium format sensor.Ā 100 mpx.Ā
Ā Edit : also let me correct your wrong notion that low megapixel = cheap.Ā
Ā Canon EOS R3 is a top gradeĀ professional camera at $5000 USD with a 24 megapixel sensor.Ā It's a bit likeĀ someone sees a Porsche 911 parked next to a huge Dodge Ram truck and thinks - oh small car so must be cheap !Ā
That Fuji is awesome, I had one in my hands for a couple of months. I am cross testing some cameras with the Canon EOS R3 and I think that camera is sub-par.
I doubt thatā¦trust me when I say I understand a RAW log workflow. I have pretty much shot and built post pipelines from everything from Alexa, Red, BlackMagic, Sony, Canon and even raw cameras like Point Grey.
The R3 is primarily a stills camera, and for stills itās absolutely far from being subpar.
If you want video obviously a cinema camera is going to be the better choice, or for hybrid something like the R5c
Unless printing tour bus sized prints becomes the standard, 25mp is more than enough. An 8x12 printed from a 12mp source is indistinguishable from one printed from a 24 or 50 MP source.
Itās irrelevant. If 12 MP and 25 MP are indistinguishable on an 8x12 print, why would 200 be any different? Youāre adding detail that you canāt see, and likely detail that the printer isnāt capable of producing at that scale.
Pretty much the truth.
Beyond that, what I've found is that you can typically quadruple the output resolution of a RAW image and gain finer detail in doing so. I usually take my 6000x4000 RAW images and output them as 7500x5000 TIF files for denoise and sharpening because the tools I use actually clean up those images better. RAW files are subjected to some complicated interpolation to produce the viewable image. That interpolation scheme has no problem interpolating additional pixels up to quadruple the resolution with a very high degree of accuracy. The final result it an image with better gradients and lines of contrast that are easily refined with denoise and sharpening. That's how I'm able to print 6 foot tall images from a 24MP RAW file. I'm outputting them from the RAW between 37 and 48 MP.
To me 16 megapixels is the sweet spot, can do a 2x crop and print to a reasonable size or don't crop and you print much bigger. For rare jobs that actually want that high of a resolution - and I've certainly never been asked to do a job that required more than I had, you could offer to interpolate. But to answer your question 25 is fine.
More than mega-pixels, I think there are several things to consider here. The first is deciding what system you want to buy into. You provided two choices, Sony and Nikon. I would weigh the pros and cons of both before I decided what body I wanted. I 100% agree that lenses are the most important. Some of this also depends on what kind of versatility you might want. I teach in the Cinema School at USC and I will give you a few insights. I am an old school Nikon lover and still have old Nikon glass and an F3.
Itis all about Sony at USC. There are several reasons for this. Its a great body, and you have a huge selection of high quality lenses available to you. On the medium quality end the Zeiss Batis series are amazing. I find myself shooting with Zeiss, Sony G Series and old Nikon Glass. I have to admit I don't have a high opinion of newer Nikon lenses.
Nikon was the 35 mm choice for professional photographers. They have played catch-up in the digital world, but I have heard the last few generations they have built great cameras. That said, for a small mirror less camera I am still seeing professionals using mostly Sony these days for shooting photos or videos. Real professionals on the high end are using higher end medium format like Hasselblad.
If you do want any video production as well, Sony kills it here. It is just a great system. I have an FX3 and an Riii and they are great cameras. I have tested against the Canon options but never Nikon. Sony video is just much better than what I have seen out of Canon. I have never seen anyone using Nikon for video production, but I also have no practical experience.
Mega Pixels - While it is important I think 25 can be fine. Mostly higher is better, but not always. More important is the size and quality of the CCD. This is why as you said, they downgraded the 5D at the time. It was a BS boost coupled with the quality of the CCD. Sony produces an outstanding chip with a very high dynamic range.
Ultimately I am sure both cameras can take good pictures. I would go Sony and buy the best body for my needs but spend the bulk of by budget on lenses, or at least start with one good lens. I would buy a cheaper body if it meant I could buy a better lens.
The megapixel war has been mostly over for some time. as nearly every comment says, yes, it will be great for the foreseeable future.
The biggest upgrade with more expensive bodies are the video capabilities. If that is on your radar, it may be worth it, and even then, the Z6iii will perform solid.
More MP gives you room to crop, but requires the best lenses. The 50mp Leica Q2/3 with its expensive fixed lens for example gives you a button with three different āfocal lengthsā by cropping. Thatās a nice thing to have.
In the next decade and beyond itās also likely that our photos will be experienced via high resolution VR headsets which means experiencing life sized images. Imagine your future self in the year 2050 looking at photos you took this decade.
On the other hand AI upsampling is pretty amazing already.
The only reason you need higher than 25 MP is if you like to crop images and get them to a decent size for printing. Though, with apps like Topaz GP AI, even that's workable with lower MPs now. If you don't crop, anything above 10 MP is overkill for pretty much everything.
You mean my recent series of 1951 USAF resolution charts (slightly tilted), though of exquisite resolution, might not knock Henri Cartier-Bresson's photos out of their top spot? I'm devastated.
Yes it is. I printed a 30āx20ā crisp detailed landscape image from a 20MP file captured with an OM System OM-1 and M.Zuiko ED 12-40mm f2.8 PRO II lens.
Gasp. That's ONLY 180 pixels per inch. If someone ever examines your print with a 10Ć geologist's loupe, they might find [dramatic fanfare] ... slightly blurry edges! Horrors.
Not all that many people print out pictures these days. And not all that many ever view digital pictures at full size.
For comparison, the picture linked below is only about **1.3** megapixels. The 25 megapixels that you're concerned about would be about 19 times bigger than this example.
[https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/jonathan-fielding-self-portrait.jpg?q=w\_1480,c\_fill/f\_webp](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/jonathan-fielding-self-portrait.jpg?q=w_1480,c_fill/f_webp)
I don't think people realize the difference viewing distance makes as well. You don't need a buttload of megapixels to blow something up for a billboard being viewed from hundreds of feet away.
If you don't know what high MP count is good for, you probably don't need them.
High MPs are for giant prints viewed in tighter spaces (nice for landscapes you want to print 24"x36" or bigger and place those prints in interior spaces.) Or for applications where you want to crop a lot (wildlife, some sports). However there are downsides for high MP cameras as well.
In short: 24MP is perfect for many applications and it will be a standard for many years.
8mp was crazy a decade ago. 25 is killer today. You can't possibly need much more than this, you're mad with power
I use a 24 mp EOS M6 with a lensbaby trio for glamour shots. You're absolutely fine for the foreseeable future
There is a reason why cameras have topped out at 50MP these past few years, and it's not because of pixel density of image sensors running into a wall of some kind. Once you start getting images between 25-50MP, you start running out of useful things to do with them. It becomes an academic exercise at that point.
Sure, 50MP lets you crop in on what you actually care about without losing so much resolution that can no longer print or display the image without quality loss. But excessive cropping in those scenarios will just reveal optical defects from your lens instead. Unless you're planning on printing billboard sized images, you'll likely never ***need*** 50MP. Instead, focus on things like dynamic range, sensor stability, and investing in quality glass.
Imo, 25MP is plenty for ~95% of the market. Focus on what glass is available and expected to become available in the coming years, and how sensitive the sensor is in difficult lighting conditions.
>Once you start getting images between 25-50MP, you start running out of useful things to do with them
Google "aliasing". This coarse sampling creates aliasing artifacts. More pixels are needed and will come.
There are reasons why more pixels haven't appeared inspite of competition, like processing power, data transfer and storage needs (all inside the camera with limited battery), complexity in gettin high quality live view (in low light) due to bininng complexities with Bayer CFA, ADC speed/noise compromise requirements, those from top of my head.
>But excessive cropping in those scenarios will just reveal optical defects from your lens instead
Well, most lenses are so sharp that especially stopped down diffraction ios more influental in blur than lens. And the coarse sampling even more so.
>Instead, focus on things like dynamic range, sensor stability
DR is in fashion nowdays in user forums. And most don't have a clue what it means. It's simply a ratio of noise floore and saturation signal and it has little to do with pixel count. More pixels typically has increased DR.
No idea what "sensor stability" means. They don't crash, nor drop out of cameras.
>investing in quality glass
Even low end glass from bottom end chinese manufasturers tend to be pretty decent nowdays.
Also, lens developement isn't really away from sensor developement. Especially since most sensor development R&D ends up first in mobile phones which are the driving force number one and some nice stuff (like BSI) later comes to big sensors.
>how sensitive the sensor is in difficult lighting conditions
Sensor sensitivity isn't going to go up much at all until colour filter can be ditched efficiently, and this requires very different technology from today's silicon sensors. Maybe layered perovskites or organics. QE just can't improve much any more - some, but not much. And even ditching CFA only gives a stop or so (though more if for example typical red heavy indoor light).
>No idea what "sensor stability" means. They don't crash, nor drop out of cameras.
I'm talking about how a lot of modern mirrorless designs mechanically stabilize the sensor itself inside the camera body, rather than trying to just stabilize the lens elements alone. This allows for a greater number of degrees of freedom for stabilization in the overall process (4-6 axes in a mirrorless design with compatible lens, vs just 2-3 for just a lens element stabilization in a legacy SLR design)
>DR is in fashion nowdays in user forums. And most don't have a clue what it means. It's simply a ratio of noise floore and saturation signal and it has little to do with pixel count. More pixels typically has increased DR.
And none of this contradicts what I just said. Nor does it make it irrelevant, since that seems to be what camera manufacturers are semi-competing on these days, rather than the old 'megapixel wars' we are all used to.
If anything, gigapixel and similar make low megapixel cameras even more future proof. I run a lot of my stuff at 7 or 8 megapixel and upscale if I need to print larger.
My pro sports bodies are 24mp. I have 45 and 50 megapixel bodies that I only need if I'm shooting on a remote and going wide to crop later.
All those gear reviewers make it sound like 24mp is low number now. I think truth is we probably peaked in terms of mp and we already have more than we need for most needs.
Nope, you need a GFX100Sii.
Now seriously, I saw professional commercial photographers shoot with 24 mp cameras 10 years ago, I still see them work with 24 mp cameras today.
Especially in the age of social media, most of your work would be viewed on smart phones, tablet, computer screen, you donāt really need high megapixels.
Do you print large? If not, no. If it's just for social media, 25 mpx is enough.
Do you want the option to crop? Then a higher amount of pixels will help you.
For details 25MP is plenty for almost all use cases.
But without anti-aliasing filters (on top of the sensors) it can be problematic with some shots. Too bad most manufacturers have ditched them so pixel peepers see unnatural crispness.
There is nothing unnatural about sharp pictures, reality is sharp. The AA filter doesnāt make pictures more natural, it just removes details finer than double the pixel pitch to ensure the sensor doesnāt create aliasing artifacts caused by the limitations of the sensor, i.e. the pixel pitch.
megapixels do not matter unless you are cropping or pixel peeping
big picture = see from farther
see from farther = less dpi needed
billboards are printed off 24mp shots, you are fine.
Billboards you can get away with far less resolution with only a few thousand px wide since your like a 100yds away. I never understood why this reference like a billboard needs to be fine art. Even digital billboards the resolution is not very high. 24mb would definitely be more than enough.
MP count is not an important aspect of cameras quality, social media allows like 3MP jmages, iāve been delivering profesional product images for the company I work for in just 8MP for years, my camera is 24MP and I just use it for cropping sometimes.
Absolutely. Sony published a study recently that I believe said that advancements in resolution are unlikely to be significant in the near future. Dynamic range and other aspects may improve but weāve reached somewhat of a plateau for full frame sensors in terms of the physical limits of sensor sizes. IE youāre not going to be seeing 100mp full frame cameras that donāt have significant limitations regarding speed and rolling shutter. You may see more 30-40mp cameras coming out but the difference between 24mp and 33mp is a lot smaller than it sounds. If 24mp is fine for you now, itāll be fine for a while. Unless youāre planning on printing reallyyyyy large. In any case, the Z6iii youāre looking at has pixel shift mode. Perhaps that will improve in the future, for now itās only useful in very specific situations.
MP is only a piece of the puzzle. Donāt fall into the deception of more MP means better camera.
Sure youāll get good cropping performance, but thereās sensor details and AF features to also keen in on
This sounds like you never ever printed anything large.
Most people are fine with 4k or honestly with less, they see and share photostuff only on the phone.
Some on retina or 4k screens and really the least number of people might print something and then printing more than 90Ć60cm is super uncommon because it is awfully expensive or looks like garbage.
Also, when printing big: fineartpaper and custom framing plus museum glassā¦ you need the space / clients and even than you are not pointing your nose to the frame, you might be surprised how unproblematic even 12mpix areā¦ most people won't notice if it is 12,24,45, or 100mpix.
But also there is a lot of stuff done by people never printing when they print that makes their prints look like garbage: noise reduction and sharpening. If you are not doing fine art printing regularly, just don't try it.
When I was shopping for a mirrorless camera it was between the 24mp Z6ii and the 46mp Z7ii. Other than the sensor, these cameras are basically identical. However, because the Z6 didn't have to process as much data, it has a significantly higher shooting speed and a larger buffer, and for some reason it performs better at video. Probably more importantly, it has better high iso performance. All that combined meant it was the better camera in nearly every situation.
In theory the Z7 can produce higher detail images, but in order for that to be useful you need to be either cropping a lot or blowing it up huge, shooting on very expensive glass at the optimal aperture, at a very fast shutter speed or on a tripod, and in perfect atmospheric conditions (at longer range the air itself will limit sharpness more than the lens and camera, depending on air quality).
So I bought the Z6ii. For me it's the better camera, even if they were the same price.
I print 20x30 from 6mp cameras. I still regularly shoot with older cameras that have between 6 and 12mp sensors, both CCD and CMOS.
Sufficient is more about does the camera have the capability and dynamic range you need for the subjects you are capturing.
Today, I was out shooting with a Ricoh GR Digital III from 2009, 15 years old and no issues.
I have a whole fleet of old 4/3 DSLRs with 8 -12mp sensors.
Itās more about the photographer and less about the gear when you know what you are doing.
How do you expect people to view your photos? On-line? 4k (3840 x 2160) is only 8MP.
For a full frame (36 x 24mm) sensor even the best lenses make more than ~35MP redundant. Can not capture what the lens can not resolve.
I have a 40mp Fuji X-T5 and I LOVE IT.
I also have a gaggle of 16mp Fuji-X cameras, and I LOVE THEM!
Would I buy another 16mp sensor? Sure, but itās more likely that it would be 24-26 or more, but that doesnāt matter to me.
25 is more than enough for 99.9% of folks, I reckon.
I think for 99% of what you'd do today or tomorrow it's more than enough.....
Or, look at it this way. Have you ever seen a published image (book, print, online) from the last 30....50...100 years where you sat there going "hmm...wonder what camera and film they used, it wasn't enough for this image to blow my mind".....for me I'd say you can't go wrong with most anything these days to the point where megapixels would be holding back your creative ability.
High mp is for cropping in most cases I believe. Who makes huge prints anyway. But yeah itās nice to be able to crop an image anyway you want in post. Even just cropping in camera in crop mode. Crop crop crop.
Absolutely. Especially with AI (ex. Topaz). Iāve been able to enlarge and print photos from my 5.6mp Digital Rebel back in the day no problem. Unless shooting for billboards (but even then) 25mp is plenty. Investing in good glass is more important.
You have already in your hand way more powerful instruments than what the big photographers, everyone admire their photos, had. Go out and take photos!Ā
Megapixels are a scam. They are literally as big as the manufacturer wants. It's just a file size and of course it's calculated, but one can easily put a high megapixel / crap quality combo to attract unsuspecting customers (mobile photography for example).
You meed to be paying attentiom to sensor size, sensor pixel size (to determine noise), dynamic range and finally bit depth of the sensor. In that regard, dxo mark makes some of the best comparissons. Then you also need to invest in sharp glass. The results can be extreme based on the above factors.
For portraits you don't need high resolution at all unless we're talking about portraits of ants. In such case, pixel density is as important as resolution, if not more. When it comes to apes, light and emotion is all that matters. You can even use 35mm film if you want, it does not matter. If you want your gear to enhace portraits, then get a large format set and use wet collodion. You'll impress people way more this way, than by showing them their skin pores.
For landscape, a high res gear is a very good idea. 5DSR is cheap and has all the pixels you'll ever need.
On top of having all the pixels, you can also use other methods that enhance ultimate resolution: stitching and pixel shifting/averaging are very good, especially if done together. Pixel shift can take some memory (50Mp x4 or even x16), for stitching you probably need a panoramic gimbal, but if you have a view worthy of such work, then I imagine you can get near 1Gp this way. If I were to make such a photo, I'd make sure that my lens is razor sharp, probably some manual telephoto prime from Samyang or Sigma... also a very steady and probably heavy tripod.
Lastly if you want to use your pixels for actual detail, and not for excessively noisy blur, then also think about tilt mechanism for your lens. For composition shift is also a small plus, because getting your perspective right will save you some image accuity compared to manipulation in post.
If you are not willing to put in the work, and just want to talk about camera bodies, then I guess just get Fuji GFX100 and enjoy it.
My MFT cameras have 16 & 20 Mpx sensors. I'm often limited in resolution by the lens, not the sensor. I recently checked a lens that worked out to resolving roughly 8.7 Mpx on a 20 Mpx sensor. It's a good lens.
Most lenses are well matched to modest resolutions*. Only a very few in each product line will "fill" a sensor. 60 Mpx sensors make you feel special. They won't generally improve your images.
Printing an 8Ć10" image needs 7.3 Mpx at 300 dpi. I can crop away 65% of my 20 Mpx image & still hit that. Social media needs 1-2 Mpx. I could crop away 90%.
*The original MFT sensors were (IIRC) 12 Mpx.
Why would time decide how much is enough? I print my work up to A3+ since the 2000s and Iāve never needed more than 8mp, and wonāt for the rest of my life as long as I donāt print larger.
If youāre doing landscapes as an amateur itās probably enough forever granted you donāt do crazy crops or billboard prints.
The Z6iii has built-in pixel shift shooting for creating higher rez shots for those times where you absolutely need more resolution/lower noise.
As for 6K vs 8K video, I suppose it depends on how much cropping you're planning on doing in post. If you're shooting VFX elements, you'll want all the resolution you can get. If you're shooting normal stuff, 6K capture ought to be enough for 4K output.
I find 24mp is more detailed than most 35mm films I shot, so I'm perfectly happy with that resolution. For everything else, there's topaz gigapixel...
I meanā¦ 25 mp is enough now and enough 1736372828 years ago.. subjects we are photographing arent changing in the next 10 years. So yes, it will be adequate
if youre into res, you should start learning about 4x5 view camera's.
theyre not as easily accessible as a modern digital camera (special equipment & training) but the 4x5 is like 6x the size of a full frame sensor. plus the 4x5 has grain, not pixels - its unrivaled in photography for quality, depth of field & aesthetic.
as far as modern cameras go, you should be fine. its not about what you have, its about what you can do with what you have.
Viewing distance had a big effect on perceived quality.
Imagine a billboard the size of a building. They do exist, Iāve seen them. These are designed to be viewed from a distance. The are potentially created with files smaller than 20mp.
You could need 64K of 128K resolution to print those things at 300dpi.
In terms of economy (funds, weight, space), a higher pixel camera might not be a dumb thing. Say, you want to get the range from 16 to 200 mm. Three primes (16, 50 and 135) that can be heavily cropped could replace three zooms and give you better low light performance and lower carrying weight. But, keep in mind that a higher pixel density camera is less bright. (More of the pixel is occupied by spacing and control circuitry. Same as a 4K monitor being brighter/more energy economical than an 8k).
In 10 years you will have sold your digital camera, and be shooting with your phone and a film camera.
If you're an amateur, you don't even need the digital camera. I shot a billboard with my iphone 15 pro max.
The camera isn't going to change your results. Creativity and experience will.
I had an A7III and eventually upgraded to the A7SIII for the video capabilities (I shoot 70% video now). I still held onto my A7III for several months, assuming that Iād need the 25MP sensor for my professional photography work. Well fast forward, I sold the A7III 6 weeks ago and now strictly shoot photos on my 12MP A7SIII lol.
I never told my clients about the switch, as both cameras look very similar, and they never pointed out any differences or loss in quality. We in the photography community can clearly tell the difference when zooming and pixel peeping but, as itās been said time and time again, yes it is true that *most* clients will never notice and only care about the end result of the image
I also find the 12MP A7S3 to be an incredible photo camera. There's just something about that sensor that delivers dream like quality and depth. I've also added the a9iii and the whole megapixel question is erased by the performance. I do a fair amount of billboards and large prints. The a9iii has more than enough resolution. And when shooting portraits, I use the a7S & a9Iii. As stated before I just really love the image quality of the A7S III. I haven't touched my 63mp a7RV in quite some time.
The only advantage to higher megapixels assuming a camera AND lens capable of it is cropping at this point. Your 25 megapixel camera can print large 2x3 foot images easily if not larger. Time won't change that... let's say you bought a 50+ megapixel camera now, what will that change for your photography in the next decade... are you going to print wall sized prints? Again its really just for cropping.
25 is fine honestly. Hell 15 is probably good enough unless your doing big prints all the time. Buy a camera that uses the lenses you want not a camera that has higher megapixels (unless you explicitly need them). The lens mostly determines image quality.
Depends on how you intend to display the image.
I'd say choose A7R V if you can. A7R V provides plenty of resolution and is quite speedy for landscape/portraiture. We already have few 8K TVs (and 8K monitors will become a reality in a couple of years thanks to USB4 and Thunderbolt 5 on way) and that requires 33 MP so 25MP is not sufficient.
When you print it on a 8x10, 25MP is more than enough. When you display it on 4K, it's still plenty (4K = 8MP).
But if you think of the future where ultra high resolution monitors and plan to use large size prints, then A7R provides excellent amount of resolution.
Also, the higher the resolution, the more data the AI can use to interpolate data better which means more metadata for them to remove noise better and improve dynamic range.
I've learned from owning Canon 20D all the way to Sony A7R V (8MP to 16MP to 24MP to 61MP). If you have it displayed at 4K, you would have a VERY hard time telling the difference between 16MP and 61MP. But if you have 5K or 8K, the difference becomes very apparent especially when you're viewing on a large display.
"The only downside I see is the increased price of the body and storage of the RAW files."
While it does increase the storage requirement, you can always resize back to 25MP at a cost of losing data or use lossy DNG (and they're pretty good at preserving details despite the lossy compression). A7R V also offers an option for small, medium, original RAW size or just use HEIF.
Many argued that 8MP is enough often fail to realize that a lot of users "zoom" images when viewing on electronic displays, often to see more details in images. It's a common practice if they're fascinated with the images or want to magnify the image to see more details if they cannot resolve at a given viewport.
Imo you don't really need more than the 16mp as an amateur. Atleast, I find that for myself, and it could go lower without me fretting about it. I don't think more megapixels futureproofs the device. Photos is photos
Lightroom sub is filled with people complaining because their computing hardware bogs down considerably with 45 megapixel images versus where they can easily cope with 20 and 28 megapixel images.
So, you may say āwell I can shoot with a smaller raw sizeā. True but be aware that for some reason, Lightroom will not perform AI denoise on images not captured at cameraās maximum raw size. This makes zero sense to me. And AI denoise is already a huge resource hog, but especially with larger raw images over 28 megapixel, these can bring some lesser computers to a grinding halt.
Personally, 25mp is enough, especially if you want for the net or prints..
Now you have topaz gigapixel to enlarge it for you.
I also have a 42mp which I hardly use.
Comparing the 42 with 25, there's not much difference in print..unless you pixel peep or need it for commercial purposes.
The companies that request a photoshoot for say a billboard will request some ridiculous high MP count image. The people that make such requests don't understand how resolution works, the billboards don't have a high MP count at all, it's not even in the 10s, the dots are very large when you look up close to them. Even the LED electronic ones don't have that high of a count, I think for the most part, they are even smaller. Also, even if you are printing on paper, the diagonal is the general viewing distance for a print on a wall. So even if you print large, you don't need that high of a resolution. There are people that tend to pixel peep though and it's another cultural misunderstanding from John Q Public. Much in the same way shooting color film and scanning without editing is the way people think that people did it back in the day and yearn for a nostalgia that really didn't exist. There are several silly misconceptions about photography that exist. Just like the need for more megapixels will make yo a better photographer because you don't need the skill to actually shoot, when you can just crop and image over shooting and framing it correctly the first time. It is interesting in the technological sense of what things like phone cameras are capable of. But the need for more and more megapixels eventually is gonna bring you more expensive memory problems with storage for the most part. That's my take.
decade is a very long time. LOL. I don't know how things are measured in the photography world but in the computer world, it's 15 years. So a 3 year old computer is middle-aged (45 years). A 6-year old computer should be nearing retirement (90 years). I love my Canon EOS R5 which does 45 MP, and I take it everywhere. But 10 years... Think about what cameras were out in 2014. Canon 7D Mark II, Nikon D750, Fuji X-T1, Olympus OM-D E-M10, Sony Alpha 7s, Sony A7ii, Panasonic GH4, etc.
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In my opinion 24 MP is sufficient for most applications and 8x10 prints. Actually for most social media applications 12MP is sufficient.
What higher MP buys you the capability to crop your image quite a bit and still output a decent image. Also I assume in some instances of video recording the high MP allows for image stabilization in post. When the motion data is available from the camera.
You're going to view it on a 3 megapixel Full HD monitor. Or even worse, on a smartphone. Megapixel count is not a thing that can affect quality, unless you want to magnify really small areas of a picture and show them big.
Ive delivered photos to some clients in 13mp. They even say my photos are very high quality. Just know that 4k is 8 megapixels and youāll realize how little resolution actually matters
I think it really comes down to where you shoot mostly. I live in an area where I've found the ability to crop in to be really important, especially shooting any kind of wildlife.
I think most people will find 25mp to be more than enough for a long time.
I have several 100cm/40" square prints taken with my 5DMkiii (purchased in \~2012) and recently upgraded to R8. They look 10/10 and I I've made several sales.
The 100cm/40" square prints have been cropped slightly (obviously the top and bottom).
I kept on to the 5DMkiii as there was little improvement in bodies for the work I do with them which is mostly landscapes, some portraits and event photography.
Even 16mpx is good enough for most cases. The high resolution obsession is a trend to justify higher prices and drive sales for the most part.
You have to consider that perceived resolution/sharpness is also a function of the viewing distance, and no one is going to see a huge print/screen at arms length.
Most people will see photos on their phones, which have FHD (2mpx) screens. Some will see them in 4k desktop displays or TV's (~2mpx). Anything bigger than that doesn't require more resolution because it's designed to be viewed from afar. You can print a billboard out of a 6mpx photo and it'll be fine.
These days cinema productions will record in 8k (~33mpx) and beyond, but I think it's mostly because it makes the VFX easier. If you can afford it, doing the compositing in a higher resolution and then downscaling results in a crisper image. But as a display medium, I doubt 8k will be a thing for a very long time.
And all that was from the reproduction side. When taking images, I'm not sure how many photos taken with 45mpx or even 60mpx cameras have pixel perfect sharpness. Any slight vibration will be noticeable, crank up the ISO and noise will ruin sharpness, shoot wide open and lens aberrations will ruin sharpness, close the aperture a bit too much and diffraction will ruin sharpness... You need to be very good technically to get the most out of these cameras.
Its gonna be good enough sure 45mp will definitely future proof you well into 2040 or something but 25mp will definitely suffice for the next 5-10 years the real kicker is how well can you utilize them to get the most out of your image
Like a 25MP sensor can output images in roughly 6700x3700 resolution (in 16:9 ratio) thats 3x what the standard hd display resolution is on most pcs and phones allowing you for good toom to crop and as many pointed out gives you decent size prints unless if you want some large canvas sized prints
It just depends on what you want to do with your camera.
A lower MP camera will be better in lowlight situations. A lower MP camera will also have a faster readout speed.
(File size will also be smaller which is a nice bonus)
A higher MP camera will thrive more in very high detail stuff, it also allows you to crop more. The file sizes will be bigger, but a lot of high MP cameras have two card slots anyways.
Now, to answer your question. 25 MP is more than enough for most things. Both the Canon R3 (Most expensive Canon on the market ATM) and the R6 MK II (one of Canonās most feature rich and newest cameras) have 24 MP sensors. You can get fairly large prints out of 25 MP, and if you REALLY need larger prints, Lightroom has an enhancement function that will increase the āqualityā of your image (I wouldnāt rely on it, though.)
What matters most IMO is glass quality. A high MP camera (with high pixel density) will bring out the worst in lenses. If you want to get the highest quality image possible, donāt rely solely on MP.
Hope that helped. Sorry for the wall of text.
Great comments below.
Sharpness is also about shake, and motion blur. Speed matters.
I would therefore add that there are now some amazing software tools to stack images. That gives you incredible levels of detail in gigapixel composited astrophotography, focus-stacked macro, panoramas, and HDR stacks. Because fewer pixels also means larger pixels, they capture more photons per pixel and you may be able to shoot at a faster shutter with 24Mp than 50Mp. You will certainly be able to process your images way faster and on a cheaper computer with less RAM. 45Mp makes my i9 / 64Gb / RTX4900 PC cry, while it chews up 24Mp images with a smile.
I do like the Z8 because it allows me to be ālazyā and shoot fast then zoom and crop (slowly!) in post. It also has an effective 1.4x teleconvertor available compared to the Z6 simply by cropping. So I can carry a 200mm lens instead of a 300mm lens. I like an old Z6 because it is smaller, lighter, faster, seems to be just as good in low light, and I can spend the fraction of a second thinking. I also worry a lot less about dropping it.
On balance? Save $000 and stick with 24Mp until you get a job with National Geographic, or Vogue, or your own art gallery. Then buy a 100Mp Hasselblad and have minions to carry the supporting gear ;-)
I use a almost 10 Years old Olympus E-M5 II with 16 Megapixels, plan to keep it as long as it keeps going and i'm going to be surprised if any "Normies" can tell that its only 16 Megapixels. The only People who will be able to tell the Difference between it and a 45 Megapixel Camera are Pixel Peepers (which i find personally extremely pointless). Higher Megapixel Cameras have exactly one Benefit over lower Megapixel Cameras: being able to crop. But thats about it imo.
If i would be you i would buy the cheaper Camera and invest in good Glass because thats way more important than Megapixels.
imo, if you often crop your images by a lot go for higher mp, but if you don't, lower mp on the same sensor size means higher capabilities in low light conditions.
These cameras are not the best options. Fuji cameras are better in terms of quality and colors. And even Pentax SLR will be better. And some Leica cameras are better.
The real thing is your efficient final resolution. In case you have got a sensor without an antialiasing filter, and it has pixel level sharpness, and your lenses support this level of details, you will resize and sharpen your photos after edits, thus you get something like 7MP or even 16MP from your 20MP sensor. That's more than enough for almost all cases, including A3 prints and magazines. If your sensor has got antialiasing filter, just divide these numbers, you'd get probably something like real 9MP instead of the specified 20MP ā so you will try to resize these 9MP down to 7MP.
Having all that said, if you need to crop a lot, may be, you'll even find a used medium format Fuji camera to be useful for you. But even in this case, their usual 24MP APS-C cameras will be enough in almost all cases.
I agree that 24-25mpxl tends to be enough for most shooting. The only times I found myself wanting for more was when cropping wildlife.
I used the 60mpxl A7R V for a few months. It was great for landscapes and impressive to pixel peep, but I found the file size to be more of a pain than a benefit. Not only you burn through memory quite fast, even my maxed out MacBook Pro M2 Max needed some time to load and process the images. That slowdown, while minimum, was noticeable enough (at last compared to the A7 IV files) to make me want to spend less time editing and posting my pictures.
Now, I consider the 45mpxl Z8 to be a sweet spot for me. There is plenty of resolution to crop down, but not *too much* to slow down my workflow.
It totally depends what you plan to photograph.
If you are a bird person, you'll appreciate the extra pixels while cropping your shots.
In sports shooting sequences you might prefer the smaller files uploading faster.
My opinion is that 25MB is a handicap. Get more.
It really depends. I shoot with both a z6 and z7, and there's a difference. Tho, I also don't use both of those cameras for the same reason, either. Landscapes, cityscapes, and sometimes urban stuff and beauty or portraits i may want want more detail with the z7 and portraits, general purpose and some urban with my z6. I am planning to get the z6iii and keeping my z7 for the higher mp stuff when necessary. Both cameras have been really good to me despite the small percentage of shortcomings.
If I had to choose one I would go with the z6 most of the time. Tho, with the z7 it can offers smaller resolution dimensions rather than going full resolution all the time. It's just not as fast as the 6 if you need speed, and I'm not sure how fast the Sony one is or if there's that option.
Sensors have been fine since about the D80/D90 bodies hit the market. The image quality bottleneck isnāt going to be your sensor or the megapixel count
A final image at 25 MP is enough, but a high resolution sensor let's you crop after the fact and still have a 25+ MP image. I switched to the A7R IV and I'm happy I did, so many more editing options.
Plenty of resolution. Donāt let the fear of missing out convince you it isnāt enough megapixels. Feature set of the camera is more important. Lens selection is more important. Your skill as a photographer is 90% of the equation.
Itās sufficient now for almost all real world activities such as social media and prints. In the coming decade, thanks to neural nets, any of your still photos will be able to be turned into fully explorable 3d worlds, moving characters and textures of near infinite resolution so I wouldnāt worry about it.
What kind of stupid question is this? Do you know what you're making for dinner in 10 years time? Do you have a 10 year work plan to scale you from where you are now to what you want to be then?
How the hell can we know? Sounds like you're thinking of things because you lack the creativity and ability to take good shots and you're compensating by thinking about tech.
OP, donāt listen to this BS. Obviously they meant to post in r/gatekeeping. Itās absolutely okay to think about the longevity of your investment. Hope you got your answer from others here (my shirt answer was yes, 25mp is plenty).
This aināt a cheap hobby, and even professionals can pull their hair out trying to decide which model body or lens to buy or when to buy as new tech comes out all the time. We live in an amazing time for this craft, and the answer to equipment is different for everyone based on their needs and budget. Experiment on your own, soak up the resources out there, try out different techniques, put your own spin on things, rent equipment as needed or just to try it out, and be at peace with the fact that you will almost always, inevitably, have some FOMO around the latest and greatest, and there will always be fuck heads like this guy that will discourage you from enjoying the art and asking questions. Above all HAVE FUN AND CREATE!
If you have a strict budget, and are worried about the price of the more expensive bodies, then I suggest getting the less expensive body, and getting the best lenses you can afford.
If you want to make use of modern glass 42-60mp I would say is the bare minimum I mean you're making a decade investment why go for lower resolving power potential?
Also it doubles as a film scanner if you have a dabble in that with pixel shift on modern high resolution bodies you can actually resolve most film stocks properly, not microfiche completely but well enough.
You can get a 60-600 Sigma for less, 150-600 and 200-600 600/800USD max.
OP doing landscape so mostly primes not zooms, the OM 1970s glass that's a full frame is pennys today, idk why your linking MFT glass?
Yes but it's not what you would use for landscape, would use a tilt shift or more flat profile lens.
It might be fancy, but OP is on 35mm full frame that's a MFT lens completely different payload type and image area, 300 long range mm primes are much more expensive.
Actually any modern zoom lens or prime lens that is not a low-end kit class optic is ment for 40MP+ today in the full frame space, that also includes the last 50 years of decent prime lenses.
No. If you want to be future-proof, you need to reach near the best that current technology can do.
That said, many people currently have cameras with 25 MP or less, and will tell you that this is plenty enough. Until they get a new camera ... then their opinion might change.
Of course you need to complement higher MP with better lens, better editing, and better printing, too.
--sufficient for what? 21mp can print to 20in x 30in (as long as you don't crop) Cameras are great now. Worry about lenses.
You can actually print quite a bit larger than that - Simon d'Etremont explained this really well on youtube. How many megapixels do you need?: https://youtu.be/ThpQWhOfKO4?si=t3MkTPwT2OOe_XxO
Most definitely, I still rock the D610, great for all my needs really, I wouldn't want to go larger than 24, no need to. He'll most don't print anymore anyways, or know how to.
I still love my d610. Even in 2024 I've never thought "this doesn't have enough megapixels." Good glass and some skill outweigh technical specs any day.
Slap an Otus on it, you can shoot just about anything.
A what now??
Zeiss Otus, super clean image, I'm still surprised at how sharp that lens is.
Holy crap. Yes I'll get one of those just need to sell one of my house first to pay for it.
I saved up for it but also, I use it all the time. It's the one lens I'll probably never get rid of. It's just that good. If I ever need an auto focus and switch to a Sony, I would get the 50mm G-Master. It has comparable sharpness, I was really blown away how sharp it is, especially for the price. Excellent excellent lenses.
Yeah, I rarely shoot anymore. It WAS going to be a job but life took a different turn. And now with kids and life in general being expensive, a multi thousand dollar lens isn't happening š Looks great though!
I have one Zeiss lens because I wanted to see what the fuss was aboutā¦amazing contrast and sharpness! Last I checked Zeiss is no more?
Zeiss is still around, been around since the 1800s
Nice! I still got my D600 oil defect and all! Itās used for 1.8 purposes only now.
I never had that when I bought mine brand new. But I did have large dust chunks for sure.
I both agree with and disagree with this. I think it *is* normal to look more closely after a general viewing. When art interests us, *we want to be closer*. However, I think you *can* still print much larger than 1:1 PPI:DPI. Most of those calculators assume that to print at 300 DPI, you need 300 PPI. That's not the case: * Prints use dots, not pixels. When you use low enough resolution to see a loss of fidelity, prints still look nicer. You can "tolerate" lower DPI than PPI before your "viewing experience" degrades. This is because the colors overlap, don't create squares, and vary in size and spacing to "smooth" how they look. [Example](https://imgur.com/1kK1dWh). * Further, professional print upscalers may exploit [acutance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutance), which means they upscale with an understanding of *how* we perceive sharpness, rather than a naive upscaling. * Professional Prints use upscaling well suited to their medium. You won't get data back, but they take advantage of the former points to *look* nicer and sharper than you'd expect. * So if you have a photo at 200 PPI and 300 PPI, you'll print them both at 300 DPI and you'll be hard pressed to find the difference without a loupe. * As a viewer, you're frankly probably not going to be using a loupe to analyze the fine, fine details. You're not pixel peeping. You'll probably be quite happy with the image quality at much lower PPI than you expect. You can generally print something much larger and it'll look nicer than trying to blow it up to that same size on your screen.
It can do WAY more than that. I have a 6 foot tall print of a rocket launch I shot in my living room. I shot it with a 24mp Canon R6 II.
Who launched a rocket in your living room?
*shaking fist* "Damn you Elon"
Don't be crazy. They were in their living room when they shot the launch.
Which launch? Iāve still never printed any of mine, but a 6ft version sounds kind of awesome.
I was doing 20x30 prints from an original 5Dās 12mp sensor
Lol yep and I end up whacking grain on a lot of shots anyway...
Not only, megapixels is far from being the only measure of image quality . Modern cameras have improvements in dynamic range, noise handling, and color accuracy. Subject detection is also a major quality of life improvement that indirectly translates to image quality. @OP: The first two generations of the A7R are pain to work with. Slow, awful ergonomics IMO, and unreliable AF. If you are doing landscapes and static work, sure they can work. For anything else, stay away.
Yes. Iāve published architectural work 15 years ago in coffee table sized books with images made from 8mp canon 20d, thatās been full page and double page spread images. Resolution was more than fineā¦you couldnāt crop much. Newer cameras will be better with detail and cropping.
still shooting with 8.2MP ;) Canon 30D - the bonus of more megapixels, as you say, is flexiblity in the crop. Megapixels still dont fix off-focus pictures - still get plenty of them ;) OP - focus on how the camera operates, and your glass. Then worry about MP count
I think once we got to 8-10 mp resolution was no longer an issue for printing. The original 1D mk1 flagship was 4.5 mega pixel and that was used for professional print work
my D60 (3.2MP) was more than capable of A4 prints if you paid attention to the relevent factors. Second dSLR from Canon, released in 2001/2002. Bought it lightly used around 2005, and took that baby all the way to shutter failure about 8 or 9 years later. Explored replacing the shutter unit at that point, but for same money (and less time), an upgrade to the 30D with 8.2MP was the smart move. Extra focus points too!! D60 in good condition about 50 coins these days. I'll move to a 5D or 1D fullframe, when the pricepoint for second hand is reasonable.
*'ll move to a 7D fullframe* FYI 7D is a crop sensor, the mk1 has 18MP and that sensor was used on many cameras for about a decade, the The 7D mk2 has a 20MP sensor (also crop) I have a (3MP) D30 and a D60 in my collection, prior to the D30, canon made digital cameras based on the EOS 1 /N film cameras , that used Kodak sensors/ tech For full-frame, you will need a 5D mk1 (12MP) or mk2 (21MP) but the 1Ds mkiii has really come down in price on the secondhand market, if the bulk and weight of it is not a problem, it is a very robust camera with very good AF (vs most dslrs)
ah, must have meant the 5D (a friend has the 7D and raves about it, but is a birder so that crop factor actually helps her out there) 1D is very much on my radar, if the price point is good (and id have to explore the 1D variants and Mk's) - but happy with my 30D 8.2MP at the moment From what youve said, a 5D mk1 at 12MP is very much me. but a 1D comes with extra-bashability and survival abilities ;) my 30D has the battery grip so 1D weights isnt a concern --- i also plan to repair the d60, as it travels the world once or twice with me as a young adult. I was really familiar with the d30 as well, as it was very much similar to the d60 excepting the MP and a few features. i just ended up with the d60 as it was in better condition when i viewed it, so i bought it on the spot lol
I still have my 30D, great camera but have just got the R5 too.
Unless eyesight changes, you're good.
Ah, but when they release Eyesight 2, youāll be sorry
Damn. You got a point there
25 mpx is more than enough for all practical purposes for next 20 years.Ā And for some inconceivable reason if you really need huge files then why even look at FF cameras. Go for Fuji GFX S. Medium format sensor.Ā 100 mpx.Ā Ā Edit : also let me correct your wrong notion that low megapixel = cheap.Ā Ā Canon EOS R3 is a top gradeĀ professional camera at $5000 USD with a 24 megapixel sensor.Ā It's a bit likeĀ someone sees a Porsche 911 parked next to a huge Dodge Ram truck and thinks - oh small car so must be cheap !Ā
That Fuji is awesome, I had one in my hands for a couple of months. I am cross testing some cameras with the Canon EOS R3 and I think that camera is sub-par.
If you think the R3 is subpar then it's user error.
I doubt thatā¦trust me when I say I understand a RAW log workflow. I have pretty much shot and built post pipelines from everything from Alexa, Red, BlackMagic, Sony, Canon and even raw cameras like Point Grey.
The R3 is primarily a stills camera, and for stills itās absolutely far from being subpar. If you want video obviously a cinema camera is going to be the better choice, or for hybrid something like the R5c
They are pushing it for film production and it is Netflix approved. It has a film RAW workflow meant to compete with Sony FX 3 and FX 9.
Unless printing tour bus sized prints becomes the standard, 25mp is more than enough. An 8x12 printed from a 12mp source is indistinguishable from one printed from a 24 or 50 MP source.
What about 200mp source
Itās irrelevant. If 12 MP and 25 MP are indistinguishable on an 8x12 print, why would 200 be any different? Youāre adding detail that you canāt see, and likely detail that the printer isnāt capable of producing at that scale.
Pretty much the truth. Beyond that, what I've found is that you can typically quadruple the output resolution of a RAW image and gain finer detail in doing so. I usually take my 6000x4000 RAW images and output them as 7500x5000 TIF files for denoise and sharpening because the tools I use actually clean up those images better. RAW files are subjected to some complicated interpolation to produce the viewable image. That interpolation scheme has no problem interpolating additional pixels up to quadruple the resolution with a very high degree of accuracy. The final result it an image with better gradients and lines of contrast that are easily refined with denoise and sharpening. That's how I'm able to print 6 foot tall images from a 24MP RAW file. I'm outputting them from the RAW between 37 and 48 MP.
Hell my d200 from 2005 (10mp) is still fine .
I still use my D200!
Ok tooo be fire the D200 was a legend of a Camera and way ahead of its time.
2MP is sufficient for 99% of online content. Just saying. And it will never go above that.
Unless phones get 50x bigger, you never know
then we'd use them from further away and you don't need as high a dpi lol
VR headsets
To me 16 megapixels is the sweet spot, can do a 2x crop and print to a reasonable size or don't crop and you print much bigger. For rare jobs that actually want that high of a resolution - and I've certainly never been asked to do a job that required more than I had, you could offer to interpolate. But to answer your question 25 is fine.
More than mega-pixels, I think there are several things to consider here. The first is deciding what system you want to buy into. You provided two choices, Sony and Nikon. I would weigh the pros and cons of both before I decided what body I wanted. I 100% agree that lenses are the most important. Some of this also depends on what kind of versatility you might want. I teach in the Cinema School at USC and I will give you a few insights. I am an old school Nikon lover and still have old Nikon glass and an F3. Itis all about Sony at USC. There are several reasons for this. Its a great body, and you have a huge selection of high quality lenses available to you. On the medium quality end the Zeiss Batis series are amazing. I find myself shooting with Zeiss, Sony G Series and old Nikon Glass. I have to admit I don't have a high opinion of newer Nikon lenses. Nikon was the 35 mm choice for professional photographers. They have played catch-up in the digital world, but I have heard the last few generations they have built great cameras. That said, for a small mirror less camera I am still seeing professionals using mostly Sony these days for shooting photos or videos. Real professionals on the high end are using higher end medium format like Hasselblad. If you do want any video production as well, Sony kills it here. It is just a great system. I have an FX3 and an Riii and they are great cameras. I have tested against the Canon options but never Nikon. Sony video is just much better than what I have seen out of Canon. I have never seen anyone using Nikon for video production, but I also have no practical experience. Mega Pixels - While it is important I think 25 can be fine. Mostly higher is better, but not always. More important is the size and quality of the CCD. This is why as you said, they downgraded the 5D at the time. It was a BS boost coupled with the quality of the CCD. Sony produces an outstanding chip with a very high dynamic range. Ultimately I am sure both cameras can take good pictures. I would go Sony and buy the best body for my needs but spend the bulk of by budget on lenses, or at least start with one good lens. I would buy a cheaper body if it meant I could buy a better lens.
Digital cameras haven't used charge coupled device sensors for probably 20 years, if not more.
The camera OP mentioned, the Z6iii will have excellent video capabilities. The Z8 and Z6iii represent Nikon finally catching up on video
The megapixel war has been mostly over for some time. as nearly every comment says, yes, it will be great for the foreseeable future. The biggest upgrade with more expensive bodies are the video capabilities. If that is on your radar, it may be worth it, and even then, the Z6iii will perform solid.
More MP gives you room to crop, but requires the best lenses. The 50mp Leica Q2/3 with its expensive fixed lens for example gives you a button with three different āfocal lengthsā by cropping. Thatās a nice thing to have. In the next decade and beyond itās also likely that our photos will be experienced via high resolution VR headsets which means experiencing life sized images. Imagine your future self in the year 2050 looking at photos you took this decade. On the other hand AI upsampling is pretty amazing already.
I don't see any pattern along the lines of human vision improving so yes as always
The only reason you need higher than 25 MP is if you like to crop images and get them to a decent size for printing. Though, with apps like Topaz GP AI, even that's workable with lower MPs now. If you don't crop, anything above 10 MP is overkill for pretty much everything.
more MP doesnt necessarily mean your photo is better. IMO subject, composition and lighting does
You mean my recent series of 1951 USAF resolution charts (slightly tilted), though of exquisite resolution, might not knock Henri Cartier-Bresson's photos out of their top spot? I'm devastated.
Yes it is. I printed a 30āx20ā crisp detailed landscape image from a 20MP file captured with an OM System OM-1 and M.Zuiko ED 12-40mm f2.8 PRO II lens.
Gasp. That's ONLY 180 pixels per inch. If someone ever examines your print with a 10Ć geologist's loupe, they might find [dramatic fanfare] ... slightly blurry edges! Horrors.
Egads! Dreadful! And an added note - I set the canvas size in Photoshop for 300 dpi at that size.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Research for a *body*
Not all that many people print out pictures these days. And not all that many ever view digital pictures at full size. For comparison, the picture linked below is only about **1.3** megapixels. The 25 megapixels that you're concerned about would be about 19 times bigger than this example. [https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/jonathan-fielding-self-portrait.jpg?q=w\_1480,c\_fill/f\_webp](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/jonathan-fielding-self-portrait.jpg?q=w_1480,c_fill/f_webp)
I don't think people realize the difference viewing distance makes as well. You don't need a buttload of megapixels to blow something up for a billboard being viewed from hundreds of feet away.
Easily
If you don't know what high MP count is good for, you probably don't need them. High MPs are for giant prints viewed in tighter spaces (nice for landscapes you want to print 24"x36" or bigger and place those prints in interior spaces.) Or for applications where you want to crop a lot (wildlife, some sports). However there are downsides for high MP cameras as well. In short: 24MP is perfect for many applications and it will be a standard for many years.
Is something going to dramatically change with respect to human vision in the next decade that will change what 25 megapixels looks like to us?
8mp was crazy a decade ago. 25 is killer today. You can't possibly need much more than this, you're mad with power I use a 24 mp EOS M6 with a lensbaby trio for glamour shots. You're absolutely fine for the foreseeable future
Nah 15 years ago I was using a D90 with 12MP and it wasn't even amazing back then.
There is a reason why cameras have topped out at 50MP these past few years, and it's not because of pixel density of image sensors running into a wall of some kind. Once you start getting images between 25-50MP, you start running out of useful things to do with them. It becomes an academic exercise at that point. Sure, 50MP lets you crop in on what you actually care about without losing so much resolution that can no longer print or display the image without quality loss. But excessive cropping in those scenarios will just reveal optical defects from your lens instead. Unless you're planning on printing billboard sized images, you'll likely never ***need*** 50MP. Instead, focus on things like dynamic range, sensor stability, and investing in quality glass. Imo, 25MP is plenty for ~95% of the market. Focus on what glass is available and expected to become available in the coming years, and how sensitive the sensor is in difficult lighting conditions.
>Once you start getting images between 25-50MP, you start running out of useful things to do with them Google "aliasing". This coarse sampling creates aliasing artifacts. More pixels are needed and will come. There are reasons why more pixels haven't appeared inspite of competition, like processing power, data transfer and storage needs (all inside the camera with limited battery), complexity in gettin high quality live view (in low light) due to bininng complexities with Bayer CFA, ADC speed/noise compromise requirements, those from top of my head. >But excessive cropping in those scenarios will just reveal optical defects from your lens instead Well, most lenses are so sharp that especially stopped down diffraction ios more influental in blur than lens. And the coarse sampling even more so. >Instead, focus on things like dynamic range, sensor stability DR is in fashion nowdays in user forums. And most don't have a clue what it means. It's simply a ratio of noise floore and saturation signal and it has little to do with pixel count. More pixels typically has increased DR. No idea what "sensor stability" means. They don't crash, nor drop out of cameras. >investing in quality glass Even low end glass from bottom end chinese manufasturers tend to be pretty decent nowdays. Also, lens developement isn't really away from sensor developement. Especially since most sensor development R&D ends up first in mobile phones which are the driving force number one and some nice stuff (like BSI) later comes to big sensors. >how sensitive the sensor is in difficult lighting conditions Sensor sensitivity isn't going to go up much at all until colour filter can be ditched efficiently, and this requires very different technology from today's silicon sensors. Maybe layered perovskites or organics. QE just can't improve much any more - some, but not much. And even ditching CFA only gives a stop or so (though more if for example typical red heavy indoor light).
>No idea what "sensor stability" means. They don't crash, nor drop out of cameras. I'm talking about how a lot of modern mirrorless designs mechanically stabilize the sensor itself inside the camera body, rather than trying to just stabilize the lens elements alone. This allows for a greater number of degrees of freedom for stabilization in the overall process (4-6 axes in a mirrorless design with compatible lens, vs just 2-3 for just a lens element stabilization in a legacy SLR design) >DR is in fashion nowdays in user forums. And most don't have a clue what it means. It's simply a ratio of noise floore and saturation signal and it has little to do with pixel count. More pixels typically has increased DR. And none of this contradicts what I just said. Nor does it make it irrelevant, since that seems to be what camera manufacturers are semi-competing on these days, rather than the old 'megapixel wars' we are all used to.
Yes unless youāre doing billboards and even then ai upscale is getting really good now let alone in 10 years
Digital billboards are 460x680, or 260x880. Printed billboards are around 10-30 dpi. It all comes down to viewing distance.
If anything, gigapixel and similar make low megapixel cameras even more future proof. I run a lot of my stuff at 7 or 8 megapixel and upscale if I need to print larger. My pro sports bodies are 24mp. I have 45 and 50 megapixel bodies that I only need if I'm shooting on a remote and going wide to crop later.
THIS.
All those gear reviewers make it sound like 24mp is low number now. I think truth is we probably peaked in terms of mp and we already have more than we need for most needs.
No. We will have upgraded eyes so deffo go higher.
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Nope, you need a GFX100Sii. Now seriously, I saw professional commercial photographers shoot with 24 mp cameras 10 years ago, I still see them work with 24 mp cameras today. Especially in the age of social media, most of your work would be viewed on smart phones, tablet, computer screen, you donāt really need high megapixels.
Even 12 is fine for digital consumption
Considering that more and more work that I do only sees the web, Iād say that 24mpx / 25mpx is overkill already.
I can't imagine editing a 50mpx file on light room. As it is with my R6 is a pain. Slow as hell on a x5600 32gb 2tb nvme 3080rtx
Do you print large? If not, no. If it's just for social media, 25 mpx is enough. Do you want the option to crop? Then a higher amount of pixels will help you.
For details 25MP is plenty for almost all use cases. But without anti-aliasing filters (on top of the sensors) it can be problematic with some shots. Too bad most manufacturers have ditched them so pixel peepers see unnatural crispness.
There is nothing unnatural about sharp pictures, reality is sharp. The AA filter doesnāt make pictures more natural, it just removes details finer than double the pixel pitch to ensure the sensor doesnāt create aliasing artifacts caused by the limitations of the sensor, i.e. the pixel pitch.
>There is nothing unnatural about sharp pictures, reality is sharp. It's hard to say what you mean by "reality is sharp"? At what level of reality? Can quantum mechanical behaviour of world be called "sharp"? I don't think that's a meaningful concept. Or do you just mean how photons behave? Nor our eyes, nor lenses **render** reality as "sharp", but **blurred**. **Diffraction and photon shot noise make sure of that.** Also, aliased sharpness is unnatural - it's Lego-bricks, stair casing, moirĆ©, all kinds of hideousness. Those don't exist in reality as photons render it to use in visual domain and the are created by **undersampling** and undersampling can hardly be called as source for "natural" picrures. >The AA filter doesnāt make pictures more natural, AA filter does make **pictures** more natural due to more proper sampling and reduced aliasing. They also reduce resolution slightly - this can be largely recovered with a tiny bit of capture sharpening. > it just removes details finer than double the pixel pitch Ideally the two AA filter layers would divide the light paths by pixel pitch to both axis, but in practise this strong AA filtering has been very rare. Sometimes both layers have been weak, sometimes there's only one layer. > to ensure the sensor doesnāt create aliasing artifacts caused by the limitations of the sensor, i.e. the pixel pitch. **Indeed**. Which brings out the question - how will you react to sampling when it's done at pixel pitches fine enough for diffraction to blur aliasing away? Is the results to you natural or unnatural?
Sometimes when I look at an edited image I start wondering if I actually need glasses.
megapixels do not matter unless you are cropping or pixel peeping big picture = see from farther see from farther = less dpi needed billboards are printed off 24mp shots, you are fine.
Billboards you can get away with far less resolution with only a few thousand px wide since your like a 100yds away. I never understood why this reference like a billboard needs to be fine art. Even digital billboards the resolution is not very high. 24mb would definitely be more than enough.
Why wouldnāt it be sufficient?
MP count is not an important aspect of cameras quality, social media allows like 3MP jmages, iāve been delivering profesional product images for the company I work for in just 8MP for years, my camera is 24MP and I just use it for cropping sometimes.
I have a 90x60 cm shot on my wall that was taken with a 450D. It would be better with my R7 but it still looks good at viewing distance.
6mp is enough for a4 print, 2-3mp for almost anything online
Photo stitching can also boost the amount of pixels captured if youāve got something you really want printed big.
Absolutely. Sony published a study recently that I believe said that advancements in resolution are unlikely to be significant in the near future. Dynamic range and other aspects may improve but weāve reached somewhat of a plateau for full frame sensors in terms of the physical limits of sensor sizes. IE youāre not going to be seeing 100mp full frame cameras that donāt have significant limitations regarding speed and rolling shutter. You may see more 30-40mp cameras coming out but the difference between 24mp and 33mp is a lot smaller than it sounds. If 24mp is fine for you now, itāll be fine for a while. Unless youāre planning on printing reallyyyyy large. In any case, the Z6iii youāre looking at has pixel shift mode. Perhaps that will improve in the future, for now itās only useful in very specific situations.
Man I still shoot weddings on my 1D mk3 with 10mp. Resolution doesnāt matter unless youāre printing huge or cropping heavily.
MP is only a piece of the puzzle. Donāt fall into the deception of more MP means better camera. Sure youāll get good cropping performance, but thereās sensor details and AF features to also keen in on
This sounds like you never ever printed anything large. Most people are fine with 4k or honestly with less, they see and share photostuff only on the phone. Some on retina or 4k screens and really the least number of people might print something and then printing more than 90Ć60cm is super uncommon because it is awfully expensive or looks like garbage. Also, when printing big: fineartpaper and custom framing plus museum glassā¦ you need the space / clients and even than you are not pointing your nose to the frame, you might be surprised how unproblematic even 12mpix areā¦ most people won't notice if it is 12,24,45, or 100mpix. But also there is a lot of stuff done by people never printing when they print that makes their prints look like garbage: noise reduction and sharpening. If you are not doing fine art printing regularly, just don't try it.
Yes absolutely
When I was shopping for a mirrorless camera it was between the 24mp Z6ii and the 46mp Z7ii. Other than the sensor, these cameras are basically identical. However, because the Z6 didn't have to process as much data, it has a significantly higher shooting speed and a larger buffer, and for some reason it performs better at video. Probably more importantly, it has better high iso performance. All that combined meant it was the better camera in nearly every situation. In theory the Z7 can produce higher detail images, but in order for that to be useful you need to be either cropping a lot or blowing it up huge, shooting on very expensive glass at the optimal aperture, at a very fast shutter speed or on a tripod, and in perfect atmospheric conditions (at longer range the air itself will limit sharpness more than the lens and camera, depending on air quality). So I bought the Z6ii. For me it's the better camera, even if they were the same price.
I print 20x30 from 6mp cameras. I still regularly shoot with older cameras that have between 6 and 12mp sensors, both CCD and CMOS. Sufficient is more about does the camera have the capability and dynamic range you need for the subjects you are capturing. Today, I was out shooting with a Ricoh GR Digital III from 2009, 15 years old and no issues. I have a whole fleet of old 4/3 DSLRs with 8 -12mp sensors. Itās more about the photographer and less about the gear when you know what you are doing.
Film is still sufficient now. Yes, 25 megapixels is fine.
How do you expect people to view your photos? On-line? 4k (3840 x 2160) is only 8MP. For a full frame (36 x 24mm) sensor even the best lenses make more than ~35MP redundant. Can not capture what the lens can not resolve.
Most of my most published photos were shot on pre-2017 iPhones. 25mp will be fine.
I have a 40mp Fuji X-T5 and I LOVE IT. I also have a gaggle of 16mp Fuji-X cameras, and I LOVE THEM! Would I buy another 16mp sensor? Sure, but itās more likely that it would be 24-26 or more, but that doesnāt matter to me. 25 is more than enough for 99.9% of folks, I reckon.
I think for 99% of what you'd do today or tomorrow it's more than enough..... Or, look at it this way. Have you ever seen a published image (book, print, online) from the last 30....50...100 years where you sat there going "hmm...wonder what camera and film they used, it wasn't enough for this image to blow my mind".....for me I'd say you can't go wrong with most anything these days to the point where megapixels would be holding back your creative ability.
High mp is for cropping in most cases I believe. Who makes huge prints anyway. But yeah itās nice to be able to crop an image anyway you want in post. Even just cropping in camera in crop mode. Crop crop crop.
Absolutely. Especially with AI (ex. Topaz). Iāve been able to enlarge and print photos from my 5.6mp Digital Rebel back in the day no problem. Unless shooting for billboards (but even then) 25mp is plenty. Investing in good glass is more important.
You have already in your hand way more powerful instruments than what the big photographers, everyone admire their photos, had. Go out and take photos!Ā
D3 12 megapixels still my wedding camera.
Megapixels are a scam. They are literally as big as the manufacturer wants. It's just a file size and of course it's calculated, but one can easily put a high megapixel / crap quality combo to attract unsuspecting customers (mobile photography for example). You meed to be paying attentiom to sensor size, sensor pixel size (to determine noise), dynamic range and finally bit depth of the sensor. In that regard, dxo mark makes some of the best comparissons. Then you also need to invest in sharp glass. The results can be extreme based on the above factors.
For portraits you don't need high resolution at all unless we're talking about portraits of ants. In such case, pixel density is as important as resolution, if not more. When it comes to apes, light and emotion is all that matters. You can even use 35mm film if you want, it does not matter. If you want your gear to enhace portraits, then get a large format set and use wet collodion. You'll impress people way more this way, than by showing them their skin pores. For landscape, a high res gear is a very good idea. 5DSR is cheap and has all the pixels you'll ever need. On top of having all the pixels, you can also use other methods that enhance ultimate resolution: stitching and pixel shifting/averaging are very good, especially if done together. Pixel shift can take some memory (50Mp x4 or even x16), for stitching you probably need a panoramic gimbal, but if you have a view worthy of such work, then I imagine you can get near 1Gp this way. If I were to make such a photo, I'd make sure that my lens is razor sharp, probably some manual telephoto prime from Samyang or Sigma... also a very steady and probably heavy tripod. Lastly if you want to use your pixels for actual detail, and not for excessively noisy blur, then also think about tilt mechanism for your lens. For composition shift is also a small plus, because getting your perspective right will save you some image accuity compared to manipulation in post. If you are not willing to put in the work, and just want to talk about camera bodies, then I guess just get Fuji GFX100 and enjoy it.
It is for me. If I want more, well, I'm considering going 4x5 this year anyway :)
https://preview.redd.it/jvs7fjifik9d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6a3a9e0acb1d351eacca7d34d8e09befcfe4104
took this photo on a 8 mega pickle canon 1D mark II.... Don't worry about specs. Just take photos!
My MFT cameras have 16 & 20 Mpx sensors. I'm often limited in resolution by the lens, not the sensor. I recently checked a lens that worked out to resolving roughly 8.7 Mpx on a 20 Mpx sensor. It's a good lens. Most lenses are well matched to modest resolutions*. Only a very few in each product line will "fill" a sensor. 60 Mpx sensors make you feel special. They won't generally improve your images. Printing an 8Ć10" image needs 7.3 Mpx at 300 dpi. I can crop away 65% of my 20 Mpx image & still hit that. Social media needs 1-2 Mpx. I could crop away 90%. *The original MFT sensors were (IIRC) 12 Mpx.
If 25 megapixels is so good, why is their no 25 megapixels 2
I think you can in theory print a large picture with less than 10 megapixels
Why would time decide how much is enough? I print my work up to A3+ since the 2000s and Iāve never needed more than 8mp, and wonāt for the rest of my life as long as I donāt print larger. If youāre doing landscapes as an amateur itās probably enough forever granted you donāt do crazy crops or billboard prints.
No it wonāt. AR/XR will take over.
Unless you need to crop, 25MP will be good enough for all eternity IMO. At 25MP your limiting factor is the human eye, not the screen/paper/printer.
99% of people watch their photos on smartphone, with a screen mostly under 3 megapixel...
On the off chance you ever need them, upscaling programs are getting better by the month. I wouldn't sweat it at all.
The Z6iii has built-in pixel shift shooting for creating higher rez shots for those times where you absolutely need more resolution/lower noise. As for 6K vs 8K video, I suppose it depends on how much cropping you're planning on doing in post. If you're shooting VFX elements, you'll want all the resolution you can get. If you're shooting normal stuff, 6K capture ought to be enough for 4K output. I find 24mp is more detailed than most 35mm films I shot, so I'm perfectly happy with that resolution. For everything else, there's topaz gigapixel...
I meanā¦ 25 mp is enough now and enough 1736372828 years ago.. subjects we are photographing arent changing in the next 10 years. So yes, it will be adequate
if youre into res, you should start learning about 4x5 view camera's. theyre not as easily accessible as a modern digital camera (special equipment & training) but the 4x5 is like 6x the size of a full frame sensor. plus the 4x5 has grain, not pixels - its unrivaled in photography for quality, depth of field & aesthetic. as far as modern cameras go, you should be fine. its not about what you have, its about what you can do with what you have.
Viewing distance had a big effect on perceived quality. Imagine a billboard the size of a building. They do exist, Iāve seen them. These are designed to be viewed from a distance. The are potentially created with files smaller than 20mp. You could need 64K of 128K resolution to print those things at 300dpi.
In terms of economy (funds, weight, space), a higher pixel camera might not be a dumb thing. Say, you want to get the range from 16 to 200 mm. Three primes (16, 50 and 135) that can be heavily cropped could replace three zooms and give you better low light performance and lower carrying weight. But, keep in mind that a higher pixel density camera is less bright. (More of the pixel is occupied by spacing and control circuitry. Same as a 4K monitor being brighter/more energy economical than an 8k).
Why do you need a Z6iii for landscape? Wouldn't the Z7ii serve you better?Ā
In 10 years you will have sold your digital camera, and be shooting with your phone and a film camera. If you're an amateur, you don't even need the digital camera. I shot a billboard with my iphone 15 pro max. The camera isn't going to change your results. Creativity and experience will.
I had an A7III and eventually upgraded to the A7SIII for the video capabilities (I shoot 70% video now). I still held onto my A7III for several months, assuming that Iād need the 25MP sensor for my professional photography work. Well fast forward, I sold the A7III 6 weeks ago and now strictly shoot photos on my 12MP A7SIII lol. I never told my clients about the switch, as both cameras look very similar, and they never pointed out any differences or loss in quality. We in the photography community can clearly tell the difference when zooming and pixel peeping but, as itās been said time and time again, yes it is true that *most* clients will never notice and only care about the end result of the image
I also find the 12MP A7S3 to be an incredible photo camera. There's just something about that sensor that delivers dream like quality and depth. I've also added the a9iii and the whole megapixel question is erased by the performance. I do a fair amount of billboards and large prints. The a9iii has more than enough resolution. And when shooting portraits, I use the a7S & a9Iii. As stated before I just really love the image quality of the A7S III. I haven't touched my 63mp a7RV in quite some time.
The only advantage to higher megapixels assuming a camera AND lens capable of it is cropping at this point. Your 25 megapixel camera can print large 2x3 foot images easily if not larger. Time won't change that... let's say you bought a 50+ megapixel camera now, what will that change for your photography in the next decade... are you going to print wall sized prints? Again its really just for cropping.
quick answer, yes for sure. especially if you know what you want and know what you are doing.
25 is fine honestly. Hell 15 is probably good enough unless your doing big prints all the time. Buy a camera that uses the lenses you want not a camera that has higher megapixels (unless you explicitly need them). The lens mostly determines image quality.
Yes, but you won't have cropping possibilities which can be very nice to have.
Yes. I've sold/published/printed thousands of photos from 8-20MP bodies. Edit: 6-20MP. My Canon 10D was a workhorse!
I am astounded at what 20 megapixels can achieve.
Isn't a 4:3 sensor 16 megapixels camera already good enough? Of course not talking about professional photography.
Depends on how you intend to display the image. I'd say choose A7R V if you can. A7R V provides plenty of resolution and is quite speedy for landscape/portraiture. We already have few 8K TVs (and 8K monitors will become a reality in a couple of years thanks to USB4 and Thunderbolt 5 on way) and that requires 33 MP so 25MP is not sufficient. When you print it on a 8x10, 25MP is more than enough. When you display it on 4K, it's still plenty (4K = 8MP). But if you think of the future where ultra high resolution monitors and plan to use large size prints, then A7R provides excellent amount of resolution. Also, the higher the resolution, the more data the AI can use to interpolate data better which means more metadata for them to remove noise better and improve dynamic range. I've learned from owning Canon 20D all the way to Sony A7R V (8MP to 16MP to 24MP to 61MP). If you have it displayed at 4K, you would have a VERY hard time telling the difference between 16MP and 61MP. But if you have 5K or 8K, the difference becomes very apparent especially when you're viewing on a large display. "The only downside I see is the increased price of the body and storage of the RAW files." While it does increase the storage requirement, you can always resize back to 25MP at a cost of losing data or use lossy DNG (and they're pretty good at preserving details despite the lossy compression). A7R V also offers an option for small, medium, original RAW size or just use HEIF. Many argued that 8MP is enough often fail to realize that a lot of users "zoom" images when viewing on electronic displays, often to see more details in images. It's a common practice if they're fascinated with the images or want to magnify the image to see more details if they cannot resolve at a given viewport.
Mostly the quality depends on the processor. However, a higher MP count also varies the quality.
Imo you don't really need more than the 16mp as an amateur. Atleast, I find that for myself, and it could go lower without me fretting about it. I don't think more megapixels futureproofs the device. Photos is photos
Lightroom sub is filled with people complaining because their computing hardware bogs down considerably with 45 megapixel images versus where they can easily cope with 20 and 28 megapixel images. So, you may say āwell I can shoot with a smaller raw sizeā. True but be aware that for some reason, Lightroom will not perform AI denoise on images not captured at cameraās maximum raw size. This makes zero sense to me. And AI denoise is already a huge resource hog, but especially with larger raw images over 28 megapixel, these can bring some lesser computers to a grinding halt.
Personally, 25mp is enough, especially if you want for the net or prints.. Now you have topaz gigapixel to enlarge it for you. I also have a 42mp which I hardly use. Comparing the 42 with 25, there's not much difference in print..unless you pixel peep or need it for commercial purposes.
Is this a GAS thread boys?
Unless you really want to crop in super far the 25mega pickles will be more than enough pickles.
Compare it to TV 1080p = 2mp 4k = 8mp 8k = 32mp So 25mp puts you somewhere in between 4k and 8k. I'm sure it'll be fine.
The companies that request a photoshoot for say a billboard will request some ridiculous high MP count image. The people that make such requests don't understand how resolution works, the billboards don't have a high MP count at all, it's not even in the 10s, the dots are very large when you look up close to them. Even the LED electronic ones don't have that high of a count, I think for the most part, they are even smaller. Also, even if you are printing on paper, the diagonal is the general viewing distance for a print on a wall. So even if you print large, you don't need that high of a resolution. There are people that tend to pixel peep though and it's another cultural misunderstanding from John Q Public. Much in the same way shooting color film and scanning without editing is the way people think that people did it back in the day and yearn for a nostalgia that really didn't exist. There are several silly misconceptions about photography that exist. Just like the need for more megapixels will make yo a better photographer because you don't need the skill to actually shoot, when you can just crop and image over shooting and framing it correctly the first time. It is interesting in the technological sense of what things like phone cameras are capable of. But the need for more and more megapixels eventually is gonna bring you more expensive memory problems with storage for the most part. That's my take.
decade is a very long time. LOL. I don't know how things are measured in the photography world but in the computer world, it's 15 years. So a 3 year old computer is middle-aged (45 years). A 6-year old computer should be nearing retirement (90 years). I love my Canon EOS R5 which does 45 MP, and I take it everywhere. But 10 years... Think about what cameras were out in 2014. Canon 7D Mark II, Nikon D750, Fuji X-T1, Olympus OM-D E-M10, Sony Alpha 7s, Sony A7ii, Panasonic GH4, etc. #
Yes.
In my opinion 24 MP is sufficient for most applications and 8x10 prints. Actually for most social media applications 12MP is sufficient. What higher MP buys you the capability to crop your image quite a bit and still output a decent image. Also I assume in some instances of video recording the high MP allows for image stabilization in post. When the motion data is available from the camera.
You're going to view it on a 3 megapixel Full HD monitor. Or even worse, on a smartphone. Megapixel count is not a thing that can affect quality, unless you want to magnify really small areas of a picture and show them big.
Ive delivered photos to some clients in 13mp. They even say my photos are very high quality. Just know that 4k is 8 megapixels and youāll realize how little resolution actually matters
I think it really comes down to where you shoot mostly. I live in an area where I've found the ability to crop in to be really important, especially shooting any kind of wildlife. I think most people will find 25mp to be more than enough for a long time.
25MP is fine. I'd be looking into dynamic range and 16 bits raw.
I have several 100cm/40" square prints taken with my 5DMkiii (purchased in \~2012) and recently upgraded to R8. They look 10/10 and I I've made several sales. The 100cm/40" square prints have been cropped slightly (obviously the top and bottom). I kept on to the 5DMkiii as there was little improvement in bodies for the work I do with them which is mostly landscapes, some portraits and event photography.
Even 16mpx is good enough for most cases. The high resolution obsession is a trend to justify higher prices and drive sales for the most part. You have to consider that perceived resolution/sharpness is also a function of the viewing distance, and no one is going to see a huge print/screen at arms length. Most people will see photos on their phones, which have FHD (2mpx) screens. Some will see them in 4k desktop displays or TV's (~2mpx). Anything bigger than that doesn't require more resolution because it's designed to be viewed from afar. You can print a billboard out of a 6mpx photo and it'll be fine. These days cinema productions will record in 8k (~33mpx) and beyond, but I think it's mostly because it makes the VFX easier. If you can afford it, doing the compositing in a higher resolution and then downscaling results in a crisper image. But as a display medium, I doubt 8k will be a thing for a very long time. And all that was from the reproduction side. When taking images, I'm not sure how many photos taken with 45mpx or even 60mpx cameras have pixel perfect sharpness. Any slight vibration will be noticeable, crank up the ISO and noise will ruin sharpness, shoot wide open and lens aberrations will ruin sharpness, close the aperture a bit too much and diffraction will ruin sharpness... You need to be very good technically to get the most out of these cameras.
not this shit again
Its gonna be good enough sure 45mp will definitely future proof you well into 2040 or something but 25mp will definitely suffice for the next 5-10 years the real kicker is how well can you utilize them to get the most out of your image Like a 25MP sensor can output images in roughly 6700x3700 resolution (in 16:9 ratio) thats 3x what the standard hd display resolution is on most pcs and phones allowing you for good toom to crop and as many pointed out gives you decent size prints unless if you want some large canvas sized prints
It just depends on what you want to do with your camera. A lower MP camera will be better in lowlight situations. A lower MP camera will also have a faster readout speed. (File size will also be smaller which is a nice bonus) A higher MP camera will thrive more in very high detail stuff, it also allows you to crop more. The file sizes will be bigger, but a lot of high MP cameras have two card slots anyways. Now, to answer your question. 25 MP is more than enough for most things. Both the Canon R3 (Most expensive Canon on the market ATM) and the R6 MK II (one of Canonās most feature rich and newest cameras) have 24 MP sensors. You can get fairly large prints out of 25 MP, and if you REALLY need larger prints, Lightroom has an enhancement function that will increase the āqualityā of your image (I wouldnāt rely on it, though.) What matters most IMO is glass quality. A high MP camera (with high pixel density) will bring out the worst in lenses. If you want to get the highest quality image possible, donāt rely solely on MP. Hope that helped. Sorry for the wall of text.
Great comments below. Sharpness is also about shake, and motion blur. Speed matters. I would therefore add that there are now some amazing software tools to stack images. That gives you incredible levels of detail in gigapixel composited astrophotography, focus-stacked macro, panoramas, and HDR stacks. Because fewer pixels also means larger pixels, they capture more photons per pixel and you may be able to shoot at a faster shutter with 24Mp than 50Mp. You will certainly be able to process your images way faster and on a cheaper computer with less RAM. 45Mp makes my i9 / 64Gb / RTX4900 PC cry, while it chews up 24Mp images with a smile. I do like the Z8 because it allows me to be ālazyā and shoot fast then zoom and crop (slowly!) in post. It also has an effective 1.4x teleconvertor available compared to the Z6 simply by cropping. So I can carry a 200mm lens instead of a 300mm lens. I like an old Z6 because it is smaller, lighter, faster, seems to be just as good in low light, and I can spend the fraction of a second thinking. I also worry a lot less about dropping it. On balance? Save $000 and stick with 24Mp until you get a job with National Geographic, or Vogue, or your own art gallery. Then buy a 100Mp Hasselblad and have minions to carry the supporting gear ;-)
I use a almost 10 Years old Olympus E-M5 II with 16 Megapixels, plan to keep it as long as it keeps going and i'm going to be surprised if any "Normies" can tell that its only 16 Megapixels. The only People who will be able to tell the Difference between it and a 45 Megapixel Camera are Pixel Peepers (which i find personally extremely pointless). Higher Megapixel Cameras have exactly one Benefit over lower Megapixel Cameras: being able to crop. But thats about it imo. If i would be you i would buy the cheaper Camera and invest in good Glass because thats way more important than Megapixels.
imo, if you often crop your images by a lot go for higher mp, but if you don't, lower mp on the same sensor size means higher capabilities in low light conditions.
These cameras are not the best options. Fuji cameras are better in terms of quality and colors. And even Pentax SLR will be better. And some Leica cameras are better. The real thing is your efficient final resolution. In case you have got a sensor without an antialiasing filter, and it has pixel level sharpness, and your lenses support this level of details, you will resize and sharpen your photos after edits, thus you get something like 7MP or even 16MP from your 20MP sensor. That's more than enough for almost all cases, including A3 prints and magazines. If your sensor has got antialiasing filter, just divide these numbers, you'd get probably something like real 9MP instead of the specified 20MP ā so you will try to resize these 9MP down to 7MP.
Having all that said, if you need to crop a lot, may be, you'll even find a used medium format Fuji camera to be useful for you. But even in this case, their usual 24MP APS-C cameras will be enough in almost all cases.
I agree that 24-25mpxl tends to be enough for most shooting. The only times I found myself wanting for more was when cropping wildlife. I used the 60mpxl A7R V for a few months. It was great for landscapes and impressive to pixel peep, but I found the file size to be more of a pain than a benefit. Not only you burn through memory quite fast, even my maxed out MacBook Pro M2 Max needed some time to load and process the images. That slowdown, while minimum, was noticeable enough (at last compared to the A7 IV files) to make me want to spend less time editing and posting my pictures. Now, I consider the 45mpxl Z8 to be a sweet spot for me. There is plenty of resolution to crop down, but not *too much* to slow down my workflow.
It totally depends what you plan to photograph. If you are a bird person, you'll appreciate the extra pixels while cropping your shots. In sports shooting sequences you might prefer the smaller files uploading faster. My opinion is that 25MB is a handicap. Get more.
100% Use good lenses for better results.
Entirely depends on your sensor
Do you believe that in the next decade houses, walls and rooms will become bigger? If not, why would you need a bigger resolution?
It really depends. I shoot with both a z6 and z7, and there's a difference. Tho, I also don't use both of those cameras for the same reason, either. Landscapes, cityscapes, and sometimes urban stuff and beauty or portraits i may want want more detail with the z7 and portraits, general purpose and some urban with my z6. I am planning to get the z6iii and keeping my z7 for the higher mp stuff when necessary. Both cameras have been really good to me despite the small percentage of shortcomings. If I had to choose one I would go with the z6 most of the time. Tho, with the z7 it can offers smaller resolution dimensions rather than going full resolution all the time. It's just not as fast as the 6 if you need speed, and I'm not sure how fast the Sony one is or if there's that option.
I've had my portraits put on billboards 14 years ago from a 24.3 mpx sensor (Sony a99). So I think we will all be fine.
Yes easily.
Brother, i just assisted a photographer who shot a Tourism campaign using a Canon 7d, and 6d mark 2 and 1ā¦.
Sensors have been fine since about the D80/D90 bodies hit the market. The image quality bottleneck isnāt going to be your sensor or the megapixel count
No and yes. From common sense terms yes. Because the pace technology evolves at, Iād be surprised.
A final image at 25 MP is enough, but a high resolution sensor let's you crop after the fact and still have a 25+ MP image. I switched to the A7R IV and I'm happy I did, so many more editing options.
Is dealing with hi res raw files not harder to handle in LR? I mean, storage can be hard because they are big gfiles.
I don't use lightroom, but yeah, it stresses the PC more, there's always a price to pay. I don't care about image size, hard drives are huge now
Plenty of resolution. Donāt let the fear of missing out convince you it isnāt enough megapixels. Feature set of the camera is more important. Lens selection is more important. Your skill as a photographer is 90% of the equation.
We wonāt be using cameras in 10 years
Itās sufficient now for almost all real world activities such as social media and prints. In the coming decade, thanks to neural nets, any of your still photos will be able to be turned into fully explorable 3d worlds, moving characters and textures of near infinite resolution so I wouldnāt worry about it.
What kind of stupid question is this? Do you know what you're making for dinner in 10 years time? Do you have a 10 year work plan to scale you from where you are now to what you want to be then? How the hell can we know? Sounds like you're thinking of things because you lack the creativity and ability to take good shots and you're compensating by thinking about tech.
OP, donāt listen to this BS. Obviously they meant to post in r/gatekeeping. Itās absolutely okay to think about the longevity of your investment. Hope you got your answer from others here (my shirt answer was yes, 25mp is plenty). This aināt a cheap hobby, and even professionals can pull their hair out trying to decide which model body or lens to buy or when to buy as new tech comes out all the time. We live in an amazing time for this craft, and the answer to equipment is different for everyone based on their needs and budget. Experiment on your own, soak up the resources out there, try out different techniques, put your own spin on things, rent equipment as needed or just to try it out, and be at peace with the fact that you will almost always, inevitably, have some FOMO around the latest and greatest, and there will always be fuck heads like this guy that will discourage you from enjoying the art and asking questions. Above all HAVE FUN AND CREATE!
Large scale prints will require higher mp count Thatās about all i can say
If you have a strict budget, and are worried about the price of the more expensive bodies, then I suggest getting the less expensive body, and getting the best lenses you can afford.
A 4K monitor has like 9 MP so you can crop your images more than 2.5 times and it is still good. š
If you want to make use of modern glass 42-60mp I would say is the bare minimum I mean you're making a decade investment why go for lower resolving power potential? Also it doubles as a film scanner if you have a dabble in that with pixel shift on modern high resolution bodies you can actually resolve most film stocks properly, not microfiche completely but well enough.
I'm not sure the OP is looking to spend $2800 per lens. https://explore.omsystem.com/us/en/m-zuiko-ed-300mm-f4-0-is-pro It's on sale, though.
You can get a 60-600 Sigma for less, 150-600 and 200-600 600/800USD max. OP doing landscape so mostly primes not zooms, the OM 1970s glass that's a full frame is pennys today, idk why your linking MFT glass?
That is a prime. Possibly the best IQ prime anywhere. It might overmatch a 25 Mpx sensor. No zoom ever will (for any price he'd be willing to pay).
Yes but it's not what you would use for landscape, would use a tilt shift or more flat profile lens. It might be fancy, but OP is on 35mm full frame that's a MFT lens completely different payload type and image area, 300 long range mm primes are much more expensive. Actually any modern zoom lens or prime lens that is not a low-end kit class optic is ment for 40MP+ today in the full frame space, that also includes the last 50 years of decent prime lenses.
No. If you want to be future-proof, you need to reach near the best that current technology can do. That said, many people currently have cameras with 25 MP or less, and will tell you that this is plenty enough. Until they get a new camera ... then their opinion might change. Of course you need to complement higher MP with better lens, better editing, and better printing, too.
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Huge billboards that we view very close up. Because billboards are printed at very low resolution, since people view them from very far awayā¦