Thread: Megapixels needed?

Can't stay...bye bye, now...

Originally Posted by urleebird

So, ... what video camera should I buy?

Easy... whichever one appears on the market just after you buy the new one Isn't that the way it always seems? You wish you'd waited?

Honestly, Bill, I don't know... I don't even own a VCam anymore. I finally discarded mine... one of the first RCA Camcorders made. It was a monster and consisted of the camera (which was about the size of the cameras you see today's news crews carrying), and a separate briefcase sized unit containing the electronics and tape being recorded, and still another briefcase sized unit for playing back the tape. It still worked, but wasn't exactly "portable" by todays standards.

Now, if you had asked about a new camera I'd have referred you to dpreview.com. But you'll have to get a recommendation for the VCam from someone who follows them. Sorry...

The Canon PowerShot cameras from my A530 up offer a lot of outstanding features at a really remarkale price. I consider them "best in class" at this point. I did a lot of research into a camera for online images and the Macro, low light performance, automatic options, manual overrides and general function were most impressive for the Canon PowerShot dollar for dollar, in my opinion. User Group reviews on it were good and I was impressed because it performed better than expected and I had some pretty high expectations. It's low light performance for indoor photography is superb and it's FAST. It powers on and is ready very, very quickly.

I'll second that. I just upgraded my ancient nikon koolpix 950 to a canon powershot A530 because I wanted a better camera for my upcoming honeymoon in Italy.

It's not the best camera out there, but it's the best camera for under $200 that I could find and it's better than a lot of more expensive cameras. The pic I took of the shaving mug Scott made for me was with the 530.

-- Gary F.

For those camera junkies who are truly megapixel "obsessed" -- here's a 160-megapixel beauty -- yes, that's not a typo, it's 1 6 0 .

So, if you have something akin to 50 Maestro Levi razors to trade, you could own one of these!

see: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06093007seitzd3.asp


[Note -- JLStorm, you don't want to read this... If you were to get the camera bug and become hooked again on "bigger is better", you'll have to open another wife-advice thread for sure, ]

160, posh! That's nothing.

go checkout the 4 gigapixel (4,000 megapixel) camera. The image gallery really has some spectacular images.

Originally Posted by azjoe

It isn't the megapixels that make a good picture. It's the lens, lighting, focus, etc. Anything over 2mp will work fine for posting here. In fact, large MP cameras make it necessary for you to resize the pictures to convert them to a manageable size file for uploading to the site. Here's a good article on the [Megapixel Myth].

I have to agree with this. The megapixels only give you the maximum available resulution. The rest depends on the lens, focus and exposure. If you can get the maximum resolution out of your camera, the resolution of the photo will be determined by how much you enlarge the picture you took. So, a 1mp camera will give you 1000 pixels in height and the same in width.

If you blow it up to quadruple each dimension, you'll have a 4x4 print with a resolution of 250 dots per inch in each dimension. That's a super quality print, and about the size of what you would display. Even if you went to 6x6" you would have a pretty good print.

The reason photos with a 1 mp camera are unsatisfactory is that the other factors have had their effect. They're usually cheap and made foe snapshots. The more expensive cameras have better lenses, better focus systems and better exposure control. With the pixel counts growing you can get a fine quality 3mp camera at a very low price. That should be excellent if you get a brand that has a reputation for cameras- Minolta, Nikon, Canon, Sony, to mention a few. When you find ones that interest you go to "stevesdigicams.com" and find out about it.

Originally Posted by azjoe

For those camera junkies who are truly megapixel "obsessed" -- here's a 160-megapixel beauty -- yes, that's not a typo, it's 1 6 0 .

So, if you have something akin to 50 Maestro Levi razors to trade, you could own one of these!

see: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06093007seitzd3.asp

That's quite a camera. It's shooting a panoramic, large format: 6x17, and it has film equivalent speeds from 10 to 10,000 ASA. That ought to give some great razor photos. I can't wait until January.

Originally Posted by ToxIk

160, posh! That's nothing.

go checkout the 4 gigapixel (4,000 megapixel) camera. The image gallery really has some spectacular images.

Amazing! The ad says:
"It would take a video wall of 10,000 television screens or 600 prints from a professional digital SLR camera to capture as much information as that contained in a single Gigapxl™ exposure."

If your camera could capture the detail, that kind of resolution would allow you to take a family photo and crop down to a good photo of a freckle.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

Amazing! The ad says:
"It would take a video wall of 10,000 television screens or 600 prints from a professional digital SLR camera to capture as much information as that contained in a single Gigapxl™ exposure."

If your camera could capture the detail, that kind of resolution would allow you to take a family photo and crop down to a good photo of a freckle.

Yeah, they have a picture on the site of angel's window, grand canyon. If you look closely at the full frame picture you can see a few blips on the picture. The really only look like little black dots, barely discernable at all. This camera has such incredibly pixel density, that when zoomed/cropped to 0.05% of the original photo, there is still enough detail to make out each one of the people that these little black blips are, and see the chain link fence.