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pixels, pixels, pixels

philstar

Is it really necessary to have your camera at the highest pixel setting, cause to be honest with you i can't see any difference between say 3m and 5m photos that i have taken.

The only difference is picture dimensions and file size.

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Borderfox

Its not necessary

minikin

it makes no sense to shoot at less than full resolution, why didn't you just buy a cheap 3mp camera instead?
There'll come a time when you look back and go "that'd make a nice A4..., if only it were higher resolution"

Shiny

Yep, always take it at the highest quality possible.

In ten years time you might want to use the photo
and wish you had taken it at full size.

Storage is cheap (both Flash and hardrive) so there is really
no excuse to use the lower quality setting.

rahtkennades

As Shiny says, Solid-state memory is dirt cheap these days (relatively), so it doesn't make sense not to shoot at full res all the time. If you're worried about running out of space, just by another CF/SD card.
Basically, why not?

rymus

as we've seen on here before a few times.. sometimes people take photos at low res because they dont understand. They come out with maybe an 800x600 image tops, it looks grand on screen so they forget about it. Flash forward six months and then then want to make a 10x8 out of it. You'll get one, but it'll be crap. Shoot in top res now, anything lower and you might as well have a camera phone.

lalalalinda

Are megapixels really important when buying the camera? Like, how much is enough? I'm thinking of getting an SLR in the 6MP region. Enough?

magicbastarder

should be plenty. the quality difference between 6 and 8 MP is fairly small, really.

philstar

so what you people are basically saying is....the difference will be seen in the print outs, not necessarily the pc screen.....yes??

Fionn

yes a photograph at 72 dpi is grand for the screen - it'll look very sharp and clear and all but if it's going to be printed at, say for instance 600 dpi the result will be disappointing. The greater the resolution the sharper the print image will appear. Not to be confused by the megapixels on the sensor what determines for the most part resolution here is the size of the sensor as opposed to the amount of pixels.
Small low res photographs are perfect for web graphics actually almost essential because of download time/size but for print the higher the res generally speaking the better!!

Zillah

philstar wrote:

so what you people are basically saying is....the difference will be seen in the print outs, not necessarily the pc screen.....yes??

Depends on what you're doing on the screen, but generally, yes.

Borderfox

Last months Professional Photographer did a test between a load of Nikons eg D80, D200, D2Hs and the D2Xs and nobody could tell the difference between any of them pirnted at a3 size. Dont forget the D2Hs is 4mp, I realise its a pro spec but still.

JMcL

philstar wrote:

so what you people are basically saying is....the difference will be seen in the print outs, not necessarily the pc screen.....yes??

Yes but with limitations. The more pixels that get packed into a given area, the smaller and more closely packed the pixels will be. This results in an increase in noise in the image, and this will be more noticable the larger the pring. DSLRs have large image sensors so they're fine generally. Compacts have tiny sensors, and 10mp compacts are a marketing led disaster. If looking at a compact, ignore the marketing and look for something around 6mp (if they still make them!)

However, as others have said, there's nothing to be gained by using anything less than the full resolution of your particular camera, other that saving a bit of hard disk space

minikin

Last months Professional Photographer did a test between a load of Nikons eg D80, D200, D2Hs and the D2Xs and nobody could tell the difference between any of them pirnted at a3 size. Dont forget the D2Hs is 4mp, I realise its a pro spec but still.

That's because nikon are liars, they've been using the same gelatin and lemon curd based sensors in all their models since 1931.

bigeoino

minikin wrote:

That's because nikon are liars, they've been using the same gelatin and lemon curd based sensors in all their models since 1931.

Thanks minikin!!! Needed that.

(although this does not mean I'm joining the Canon Gang!!!)

in relation to the thread - memory is cheap, dial it up to the max. If you don't you'll regret it as soon as you take that one awesome photo!

mishima

"Yep, always take it at the highest quality possible.

In ten years time you might want to use the photo
and wish you had taken it at full size. "

I remember you said that to me a few years ago! I started doing things differently straight after!

philstar

what does the term "noise" mean??

magicbastarder

you know the way if you tune your TV to a random channel, you get noise?
it's that sort of signal, but weak enough to be only visible in very dark areas of photos at low ISO, and more visible in general at high ISO, where a weak signal has been boosted.

jellybean520

The higher the ISO, the greater the noise so conversely, the lower the ISO, the richer the image quality but that's assuming ideal conditions. Lighting and shutter speed are the other two key variables and if conditions are not ideal sometimes one has to up the ISO. On occasion I've had to use ISO 3200 in order to capture certain situations, typically sports/action at dusk or poorly floodlit. The big compromise here is having 'noise' in the shot, basically a grainy image.

Kilree

Not quite off topic since we're talking about quality but does anyone have a view on shooting in RAW plus jpeg as is possible with the 400D. I know you can mess around with exposure etc but is it worth the rather sizable reduction in card capacity (from 400 approx with jpeg to 100 approx with RAW and jpeg.)

Paulw

Once I started trying RAW I've never looked back. I shoot everything RAW now, except if I really really needed speed shooting.

Kilree

BTW those figures I mentioned relate to a 2gb card.

Kilree

Paul I have seen an appreciable difference on one or two RAW shots when compared to a jpeg of the same subject but generally both RAW and jpeg look the same on screen. Is it in the printed picture where the difference is seen having processed the RAW file and then compressed to jpeg?

Duchovny

Well raw is much better then Jpeg and you have way more ways to work in a RAW picture then in a Jpeg, you can control the colors in a better and easier way, raw is good as well if you change things in the picture and you print it after...

mole2k

I would very very rarely shoot anything other than RAW these days, if filling up your card is a problem just get more! They are cheap after all although I quite often find myself comming back with less shots but more keepers these days unless im shooting at an event.

Kilree

Think I'll try both RAW and jpeg (simultaneous) for a while on the 400d

5uspect

You can just shoot in RAW and then batch save them to JPEGs in photoshop afterwards without any modification. Should save a bit of card space at the expense of power hungry processing time on your PC.

philstar

so how do i set my camera to RAW?? (compact digital)

5uspect

Not all cameras support RAW. Mostly newer dSLRs and the odd compact (tho that was a once off at best)

Kilree

Good idea 5uspect. Should save a bit of space and there's not much point in duplicating. I presume that you can batch process all or a selection. New to this RAW idea and photoshop so this is probably a stupid question.

5uspect

Kilree wrote:

Good idea 5uspect. Should save a bit of space and there's not much point in duplicating. I presume that you can batch process all or a selection. New to this RAW idea and photoshop so this is probably a stupid question.

Not a stupid question at all. You could probably set up a script or action but there's an easier way.

In PS go to file>open and open all your RAW files you want to convert (you have to do it thru the PS dialogue not thru windows). The camera RAW window will open and your images will appear as thumbnails along the left side. Click on one and then hit CTRL+A to select all of them. (BTW when you have multiple files selected any image setting you change in the RAW window applies to all the selected files). So then pick your output options like resolution etc if you want and then click the "Save n files" button where n is the number of files you opened. (this was moved from the left to the bottom right in the latest Camera RAW version)

You'll get a save options dialogue where you can specify batch naming stuff like numbering, folders, file types etc. Click Save.

Click "Done" to close the Camera Raw window and off she goes. Takes a bit of time tho.