Thanks a lot for this one. You are absolutely right, matching camera resolution with lens sharpness is essential. There is one important element that you didn't discuss: anti-aliasing filters. most cameras with less than 30MP have an AA filter while most cameras with more than 40MP don't. When I switched from the Canon 5d iv to the Sony a7 iv, using the exact same lens with an adapter, i was very surprised by the difference in sharpness.
Let's throw some numbers at this. Since 24MP is kind of the "sweet spot" and has been for a while now, let's start with that for comparison: 24 MP = 6000 x 4000. 4K video = 3840 x 2160 = 8 MP 1080p video = 1920 x 1080 = 2 MP 4" x 6" print at 300dpi = 1200 x 1800 = a little over 2 MP 8" x 10" print at 300dpi = 2400 x 3000 = about 7 MP Letter (similar to A4) - 8.5" x 11" at 300dpi = 2550 x 3300 = about 8.5 MP Tabloid (similar to A3) - 11"x17" at 300dpi = 3300 x 5100 - shy of 17 MP
@@reeeeedmil You definitely don't have a lot of breathing room with A3 at 300dpi, so you'd definitely need to be careful on composing your shot. But you can drop the print resolution to 240dpi or even 200dpi to give you more breathing room for cropping, but still well more than enough pixel density for a print. Especially for an A3, which is typically going to be viewed from a little bit of a distance, not up close like with a smaller print.
Give me 100 mega pizizzles and I'll take it if I also get enough lossless compression to make in a "small" file. The "sweet spot" is whatever the industry makes it.
A couple years ago I was going to get either the R6 or the R5. I compared raw images from both using the same lenses - portrait and landscape. I realized that just upscaling R6 files with the built in (Adobe Camera Raw) Supersize feature, the R6 files looked better, even when zoomed to 100% on a 5k monitor. I also did the same comparing the R6 to the A7IV. Same. And yeah, the lens and AF accuracy made a bigger difference than the resolution, even without upsampling. I found for example the R6 with the RF 35 1.8 looked sharper than the A7IV with it's equivalent lens (the Canon is a sharper lens) . So I got the R6 II when it came out... 24 MP is fantastic. Alex Barera has a comparison of the R6 and A7IV with nice entry level lenses (35, 50 and 85) and the 20 MP Canon was sharper than the 33 MP Sony at 35 and 85 because the lenses were sharper than the Sony equivalent. The 50 was slightly sharper on the Sony though. With that said, I've printed large wall prints and even had billboards and bus adverts made from my old 8MP and 10MP 1D cameras and they looked amazing. And Chris Hau has a great video comparing the 12MP A7SIII and a 100MP medium format camera. On screens, and even in LARGE poster sizes, photographers he asked were unable to tell which was which. In fact they generally thought the 12MP image was the 100MP image.
Exactly! I’ve had my work on billboards down to 8x10 and a sharp lens and good contrast (not spoken about enough) really can set an image apart far more than your MP count.
I definitely agree with you and also working at a camera store , budget can be a concern for a customer . I always suggest getting the lower resolution sensor and investing in the better lenses .
@DeeRosa I'll go full mirrorless next year. Mostly because size. Fuji and Sony have a big advantage in size and that matters to me. I'll sell all my DSLR bodies and lenses. I hope I won't miss them too much
I think when pairing older lenses with higher resolution sensors you're not just missing out, but making the image worse. I know a lot of people say that's bs, but it my experience I get noticeably worse microcontrast from the higher resolution sensors; which isn't the case when pairing better lenses with those high-res sensors or pairing the older lenses with a lower res sensor
L glass on my Canon 5D classic shooting at iso 1600 resolves so well, the digital noise has a great “film-like grain structure”. Going back and forth if I should upgrade to a 6D to shoot in low light, but I’m enjoying the 5D classic so much I lowkey rather put the money towards more glass 😂
My daily shooter is a Nex 6, so 16mp, paired with the same ZEISS and G/GM lenses I use on my a7c ii and it takes perfectly fine pictures. MP is hype for 99% of people.
I love a bit of softness in my pictures, on film, it really looks good, now if i’m trying to film a friends band recording or something, yeah i want to see every fleck of dust on his guitar
this argument happens all the time but here is the thing; film pictures from the 1940 are high mega pixel. How many pixels you actually need is debatable but you definately need those mega pixels. I would say 35 is the sweet spot but 24 is good enough.
There is no sweet spot for megapixels. If your vision is to shoot a landscape via Gameboy cameras 1mp camera, is that not a sweet spot? If your vision is to document the last known Hercules Beatle. Would a 100mp, 200mp, 400mp PhaseOne be the sweet spot to preserve that rare specimen? The display medium whether analog or digital dictates what megapixels are required.
@@DeeRosa Nope. 😅 For the avg. working professional, I agree there's a sweet spot. It's 20ish mp for stills, 1080p, 2K for movies and 4K for editing movies. For everything else, it's wide open to artistic interpretation and the medium it'll be pushed to. For example, I had a job a few years back to shoot a marathon for a private client. The lady said she only needed 2mp images unedited in jpeg and as many as I could shoot. Set my camera to 2.5mp jpeg and went to work. Must've shot several thousand images (over 10k pics) that day.
@@DeeRosa I would rather have a bad lens than low megapixels, remember that lens have strengths and weaknesses. sharpness, fstop, crop, 28mm, 50mm etc. while mp is dead, if you have low mp you are done, there are no strengths to it. you can always lower the mp to save space but you cant up res. its all down hill.
Yeah one of my favourite cameras was my OG 10MP Nikon D200, and looking back at those images now they still hold up. Especially if you are just posting on social media or shooting for personal enjoyment, any camera from the last like 15 years will be good enough. Though caveated as always, unless you are doing a niche style of photography that requires extremely high MP's, the best AF, burst rates, etc., etc. So per usual, it always comes back to the glass. I now shoot the 26MP Fuji X-S10 which any of their first party lenses can resolve, though the only native lens I have is the 16-80 f4, which isn't their sharpest but as a primarily landscape photographer it's still perfect for me. Otherwise I've got 3 TTArtisan primes (10, 27, 56) which I love and also perform well, and then some vintage glass, a Canon FD 80-200 f4 L and Contax Zeiss 85mm f1.4. I'm also obviously balling on a budget lol One interesting thing though, is because of the higher photosite density of a crop sensor, it's resolution is also much higher than typical full frame sensors, i.e. my 26MP crop sensor is akin to a ~58MP FF sensor. And let's not even talk about Fuji's 40MP! So even though I'm only using a portion of a FF lens, it really needs to be of a high quality to fully resolve a crop sensor, and vintage 35mm film lenses just didn't need to be designed to that standard. So ultimately, it's best to use aps-c lenses designed for those sensors if you're looking for the best possible sharpness, etc. Which for me as a hobbyist and with what I like to shoot, really doesn't matter, I'll always take lens character or functionality over ultimate image quality.
For me as hobby photographer my 24 megapixel from my Sony APS-c are more than enough and meanwhile I have sharp lenses from Sony and Sigma which are sharp enough for the Fuji 40 megapixel cameras, too. The Sigma 56 1.4 is a very sharp lens, nearly too sharp for portraits and my Sony 70-350 G lens is a very sharp tele lens besides my other ones. To get those sharp lenses step for step was a big plus for better quality for me, but there is no need for me to get more megapixel. And it´s a hobby therfore the budget ist not unlimted.
Sharper lenses - DUH. 😁 Glass is the investment now and forever. Then again it is awfully nice to have the extra pixels when my shot of the day needs to be straightened or cropped somewhat hard to be made usable, and I can't seem to shoot straight a high percentage of the time. BTW I have nothing against getting more and more megapixels - the main issue is that it creates a storage problem. Contrary to what I hear sometimes, storage, especially FAST storage, is not that cheap, especially when it needs to be redundant, and you DON'T want the internet holding, sniffing, learning, and profiting from your hard work while you rent their hard drive space. That is by far the biggest reason I don't necessarily want to jump up to 40+ mega pickles. But with the best glass, my 26 mega sizzles has very easily rivaled if not beaten older FF setups etc. in terms of those sweet SHARP SHARP results.
@@DeeRosa easy quick, you giving out pointers about a topic. For me using a phone gives me to taste to do what am doing as much as people say phones starting to compete with cameras. That's a myth.
Neither matter more than the other. What matters is what's in your MIND. If you can't develop vision, equipment from top to bottom is the least of your worries. Megapixels Megapixels matter for a few reasons. What size SCREEN you plan to display your vision on to. What size PRINT you plan to develop. What type of editing you require. You could develop a photoshoot or a movie shot completely on a 1mp Gameboy camera or PS Vita camera if it fits your vision. VISION & story supercedes equipment and technology. For example, there's Stick Death animated movies more interesting and provoking than full budget movies shot on an Arri Alexa. Lens Lens sharpness and softness is nothing more than a stylistic/artistic choice. The only issue with a very sharp lens, vs a softer lens. A softer lens can be both soft and sharp. A sharp lens will struggle to be soft. Both have overlap in post. But it's always easier to add sharpness than removing it. Vision (idea/story). Plan (budget/personnel/location/equipment/storyboard or shots board). Execution (problem solving/time/space).
It's easier to remove sharpness.. blur.. low contrast. Think about dehancer on a sharp lens and cancers, you can't take a 43-82 zoom and a 40D and make it look sharp and clean.
I think of the mega pickles + glass like horsepower + tires. I’d also add in the skill of the driver / photographer but trying to keep this simple. Doesn’t matter how much power you got (mega pickles) if you can’t get traction (lens). Meaning, lower powered cars can beat higher powered cars simply because of traction. But any experienced photographer already knows these things so for the learners it’s simpler IMO …. get the best sensor you can afford, then get the best glass when you can. Then after you spend an absurd amount of time and money, you’ll then start getting shitty glass because you’ll be tired of your images looking TOO good. 🤣🤣🤣
That print you bought from me was taken on a 22mp canon with an L lens so point proven ❤
And I love it and it’s 16x20 glory.
Ugh love these vloggies so much. Very useful info. Also you’re the cutest 💘
Kith?
Thanks a lot for this one. You are absolutely right, matching camera resolution with lens sharpness is essential.
There is one important element that you didn't discuss: anti-aliasing filters. most cameras with less than 30MP have an AA filter while most cameras with more than 40MP don't. When I switched from the Canon 5d iv to the Sony a7 iv, using the exact same lens with an adapter, i was very surprised by the difference in sharpness.
Let's throw some numbers at this. Since 24MP is kind of the "sweet spot" and has been for a while now, let's start with that for comparison: 24 MP = 6000 x 4000.
4K video = 3840 x 2160 = 8 MP
1080p video = 1920 x 1080 = 2 MP
4" x 6" print at 300dpi = 1200 x 1800 = a little over 2 MP
8" x 10" print at 300dpi = 2400 x 3000 = about 7 MP
Letter (similar to A4) - 8.5" x 11" at 300dpi = 2550 x 3300 = about 8.5 MP
Tabloid (similar to A3) - 11"x17" at 300dpi = 3300 x 5100 - shy of 17 MP
Thank you! I've been checking out printing and was worried if my a6100 would handle A3, this helped quite a lot.
@@reeeeedmil You definitely don't have a lot of breathing room with A3 at 300dpi, so you'd definitely need to be careful on composing your shot. But you can drop the print resolution to 240dpi or even 200dpi to give you more breathing room for cropping, but still well more than enough pixel density for a print. Especially for an A3, which is typically going to be viewed from a little bit of a distance, not up close like with a smaller print.
Great comment! 24MP is the Goldilocks zone!
@@reeeeedmila print doesn’t need to be at 300dpi to be decent. 200dpi gives great results around those sizes as well.
Give me 100 mega pizizzles and I'll take it if I also get enough lossless compression to make in a "small" file. The "sweet spot" is whatever the industry makes it.
A couple years ago I was going to get either the R6 or the R5. I compared raw images from both using the same lenses - portrait and landscape. I realized that just upscaling R6 files with the built in (Adobe Camera Raw) Supersize feature, the R6 files looked better, even when zoomed to 100% on a 5k monitor. I also did the same comparing the R6 to the A7IV. Same. And yeah, the lens and AF accuracy made a bigger difference than the resolution, even without upsampling. I found for example the R6 with the RF 35 1.8 looked sharper than the A7IV with it's equivalent lens (the Canon is a sharper lens) . So I got the R6 II when it came out... 24 MP is fantastic.
Alex Barera has a comparison of the R6 and A7IV with nice entry level lenses (35, 50 and 85) and the 20 MP Canon was sharper than the 33 MP Sony at 35 and 85 because the lenses were sharper than the Sony equivalent. The 50 was slightly sharper on the Sony though.
With that said, I've printed large wall prints and even had billboards and bus adverts made from my old 8MP and 10MP 1D cameras and they looked amazing. And Chris Hau has a great video comparing the 12MP A7SIII and a 100MP medium format camera. On screens, and even in LARGE poster sizes, photographers he asked were unable to tell which was which. In fact they generally thought the 12MP image was the 100MP image.
Exactly! I’ve had my work on billboards down to 8x10 and a sharp lens and good contrast (not spoken about enough) really can set an image apart far more than your MP count.
I definitely agree with you and also working at a camera store , budget can be a concern for a customer . I always suggest getting the lower resolution sensor and investing in the better lenses .
This is why you’re our GOAT.
My old DSLRs agree
Sigh… I miss my DSLR /:
@DeeRosa I'll go full mirrorless next year. Mostly because size. Fuji and Sony have a big advantage in size and that matters to me. I'll sell all my DSLR bodies and lenses. I hope I won't miss them too much
Good lenses plus 16-24mp is good enough for me. Although a GFX 50R does interest me. Might pull the trigger in a year.
I think when pairing older lenses with higher resolution sensors you're not just missing out, but making the image worse. I know a lot of people say that's bs, but it my experience I get noticeably worse microcontrast from the higher resolution sensors; which isn't the case when pairing better lenses with those high-res sensors or pairing the older lenses with a lower res sensor
L glass on my Canon 5D classic shooting at iso 1600 resolves so well, the digital noise has a great “film-like grain structure”. Going back and forth if I should upgrade to a 6D to shoot in low light, but I’m enjoying the 5D classic so much I lowkey rather put the money towards more glass 😂
Very helpful! Thank you
My daily shooter is a Nex 6, so 16mp, paired with the same ZEISS and G/GM lenses I use on my a7c ii and it takes perfectly fine pictures. MP is hype for 99% of people.
I love a bit of softness in my pictures, on film, it really looks good, now if i’m trying to film a friends band recording or something, yeah i want to see every fleck of dust on his guitar
I dig a little softness too.
Facts as usual! 🤞🏾
this argument happens all the time but here is the thing; film pictures from the 1940 are high mega pixel. How many pixels you actually need is debatable but you definately need those mega pixels. I would say 35 is the sweet spot but 24 is good enough.
Sure. You need em. But what’s the point if the lens you put in front can’t resolve them pickles.
There is no sweet spot for megapixels. If your vision is to shoot a landscape via Gameboy cameras 1mp camera, is that not a sweet spot? If your vision is to document the last known Hercules Beatle. Would a 100mp, 200mp, 400mp PhaseOne be the sweet spot to preserve that rare specimen?
The display medium whether analog or digital dictates what megapixels are required.
@ no. There are sweet spots. You’re just throwing a hissy fit.
@@DeeRosa Nope. 😅
For the avg. working professional, I agree there's a sweet spot. It's 20ish mp for stills, 1080p, 2K for movies and 4K for editing movies.
For everything else, it's wide open to artistic interpretation and the medium it'll be pushed to.
For example, I had a job a few years back to shoot a marathon for a private client. The lady said she only needed 2mp images unedited in jpeg and as many as I could shoot. Set my camera to 2.5mp jpeg and went to work. Must've shot several thousand images (over 10k pics) that day.
@@DeeRosa I would rather have a bad lens than low megapixels, remember that lens have strengths and weaknesses. sharpness, fstop, crop, 28mm, 50mm etc. while mp is dead, if you have low mp you are done, there are no strengths to it. you can always lower the mp to save space but you cant up res. its all down hill.
Yeah one of my favourite cameras was my OG 10MP Nikon D200, and looking back at those images now they still hold up. Especially if you are just posting on social media or shooting for personal enjoyment, any camera from the last like 15 years will be good enough. Though caveated as always, unless you are doing a niche style of photography that requires extremely high MP's, the best AF, burst rates, etc., etc. So per usual, it always comes back to the glass. I now shoot the 26MP Fuji X-S10 which any of their first party lenses can resolve, though the only native lens I have is the 16-80 f4, which isn't their sharpest but as a primarily landscape photographer it's still perfect for me. Otherwise I've got 3 TTArtisan primes (10, 27, 56) which I love and also perform well, and then some vintage glass, a Canon FD 80-200 f4 L and Contax Zeiss 85mm f1.4. I'm also obviously balling on a budget lol
One interesting thing though, is because of the higher photosite density of a crop sensor, it's resolution is also much higher than typical full frame sensors, i.e. my 26MP crop sensor is akin to a ~58MP FF sensor. And let's not even talk about Fuji's 40MP! So even though I'm only using a portion of a FF lens, it really needs to be of a high quality to fully resolve a crop sensor, and vintage 35mm film lenses just didn't need to be designed to that standard. So ultimately, it's best to use aps-c lenses designed for those sensors if you're looking for the best possible sharpness, etc. Which for me as a hobbyist and with what I like to shoot, really doesn't matter, I'll always take lens character or functionality over ultimate image quality.
For me as hobby photographer my 24 megapixel from my Sony APS-c are more than enough and meanwhile I have sharp lenses from Sony and Sigma which are sharp enough for the Fuji 40 megapixel cameras, too. The Sigma 56 1.4 is a very sharp lens, nearly too sharp for portraits and my Sony 70-350 G lens is a very sharp tele lens besides my other ones. To get those sharp lenses step for step was a big plus for better quality for me, but there is no need for me to get more megapixel. And it´s a hobby therfore the budget ist not unlimted.
.........Date the camera, marry the lens.........😀
are the contax yashica lenses good enough to resolve just the 50mp gfx or also the 100?
I have to make my wedding photos of the bride softer because who wants to see every pore on the face 😊
Not the bride. That’s for sure.
@ only the skin of n the face
I kind of don't like how the XT5 images look compared to the XH1using the same XF lenses on both. I think its the resolution and the megapickles.
Definitely those mega pickles
Sharper lenses - DUH. 😁 Glass is the investment now and forever. Then again it is awfully nice to have the extra pixels when my shot of the day needs to be straightened or cropped somewhat hard to be made usable, and I can't seem to shoot straight a high percentage of the time. BTW I have nothing against getting more and more megapixels - the main issue is that it creates a storage problem. Contrary to what I hear sometimes, storage, especially FAST storage, is not that cheap, especially when it needs to be redundant, and you DON'T want the internet holding, sniffing, learning, and profiting from your hard work while you rent their hard drive space. That is by far the biggest reason I don't necessarily want to jump up to 40+ mega pickles. But with the best glass, my 26 mega sizzles has very easily rivaled if not beaten older FF setups etc. in terms of those sweet SHARP SHARP results.
shot on what camera?
Shot my last two videos on iPhone!
@@DeeRosa damn thats impressive but still wouldnt use a phone.
@@youfollow_ UA-cam isn’t important enough for me to go through shooting raw and editing anymore. So this will do for me.
@@DeeRosa easy quick, you giving out pointers about a topic. For me using a phone gives me to taste to do what am doing as much as people say phones starting to compete with cameras. That's a myth.
The Glass always, not only for IQ but it high quality glass will always hold it's value better than any body after a few years.
Yup. Release value matters.
Neither matter more than the other.
What matters is what's in your MIND.
If you can't develop vision, equipment from top to bottom is the least of your worries.
Megapixels
Megapixels matter for a few reasons. What size SCREEN you plan to display your vision on to. What size PRINT you plan to develop. What type of editing you require. You could develop a photoshoot or a movie shot completely on a 1mp Gameboy camera or PS Vita camera if it fits your vision. VISION & story supercedes equipment and technology.
For example, there's Stick Death animated movies more interesting and provoking than full budget movies shot on an Arri Alexa.
Lens
Lens sharpness and softness is nothing more than a stylistic/artistic choice. The only issue with a very sharp lens, vs a softer lens. A softer lens can be both soft and sharp. A sharp lens will struggle to be soft. Both have overlap in post. But it's always easier to add sharpness than removing it.
Vision (idea/story).
Plan (budget/personnel/location/equipment/storyboard or shots board).
Execution (problem solving/time/space).
@@dct124 Wow. All of this is just… wrong. Tough.
@DeeRosa Really? I'm not disagreeing with anything in your video.
Is your equipment more important than your vision?
It's easier to remove sharpness.. blur.. low contrast. Think about dehancer on a sharp lens and cancers, you can't take a 43-82 zoom and a 40D and make it look sharp and clean.
I think of the mega pickles + glass like horsepower + tires. I’d also add in the skill of the driver / photographer but trying to keep this simple.
Doesn’t matter how much power you got (mega pickles) if you can’t get traction (lens). Meaning, lower powered cars can beat higher powered cars simply because of traction.
But any experienced photographer already knows these things so for the learners it’s simpler IMO …. get the best sensor you can afford, then get the best glass when you can.
Then after you spend an absurd amount of time and money, you’ll then start getting shitty glass because you’ll be tired of your images looking TOO good. 🤣🤣🤣
Lmao yea I’m in my shitty glass era.
See also: People after the 'Leica look' buying an M6 and using cheap lenses and film
Yeah. Those films sensors are so great ya know lol
Cameras can only get so good so manufacturers make it all about MP. It's marketing. Anything over 24 is good enough
Amen.
he said megapickles once lol
You cooked