How Many Megapixels Do You REALLY Need?
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
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How many megapixels do you need? How much do megapixels matter? In this video, we go through how many megapixels you might need for certain situations, and discuss why megapixels might not actually be as important as you think.
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You also have to take viewing distance into account when considering megapixels. You don't need to print at 300 dpi for a billboard...for example.
Definitely could be an entire video on its own, but yes you’re correct.
My favorite response in any photography or computer gear discussion is "depends on your use case". I use a PhaseOne IQ3-100mpx digital back for fashion photography & fashion portraits. My "use case" is about post-production & editing / retouching. Having a 100mpx medium format image gives my retoucher the absolute most "real estate" to work with. As for my Sony A7R4, that is less of a "use case", and more of a "...I can use it as a backup for my PhaseOne in an emergency".
If you wanna print your pictures bigger than A3+ with reasonable high ppi counts, yes. If not, 24 MP is probably all you need.
100%
If you are shooting something that's relatively still, you can also do panorama stitching.
I'm usually happy with the 20Mp of my micro four thirds camera but took a close look at the 23 faces in a family photo I took last year. They were a little soft. Ran it through Topaz Photo AI on my 27 inch screen iMac and am very happy with the fairly subtle improvements. I'm an amateur and in my 70s now and carrying photo gear on long plane trips matters. I'm also digitizing old negatives so I can catalog and share them with dispersed family. This combination of camera, software and computer suit my needs and budget in general. All I can suggest is, if you are starting out, talk at length with one or more experienced photographer who listens to your needs before making suggestions. Make sure you discuss software and computer requirements as well as camera gear. Start with little and second-hand gear, maybe a generation or two old and take a lot of photos and process them. Print a photo book of a family visit or trip. All the major camera brands make excellent cameras for any amateur. Starting to take photos of good-enough quality now is much more important than agonizing over megapixels; you can't go back in time for such memories.
100% agree!
I have medium format, full frame and M43 systems. I like all of them for different reasons. I find the 20-24mp sensor is a sweet spot for most things but tend to shoot 50mp full frame or medium format for landscapes just for the cropping flexibility and print sizes. My favourite camera to actually use in terms of enjoyment and ergonomics is my Lumix G9 20mp with one of my tiny fast primes. It's a joy to use and even use it for landscape sometimes.
I took your japan ebook with me on my trip to Japan at the start of the year thank you. What a great country for photography!
Give me all the pixels…but not strictly for cropping or prints. Primarily, I want resolution because I want to minimize my glass carry. Hi-res typically lets me leave one, sometimes two, lenses at home, and those lenses tend to be on the bigger side. Give me a sensor that lightens and shrinks my carry, and reduces lens changes…I’ll take that over burst rates in most scenarios.
Absolutely. APSC mode is a dedicated button on all my cameras!
My main camera for photos is the ZVE1 lol. It works well for shots that don't require flash and places that don't cause the light banding. It is great for corporate events and conferences since clients usually want a fast turnover time and 12mp file size really helps with the transfer into lightroom, and the subsequent export out for customers. The inability to use flash really hurts tho :(
12 mp is more than enough for a good print to put on your wall. But it's the sensor and lens that's important. Smartphones sucks when it comes to print.
I just shoot a 4x5 film camera and scan using my Epson 850. I do not scan as large as I can but my files come out to about 30 to 35MB jpeg. I googled that up as I have no idea how many MP a camera would need to do that but I found a chart and it said about 100MP. The file size is larger then I need and mostly I shoot a 4x5 because it's fun, the image quality is amazing and I love the creativity I have with DOF and the camera movements. Anyway I do not want a digital camera outside of my phone as I do not have a useful purpose for one.
To the beginner who is still confused after watching this video, perhaps it is because its creator uses the word "size" to refer to multiple things. Sometimes "size" (and related words) refers to the physical image-sensor size. But on other occasions "size" is used refer to the number of pixels on a sensor, a 10 megapixel sensor being in pixel count "bigger" than a 5 megapixel sensor. He is far from being the only UA-camr employing such sloppy verbiage. Never does he explicitly state that total sensor pixel count, individual pixel size, and total sensor size are three different, though related, things. The word "size" cannot be freely tossed around without stating precisely which of these is being specified.
Something to take into account too is file sizes! Big file sizes are a pain to work with 😭
Also, me going from a 17.9mp camera, to a 51mp camera that I used at 28mp, to a 2005 12mp camera because the 51 one is way too fancy to shoot around the city (and I kinda outgrew the 17.9mp one). "Parkour'
I'm here so early! Love you Pat. I have all three of your japan books 🤩
You’re the best! Thank you for the support!
@Pat, maybe you can zoom in to printing too. The numbers you called seem to be very limited. I have a print on my wall which is 120 cm wide, made with a 24MP FF sensor and it is just fine. Of course you can pixel peep on the print too, but nobody does that.
Or use AI to upscale in lightroom if absolutely needed
Thank you very much
Thanks for watching!
Pat, what are your thoughts on the Canon 90D?
I have taken done great pictures way back in 2006 with my (very out of date) 6mp canon 10d, but i have to admit i love my current 50mp 5ds... but it does not guarantee great images having all that resolution... worry more resolution i find in even more critical over any lots of sharpness from focus or camera shake
At the end of the day a good photo is determined by the photographer, not the gear!
Thank you Pat! great explanation. I'm using an A7 III with a G FE PZ 16-35mm F4 G... for taking some of my own architecture during construction process and some final shots before I hire a professional architecture photographer. The idea is to have great pics during the process and some to post on IG basically. I started shooting in AF because it's been a long time since I used analog cameras, but little by little trying to do some manual shooting. I think this setup is OK for architecture, I'm trying not to shoot over 24mm in order to have more controlled size, quality and format... would you suggest something for my purpose and if I had to have another lens for let's say architecture and more travel or street photo what would that be? Thanks!!
Honestly that setup will get you through 90% of what most people would want to do, so I would actually just suggest to make the most out of what you’ve got!
For street, sometimes people might find 35mm to be difficult, so they opt for a longer length, but if you can get good at 35mm street, you can get good at anything IMHO
@@patkay thank you very much! I’ll make the most out of it! 🙏🏼
I have 24 megapixels in my Nikon Zf and it's more than enough for my use cases. Even if I crop to a 1:1 ratio, because I love the square format for portraits, I still have about 16 megapixels, enough for a 13x13 print. Would it be awesome to have something like a z8 with it's 45.7 megapixels? Yeah, but it's not a necessity.
I've printed 30x40 from a 16mp Fuji XE1 which has a crop sensor nowhere near as good as that of your Zf so you can easily print bigger than 13x13 even with that crop.
You can always AI upscale it anyways. That works pretty well nowadays.
@@patkay Probably. In reality, I rarely print larger than the 8x12. Photography is just my hobby, my creative outlet. More megapixels is just a nice-to-have and not a need, really. I'd agree that the large megapixel count cameras are useful for using the DX mode to get some extra reach. Your video was an excellent explanation of how many pixels one needs for the various uses that 99.99% have.
I came to the conclusion that I would probably need only 10 MP. Everything above that is just for cropping.
TL:DR You have a lot of cameras.
😂😅 I’m in a very fortunate position to have them, yes.
I'll take 61 MP 😁
technically the phone has 48 buuuuuut
buuuuuutttt yeah it’s not really “48” lol
Sorry have to call you out on your explanation of why larger sensors are better..
Sensor & pixel size has nothing to do with ISO, dynamic range or noise.
The Quantum Efficiency of the photo site determines how many photons are converted to an electrical signal.
Full well depth ( among other things) determines the dynamic range.
If the F ratio to sensor size is scaled correctly many small sensors will keep up with the FF equivalent, this is one reason why crop sensor lenses are often 1/2 to one stop faster. granted there are some draw backs due to diffraction in such an optical system but for the most part these things scale linearly.
Noise is another matter, much of this is due to read out noise smaller sensors with a fine pixel pitch can suffer from the density of the electronics creating cross talk and heat that is difficult to deal with at such a small scale. BSI, Stacked Sensors and Global shutters have all come from the smallest sensors as a way of mitigating these issues.
If what you were saying were true, why does the a7r5 have the highest dynamic range of any ( consumer ) FF sensor ?
Another thing worth mentioning with higher MP cameras like the a7r4 or 5 is that at higher ISOs when down sampling ( over sampling / pixel binning ) you will end up with a higher quality output when compared to the larger pixel counterpart a7s. This is due to the finer pixel pitch containing 3.81 times the colour and dynamic range information so when averaged it will be an average of all of those details not just one of the bayer matrix.
Apologies for the rant, just hope one day these persistent myths will die a more than timely death.
Thank you. Is this why the images from my OM-1 (stacked, back-lit sensor) are slightly better quality than the images from my OM-5; even though both are 20mp?
I appreciate the effort but honestly I don’t think I’m competing against what you’re talking about at all 😅. If anything a lot of it is the same.
Also, let’s try to keep it simple, hey? This is a video for beginners, after all. A classroom would roll over with boredom if I started talking about well depth amongst other things 😂. Keeping it focused on beginners!
I tried to read all that. I think he’s saying Megapickles are good.
@@patkay All fair enough, though i do believe there needs to be a better way to describe the differences in sensors. saying a larger sensor lets in more light or has lower noise or a smaller DOF is wildly incorrect. There are pros and cons to each camp, perhaps mentioning the slower read out speeds, the need for high end glass, cards, storage and compute required to make use of the high mp cameras could help.