YOUR FEELINGS ARE HURT: No, I'm not telling you to throw away your 24 megapixel camera. I'm not saying people secretly hate your 16 megapixel 16x20 images. This doesn't mean every classic film or low-megapixel image ever taken is actually garbage. This was a test of whether higher megapixel cameras actually produced visibly higher quality images and whether people would see an improvement in prints of different sizes. I also tested subjectively what point different people considered an image to be "acceptable." OBVIOUSLY a low-megapixel picture with emotion and feeling is better than a boring high-megapixel picture. But they aren't mutually exclusive! You can capture emotional moments with a good camera, and for many people with the budget, it's simply a matter of buying a D850 instead of a D750, or an a7R III instead of an a7 III. This video taught me that the extra megapixels aren't a waste (as many other people in the community have been preaching for decades, without actually testing it). VIEWING DISTANCES: I discuss it in the video and even show one of my low-megapixel billboards. For those who think people always stand WAY back from big prints, go to an art gallery with big prints and just watch how people interact with the images. They walk up to the image from a distance, take in the entire composition, and then (often) lean in to explore the details. They often lean in as close as they can. When they lean in, either the image rewards their exploration by providing the detail they're looking for or the image reveals its technical flaws. When an image is really sharp, the viewer will stay leaned in and explore the image further. They'll lean in to check out other pictures. When the image is low-res, the viewer will quickly lean back, and they'll stop exploring images. My hair was messed up and I thought it looked kinda cool so I just left it. I didn't feel like putting in my contacts. It's not the start of some new makeover for me.
Tony & Chelsea Northrup this is like arguing that people who look at Rembrandt painting from 30cm will get very disappointed and therefore not view the painting from a proper viewing distance. 🤣😂
No, our feelings are not hurt. MP is not everything. Not even DPI is everything. “DPI + viewing distance”is what matters and nobody looks at a big print from a point blank position. I was printing A3 size prints with a d70s, a 6 mp camera. You can produce excellent A2 images with a 16 mp camera, let alone with a 12 mp one, and this is all before you do any interpolating. People were shooting magazine covers with d1H, a 3 mp sensor back in the days.
But can’t we do the same thing now in PhotoShop? Under print image size? When I ask it to print a 24” x 36”, the file size gets very big, and I don’t see the image loss. Plus, I increase the DPI for the print as well. Am I missing something?? I also agree, you can never go wrong with a sharp high MP image!! Don’t get me wrong, I am pre-ordered for the A7RIV.
No one is arguing that more pixels improve IQ and it's preferable. If you are a fine art photographer and being able to go back make amazingly detailed prints is absolutely desirable. Something like Sony and GFX100 is a necessary investment for things like that. But the sob story in the end how ... did you do your dead dog justice if you didn't take an epic picture with 61mpix or more? Like we are cheap bastards for not spending 10000 dollars on gear and we don't love our loved ones. Feelings are not hurt but it sounds like your love for Chelsea is questioned by the sharpness of the rose. I know you don't mean that but that is how it comes across. I wish I had a Porsche GT2 RS on that perfect stretch of road that day but I'm a loser who cannot afford one. Loser.
@Steve G Steve g, what you describe is called interpolation. You add pixels through an algorithm that analyzes the rest of the pixels. There are several methods doing it: Nearest neighbor, Bilinear, Bicubic, Fractal etc. They all have advantages and disadvantages. Interpolation did exist even before main stream digital cameras started selling, because people were scanning film, but the scanning quality did differ due to the hardware used. There were really good plugings like "genuine fractals", even in early 2000s. Today we have 24mp+ sensors, but you can still have a big enough print from a 6mp, 12mp or a 16mp camera. The reason for that is the correlation between perceived quality vs PPI/DPI- View Distance relationship. An example: An A2 size print is 16.50x24.3inches in the US. Usually it is assumed that a print will be viewed at a distance between 1.5 and 2.0 times the diagonal length of the print. But lets pretend that the viewer is very picky and will stand a lot closer that, like Tony assumes. That still means, the viewer will never be closer than a meter (1m is approx 3.3ft), unless the viewers' intention is not seeing the whole photo. The necessary minimum dpi needed at that distance (3.3ft - 1m) to provide a good level of image quality would be around 180dpi. (mostly guessing due to my previous experiences). A 24mp sensor will provide you an image of 250dpi at that size, and that is not only an excellent number to print but also the number most print-houses will print by default in my country, unless you specifically tell them to print 300dpi. A 12mp sensor would provide around 180dpi at that size even without interpolation, and that is still a fair quality at 1 meters, and a lot better when we consider that most of the people will be even further away than that. And we can always do some interpolation in the end with minimal loss, thanks to the advancements in the method, and print bigger sizes or increase our dpi for a smallet print.
I printed a cell phone picture of my wife on the day she had our first daughter. The print is 13 x 19 and it is beautiful. it's grainy and has maybe 1.5 stops of dynamic range but I'm so glad I decided to print the picture. I think with a lot of photography (except for high fashion, wildlife, and architecture) some slight loss in technical picture quality is way less important than the emotion the picture makes you feel. I say take pictures with whatever camera you have currently. Print those pictures and don't be afraid of the picture not being technically perfect. Just don't pixel peep. Get a nice frame and throw it on the wall and enjoy looking at it. It will look great on the wall at proper viewing distance
khabeer salaam if you are a hobbyist, sure shoot with whatever you have, but for pros and enthusiasts, you need those megapixels. I own restaurants and we hire photographers for food shots. Pros who have high megapixel cameras show the quality when we print on menus and posters. Trust me the details make the food look more tastier. We hired an apsc photographer once, it looks nice on a computer screen but when printed on poster size its not that great anymore. So we only hire high mp shooters for our food shots.
@patrick gama You don't even need to be a pro, the fact is without enough megapixels you simply cannot blow up the pic beyond a certain size. Using Tony's dog example, my 2 dogs have passed away now, at the time I only used a Canon 400D which only had a 10 megapixel sensor to shoot all of their pictures because I was then a DSLR beginner and the 400D was the newest beginner model in 2007. I still have many of their pics, but only in 8" x 10". There are a good handful of special pics I wish I could have blown them up even further, but I can't. Bottom line is this, you don't need to be a pro to appreciate resolution and details.
Yes true. If you print your photos you will appreciate high mp cameras. Clients and businesses print their photos. The reason why high mp cameras exist because businesses DEMAND for it. Creative directors and food stylists choose only photographers with high mp (a7r, 5ds or higher) cameras. "Internet photographers" are content with low mp cameras because their photos stay in the web social media. But if you print your photos, higher mp is always better.
@@ggpat4748 I agree that megapixels matter and that for printing, more megapixels is usually better for printing (although at proper viewing distances, most can't tell the difference above 300dpi or so)... My point is more that if my dog died, I would print the picture in whatever size I wanted and I wouldn't get caught up in the pixel peeping. Also if you can only afford to shoot with your cellphone camera, you should print what you have. Printing is too important to say "I will only print if my picture is optically perfect". And capturing a moment is too important to say "I would capture this because I only have 12 megapixels on my phone and I won't be able to print it later"
@@sangotade that means you taking pictures for the "moment", not for "technique". Moments are important for you and/or the person who know the story, but not anyone else. But if you the kind of guy who appreciate the technique & quality, I can safely say that the picture is unusable (or garbage like Tony said).
I was taught in college that it's actually 600 dpi when you can't perceive a difference without getting really really close. 300 dpi was just the print standard as that's the point where aliasing becomes imperceptible to most people, but there's still lots of room for perceivable sharpness.
Actually, I cannot tell the difference between 300 dpi and 200 dpi. ...up close with my reading glasses. I start to notice a difference at around 200dpi.
Wow, I’ve never read the chats on Tony’s videos before. I think this will be the first and last time. What a case study in human insecurity: the guy does an interesting case study on MP and print sizes and a significant portion of the audience is out for blood that he’s somehow poverty-shaming them. Jeez. Thanks for the vid, Tony. And thanks for actually doing your research as usual (unlike the vast majority of your detractors).
Meh, don’t get all bent out of shape. Tony’s case study simply failed peer review. People see and appreciate benefits from higher resolution. Increased image data significantly benefits image post processing and cropping. And even if current printers have limited resolutions, we still see the difference on screen. Plus, look online and you’ll see that Tony was one of the first people to promote the benefits of the increased resolution when upgrading to the A7RIV.
Because I don't agree. Instead of paying more for high megapixel camera, better buy "good enough" camera and go for vacation with your kid to have more memorable moments, worthy to print...
@@piotrstepien1234 Why not have both? Why comprise future proofing for good memories and then regret not having the highest quality prints later on in life? And even if you're not printing, you may want to crop afterwards.
I shot for years with a 21 megapixel 5D and routinely sold prints up to 42" wide. No one ever said they were unacceptable or lacking in any way. When I upgraded to the 5ds at 50 megapixels, the images were visibly much sharper to me, but many people saw no difference. The images are exquisitely detailed at 40" wide. Could more pixels improve the images? I'm sure they could, but only the tiniest bit and only at unrealistic viewing distances. This was my real world experience over a decade of shooting and selling large prints. By cropping your images rather than printing larger, you bias the result due to reduced viewing distances.
I agree. I have printed all sorts of 16"x24" prints from my 8Mp Rebel XT. There is nothing wrong with them. I even got into an argument with the camera store I tried to get to print them because they were refusing to do it saying my camera wasn't good enough. I ended up having them printed at Costco. When I showed the person at the photography store the prints, they apologised. I had these prints plaked and they are currently hanging on my cottage walls. No one has EVER said they didn't look right or "unacceptable" being enlarged to 16"x24". This sounds completely bogus to me. Normal viewing distance of 3 feet you are not going to see the pixels on a 144ppi image (2304x3456). I'm using a 24Mp Canon Rebel T6s now, and I can tell you that 24Mp is the same resolution of Kodak Gold 100 Film. I scanned some at 24Mp on my negative scanner and the grain from the film looks about the same as ISO 800 on the camera. If you scanned it any higher, you would not get any better detail resolve.
Curtis, it sounds like your bias is showing. Can't except the basic facts that higher resolution looks better than low resolution when printed at large sizes. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Just like a big sensor at any set resolution will look better than a small sensor at the same res.
Sorry Tom, but you must not have read my post. I said the 50 megapixel images looked much sharper to me. But 21 megapixels worked fine even at 27 x 40 for everyone else who bought my prints.
Not just prints either, for screen work having the extra pixels means you can do WAY more with the image. 10 second pan across a landscape still - no problem, all the detail is there to entertain the eye.
Tony, I take two things from every video, actually make that three. 1. Is I always leave knowing more than before. 2. My wife thinks I'm crazy, for loving technical videos on photography and for that I thank you. 3. My wife becomes displeased everytime I mention your videos because she knows the bank account is about to be depleted.
Great video Tony, but I do think the testing methodology with not actually blowing up real pictures to size takes away from the outcome a little bit. You do explain what you are testing for, that it is POSSIBLE to take advantage of higher megapixels and such, but I believe certainly that a nice photograph can be printed large and that we shouldn’t pixel peep it. There are many techniques you can use if a photo doesn’t have tons of detail to make it look good printed big. 👍🏼
I'm an elementary school teacher and I bought a used d700 to help my school with sport pictures on a budget. They ended up blowing up some of the pictures I've shot and have them displayed all over the neighborhood. They look great on the light posts at well over 60' prints. Brings me great pride to have pictures I've taken on display in my neighborhood. The fact that the camera is 12mp doesn't bother me, and doesn't bother the viewers either.
Sorry but this is a joke, you do not need 30+ megapixels to make large or gallery size prints. Large megapixel cameras over 24 megapixels are less than 10 years old. Gallery size prints have been made from much smaller files and resolutions for well over 25 years. Look at what Duggal imaging in New York does every day. They have produced large prints for thousands of gallery shows way before the super-megapixel revolution. Apple even had a traveling show many years ago of iPhone images that were all large gallery sized prints that were printed on a Light Jet 5000 on Fuji Crystal Archive paper that were absolutely spectacular. Personally, I produced 72 inch jewelry and watch prints way back in 1996 at Duggal-all shot on a Leaf 6.2 megapixel commercial back fitted to a Fuji GX 680 studio camera. These images were spectacular and hung in very high-end jewelers storefronts for years. So, before you buy this hype, have a high-end professional lab like Duggal, or Reed print any lower megapixel image on a Light Jet 5000, or similar, and you will be stunned at the image size and quality that is possible from lower megapixel originals. What needs to be understood is that pro labs that specialize in large format imaging never print an image at its native resolution-as this guy did-original resolutions are always up-sampled and optimized from the original image size for the desired output size-with a final output printing resolution of at least 200 lpi-basic human perceptible resolution. When I say print "an image" I mean a well balanced raw file saved as a 12, 14 or 16 bit high res tiff or png file-never send a compressed jpg file. Let the experts at the lab apply the specs and sharpening that works for the image and the chosen output device…you will be surprised…
What you forgot to mention is one 96x48 deep matte print from Duggal is close to $500 USD. So native resolution is always better, it’s very expensive to have special processes and expert services applied to any lower resolution file. But you need to be selling large HD prints to need anything approaching 40+ megapixels.
One can always smear the pixels out to make a larger print. One can use fractals to interpolate the increased space. But in the end, your are taking one pixel to smear across the printing surface. So yes, you can. But that is NOT what Tony is talking about. This is about printing with detail retention. Huge difference.
I've never been able to explain to my family why even 60 MP is not enough, this video does that beautifully. Pre-digital I used to shoot on 4x5 and 645 (120) film, and after that everything digital has been disappointing until GFX100S came along. The difference is down to what I hope (one day) to be able to do in a more formal gallery setting. Thanks again Tony!
But viewing distance is always what matters. People will not be looking at a 20x30 print like they would a magazine page. They will be back far enough to take in the whole frame so what resolution is acceptable for what size prints? The problem with this study is that you were only showing them a crop and they viewed it up close. That is not realistically the distance public would view such large prints.
Getting higher resolution pictures pass a certain point is not as simple as having a higher mp camera with a sharp lens. You have to be more stable, achieve perfect focus , avoid diffraction, etc. It leads to constant use of a good tripod, low iso and often focus stacking . My point is : it's a lot of work and less suited to many subjects or situations. It's just not for everyone.
Yeah, this is true, but tech has improved over time. For example, the 5DS-R didn't have sensor stabilization, and Canon's sharpest lenses didn't have optical stabilization, and that meant a lot of my 5DS-R images were GARBAGE. The focusing was pretty inconsistent, too. But cameras like the Z7 and a7R IV are stabilized, and the Sony focusing, especially, is extremely accurate. In the future I expect these things to continue to improve, along with the megapixels of the sensors.
@@TonyAndChelsea if you find that stabilisation and focusing are good enough on the 7R IV to keep up, it is great news as it solves some of my concerns . I guess it would apply more to Fuji's medium format except for diffraction that would be less of a problem on their 50mp models but not at 100mp.
@@nordic5490 yes, stabilisation is a great thing . I enjoy dual is 2 on my M43 Lumix zoom lenses while ibis is enough for my non-stabilisazed primes . My guess is that ibis on a hi-res FF would bring back the speed to roughly what non ibis would be on a 24mp . I recently added a 24mp Nikon D610 and a few old lenses for real cheap and set the auto-iso to set speed 2 stops faster over 1/focal . It does the trick but iso climbs a lot in low light on long focals. If i was not using anything over 100mm or accepting to get a big fast heavy tele, it would be easier to choose the next one...
Not true, I am making panoramas and of sizes 100 - 200mpx and I love to walk to them as they hang on the wall, or just in the PC and look for the details that I have not seen on them yet :) Those are the images you want to have on your wall, a picture that you can take a look at every single day and try to find there something new, and surprise surprise, you really do from time to time :) All the detail and beauty is just there ...
I agree. Every image has a viewing distance. And size isn't always the determining factor. If there is a lot of detail in a huge image, it will beckon people to come closer to see the detail. Big images from a 24mp image are probably fine from a standard viewing distance as people won't come up to see detail that isn't there to see. That is why low res images are on billboards - they automatically have a large viewing distance. Big photos in big houses will have bigger viewing distances. 8x10s handed to someone to pixel peep already have an arms length distance built in. So, not exactly accurate, but good info nonetheless.
I was just about to state this very same fact. This video is informative... but a little misleading, since it basically details the outcome of shooting with the intent of cropping the image. A problem that could, to some extent, be offset by simply using a zoom lens. Maybe this video’s sole purpose was to advertise that photo he is trying to sale 😂
mine too... as us old timers say; back in my day, the picture was there to bring out the stories... but i must say, i don't mind the idea of some big clear prints to tell my stories with...
I agree, but there's never a moment when I don't think it would have been better if the picture had been taken on a Nikon with an excellent lens from that era. It's because that blurry image is all you've got of that moment that it is that much more sentimental.
I printed a 24x36 from my 16mpix micro four thirds loser camera and people loved it. No one cared about the pixels, since there was no comparison test and the content was that mattered. Food for thought
Agreed! I think we as americans get way too caught up in the consumerism aspect, and few have the disposable income to pay CASH for the latest and greatest. With a recession on the horizon, I doubt it's wise to embark on more debt as the meaning/how worthwhile a photo is isn't a 1:1 ratio when it comes to $ spent on camera gear.
Tony: it could be the last picture of your dog youll ever take. Me: goodammit, emptying savings and buying a hasselblad h6d so i csn take pics of my dog.
@@StefanEideloth Auto Focus? Canon EOS Series + EF Lens (i got an EOS 1n), Minolta, Olympus, Contax, Nikon => 35mm film Manual Focus? Canon AE-1 Program, Kiev4, Nikon, => 35mm film KIEV60 = Medium Format = 120mm Zeiss Ikon = Medium Format = 120mm
Back in 2010 I worked as a cruise ship photographer and my colleagues and I were using Nikon D200 for 8x10 inch prints. We were cruising the Mediterranean sea visiting a lot of great places in all sorts of lighting conditions and mainly shooting through average lenses like the 18-105 and 18-135 Nikkor. All our photos got printed out and put up for sale in our photogallery on board the ship. This camera has 10.2 Mpix sensor and is tough as nails. I am explaining this because only in recent years people have started worrying too much about the Mpix count, the AA filter, the lens aberrations in the corners and the sharpness of the images zooming past 100%. What if I told you that low (6 to 16 megapixels) Mpix count is still a good thing for 8x10 inch images, for social media, for looking at on your 4K screen at home. After all, 4K screens are between 8 an 12 Mpix so looking at nice photos from your 14 year old dSLR in 2019 shouldn't really be a problem if you have something to show other than megapixels, right?
Tug at my emotional heart strings Tony. Throw away all your cameras that have less than 60Megpixels. Get the A7rIV because one day your dog will die, and will you want your dog's legacy captured in an 8X10 print? Your dog deserves a 64X80 print on your wall!!!!
Obviously the message wasn't to throw your cameras away... Quite the opposite, the moments we capture are very important and you might not even realize the importance until much later. Many camera buyers are in the lucky position of having the budget to choose between, say, a 24 megapixel camera and a 45 megapixel camera, and I hope this helps them make an educated decision. There's been a lot of misinformation out there; a lot of people say you can't see the additional detail from high megapixel cameras, and this test shows it's definitely not the case.
Thanks for proving what I suspected all along. No way this idea of “more than enough MP” would be real when talking about large prints. And I'm with you. I don't care about small and low quality prints. I want them to be HUGE and with as much detail as possible so people can get closer to see it and than step back to take it all in.
i've crystal clear in my mind the last long hug for my little princess before leave my home and come back to another town away from here for job. And is better than any camera can take :°)
The methodology is a bit flawed though :) If you hold your test persons prints under their nose, and ask them, which is sharper: Then they will get as close as possible (depending on age, the younger the closer), and they will engage in a square-millimeters-peeping exercise. This is not a relevant scenario though. In reality, e.g. in galeries and museums, people settle on a comfortable viewing distance, which is about the diagonal of the image. Since a good human eye resolves up to an arc minute (1/60th of a degree), and if we assume 100% vision (resolving power) in opticians' terms, then the maximum resolution, which the eye resolves at natural=comfortable viewing distances, is: 6 megapixels. Which is largely independent on print size / painting size, because the comfortable viewing distance grows with the image's diagonal. Any much more megapixels are really just for square millimeter peeping. So it may depend on the content on your photos. If they are about composition, content and emotion, no-one would bother doing mm² peeping on them. Of course some other photos do draw their pleasure from micro details, e.g. some focus-stacked macro photos of insects, and stuff like that. But it seems that photo genres which benefit from mm² peeping, tend to be "less valuable", more superficial and often just more nerdy stuff. Whereas famous images from the world's photographic heritage usually don't benefit from mm² peeping. They speak for themselves, rather than through their square millimeters.
It depends. If it is really good, then rendering a lot of microdetails wthin a mm² probably doesn't add much. I tend to resonate more with landscape photographers like Thomas Heaton, who likes simplification, some purity, even minimalism, often calmness, which then often cumulates to grandeur. I think this is the way to go, to get better landscape photos. Not cramming as much busy information as possible within square millimeters. Such pictures are often not that good.
@@chcomes depends on the style of landscape.... I have a dark silhouette style and there is faress detail and more story telling by not seeing the details.
Pro photographers and enthusiast will benefit from high mp. I own restaurants and hire photographers to do food shots. Food looks tastier with all the details captured by high mp cameras when printed on menus and posters. Clients like us who are spoiled with high res images will not hire low mp or apsc photographers. When we got our first high mp photos for our restaurant there is no way we will go back to low megapixel photos.
Seemed like a tutorial on pixel peeping. The 24MP shots that were deemed "garbage" were fine . . . unless you were doing pixel peeping comparisons of edges.
I believe the 24MP that he showed was actually the 60MP one, since the 60MP he showed after, was a little bit blurred (the Darwin writing on the book). Still, the 60MP (or the 24 in the video), was acceptable for me at least..
They would probably be fine if they had nothing to compare it to but if they saw the 60MP and the 240MP for comparison and asked if they could see the difference or prefer which one, they would most likely say it is trash. Furthermore, if you plan to print it larger and don't plan for viewers to walk up and look at all the details then ya, it would probably pass but they are judging it through a 8x10 print in which they will be up close so of course they'd prefer a bit more sharpness. It's like a 1080p screen looks great, but once you've seen 4k, you start to think 1080p looks pretty bad.
Fair point! Logical outcome. But won't printing bigger increase the distance you would naturally take a look at it? I've never seen anybody check out a poster from 4 inches away 😉
@@will9357 "-There's no detail in a poster at 4 inches away" I'm not sure what you mean by that; are you talking about the lo res posters in shopping malls etc? I can see detail fine in a 300dpi print blown up at 100% at that viewing distance. Sure my 24 inch by 16 inch prints from 35mm film scanned at 5200 dpi are relatively small, but the detail IS there. I enjoy getting lost in the fine detail of a complex detailed scene. With your large format (4 by 5 inch?) pics if you get them drum scanned, you should be able to blow them up to 5.8 feet by 7.3 feet with the same resolution of detail!!
I think it's important to appreciate that most large artwork is not designed to be viewed up close with a magnifying glass. I have recently printed 30" x 20" from my old 16 MP Fujifilm X-E2s and it looks great! Good video by the way.
I did something similar recently. I had a 30 x 20 print made for a funeral from a picture I took with my roughly 20 mp Canon. It showed quite a bit of grain close up but since it was viewed mostly at a distance it wasn't very noticeable. I experimented with one of the resolution expanding programs on line. What I found was that the solid areas were greatly improved. However I thought the face part of the image suffered. The AI in this case just wasn't smart enough to do a good job on the face.
I have used gigapixel and it can do some really incredible jobs with faces but not every time. I used on on some historical kinds of photos. also just on people I know at low res for testing and was blown away. Not with auto settings but with a little tweaking.
Ok here are a couple of questions. First what about up sampling and sharpening? As in preserve details 2.0 in Photo Shop. What about Topaz Giga Pixel AI? or OnOne Resize that uses fractal based math rather than pixels? Or more importantly a true RIP for large format printing? Most gallery prints use RIP’s and large format printers. I have personal experience with Photoscript and Nova Jet Pro Printers. I have also seen the results from the Onyx RIP and Fiery RIP with the Roland printers. Most so called Giclee prints are done on large format printers with RIPs. A true Raster Image Processor is almost a must in the true large format world. It does the major upsampling. A desktop printer driver pales in print quality. I own a Canon Pixma Pro 100 and it lacks in comparison to a true large format printer with a RIP. The same file prints much better on a Roland with a proper RIP. Having owned a service bureau and printed hundreds of large format prints, this is a very important consideration in printing. Finally a properly sharp photo is very important. iPhone pixels are blocky and do not upsample well. I bet a Sony A7III could print large well with some of tools or techniques I mentioned.
one inch (1'') is 25.4mm - that's approximately the width of your thumb (I wonder if "rule of thumb" is derived from here :) ). so: 1'' = 2.54cm 5'' = 12.7cm 10'' = 25.4cm 20'' = 50.8cm
Hans has a point. Besides the US only Myanmar and Liberia are still using the imperial system. Tony, the latter 2 are certainly negligible with regard to your RU-vid audience. But what's the share of your US views vs your rest of world viewers? Is the international share large enough to include the metric measurements for your non US audience? Even if it were not, wouldn't it be nice for courtesy reasons?
Oh just to provide the service here: Rough equivalents (sparing the millimeters) 8"x10" would be a 20x25 cm 16"x20" would be 40x50cm 32"x40" would be 80x100 cm (81x101 if precise) 64"x80" would be 160*200 cm (162x203 if precise) Comparing this to the offer by Whitewall, only the first sizes would correspond to what they call standard format and deviate later even then. But traditional sizes here would show a different ratio of lengths 3:2 or 4:3...
I don't see it that way. In my living room hangs a 24x36" picture taken with a 24 mp APS-C camera. The image is sharp even when you get close. Even 32x40" should not be a problem, especially at a normal distance to the image. But of course, if you want to pixel-peep or give another reason for having the best equipment available, you can tell something like this.
True but when you see these large prints, you still get close and really appreciate those tiny details. It's why the likes of Jeff Wall and others work is just so breathtaking to behold.
@@RebeccaOre any way is not the same...normally people are not PP...they are not camera geeks just random persons. If that we're true you'll never print more than 8x10 with a normal 24mp FF camera
7thStoneMedia instagram and most social media platforms compress images down to about 2 mp . You do not need a high megapixel count to look at images on your phone and that is obviously the preferred viewing platform 👍🏻👍🏻.
I'm not disagreeing on this subject but there are other things to consider. I sold 12 MP 30x40 photos that were processed with perfect resize and I and the customer were perfectly happy. Now I shoot a 24MP Sony and when I think that I will need a large print I turn the camera verticle and shoot a partial panorama. This gives a 50MP image with a sub $1000 camera. I do enjoy your presentations/
This is something that's effectively been known for decades in the analogue film world. There's a reason why photographers who displayed large prints in galleries used Medium Format or Large Format film. Even now that people scan their film, a 120 MF film scanned at 5400 dpi gives a 120MP image .. and that means a print of 38inches by 45 inches on 300dpi photo paper with no loss of detail. A 36MP image can only give a 16inch by 24inch print with no loss of detail on 300dpi photo paper (which equates to a scan of 35mm film). 6by17 medium format or large format film, when scanned, can give Gigia Pixel image files... which can be blown up super huge with no loss of detail. I recommend Nick Carver's youtube channel. One thing that is interesting is that the Sony lens can still resolve detail down to 530lpmm (13,500dpi), i.e. when it is in this 240MP pixel shift mode. That's kind of what this blind test is suggesting. I would never have expected a 35mm/FF lens to be capable of that. Unless this pixel shift thing is doing something else ...
I suspect there may be a problem in your study design. You should take the individuals whom you think are "keen eyed" and give them 100 images to look at (say 50 24mp 50 60mp) and see how accurately they can sort out the 100 images.
exactly. When Tony said that about half of people though the 50MP picture was sharper I thought: hey, that's what you expect when people are guessing. When people are doing such a test they WANT to see something. So you have to account for that in the results.
I suspect shenanigans with his color science experiment too. Not to mention people have been making large prints for a lot longer than the Sony a7R4 has existed. Wonder how it is they were able to get acceptable quality from lesser cameras?
@@sexysilversurfer 4K is still not a high resolution compared to printed pictures. So I don't agree that people suddenly expect extremely sharp images because of that. Especially not considering how everybody is happy with low quality smartphone pictures (even printing those pictures) And people are happy with streaming videos over a crappy internet line instead of a far sharper bluray. In general people don't care much about quality in pictures or video at all. It's just that people need a reason to buy the latests newest super high MP camera. But nobody pixels peeps at huge prints. How much MP does that lighthouse shot of Tony have? That was not 250MP. And still people are amazed by it. And I bet they are amazed as soon as they see it, and not only after they have been pixel peeping at it from 10cm. Maybe Tony should have added a question to the comparison. Is this print adequate y/n Would you be willing to pay $3000 extra for equipment to get the other higher res print? sure, if it is completely free, then why would you not want the higher res sensor? But nothing in life is free. And 20 years from now, when he makes a huge print of his dog, he will not admire the individual hairs in the picture. He will look at that picture and it will bring back the good memories and you don't need 250MP for that. I've recently been digitizing old super8 films from my father. The quality is really bad compared to now. But it's not about quality, it is about memories.
Were people viewing the print from normal distances or holding each one at arm's length? I've made 20X30 prints from my X-T2 that look glorious, but i don't view them from arms length.
@@CoffeeD_1 at first, I pixle peep too, but that romance wears off after a few visits to the wall they hang on. My 20x30 prints, I'm usually standing about 5ft away as a minimum.
Interesting video. A lot to think about. I think it is important to consider that an actual print of a large size will be looked at differently from an 8X10 print of a small portion. Large prints are viewed from farther back, so that will impact how it looks. In thinking about the time and history of our images, I was married in 2006, and the photographer who shot our wedding now over 15 years ago used two cameras; a Canon 10D crop-sensor at 6.3 MP, and a 5D at around 12 MP. Those photos still look great in our wedding album, and I got all the image files, and they look great on a screen. They are good enough.
I shoot MFT, oh dear, ha, and i have a few prints at 16×14, no crop, and they look awesome. I do have a 12-40 f2.8 olympus pro lens, on the front end. Also, i would add....don't underestimate the importance of finding a good photo lab, ( if you you are not printing them yourself ) as results do vary.
All true - but you missed out a VERY important factor: Your blind test subjects had prints TO COMPARE to another. You would need to send your test candidates through a house with MANY rooms, where it would take them several minutes to get from one print hanging on a wall to the next one. THEN, let everybody take notes about what print in what room they found acceptable or not. WITHOUT letting them being able to go back and forth to compare. I bet you you would get VERY different results.
There's no reason to design the experiment the way you propose, unless you want to test people's memory. What you're suggesting unnecessarily muddies the results by introducing additional variables.
As someone who does testing of this sort the test is to open to random guesses. Each person would need at least to test each series multiple times. This is a bit of silliness in that the imagery and art based on sharpness is idiotic.
@@mccririck01 Correct. The question is... would they pass? If someone pointed to an image and said "thats the sharpest"... but said that the second time to a different print, you could verify that they really couldn't tell the difference. This was done in wine tastings all the time.
@@naturalismundi4359 Nowhere does he claim that. This video is about technical image quality. I don't need my camera to look after the creative side of photography, that's what I'm here for. I need my camera to get the technical image quality as good as possible. In that regard, higher mpix count is strictly better than lower mpix count, because I can always scale down the high mpix file but not add detail to the lower mpix file in post.
While I understand why you did not make ever-larger prints because of cost, it biased the outcome, since the test photos were always viewed from the same distance, something that wouldn't happen as the print sizes got larger. Yes, if you get up close there will be a difference in the larger prints, but how important is that really? If we simply consider photo prints to be a form of pointillism (which they are) the importance to ultra-hi-res photos is diminished to its proper place and the prints can be enjoyed for images they present at the proper viewing distance for their size.
But....what would the point be apart from wasting ink and paper? How would printing the entire image, then zooming in to inspect that one area he used, be any different than simply cropping and printing only that area for comparison?
Mububban23 because they’re looking at a small corner of a much larger image at a short distance. If the images were placed out at a normal viewing distance the look would be fine. A billboard looks like garbage when you view it from 2 feet away, but from 100 or 200 feet, it looks fine.
Exactly. He just sounds like a (high res) camera sales man the last few minutes. Can we please keep things real? 300 dpi is great if you hold a photo at arms length. An 80 inch wide print is not meant to be looked at from 16 to 20 inches. If you double the viewing distance you can do with half the DPI. So at 40 inches even a 150 DPI print will look just fine. And that's where this test is going wrong. Instead of making actual 30 by 40 inch print you hand people a 8 by 10 inch print of the crop. Automatically they're going to pick it up and treat it like a 8 by 10, holding it at arms length. And guess what?!? They think it looks poor. No shit Sherlock. If you would show them a real 30 by 40 print of the A7 files they would be very OK with it. All this proves is that 200 DPI is the minimum acceptable resolution for 16 to 20 inch viewing distances. I've got quite a few 24 by 36 inch prints in my home. Some of them printed of 20MP files from a MFT camera and they look simply great. I know that is breaking 2 rules in one go. Using way to little pixels for such a big print and using a toy camera system which is completely dead. Sorry Tony for letting you down ;-)
Gijsbert Peijs I understanding your argumentation and partly agree with you. But I have the feeling that you didn’t read or understand Tony‘s pinned comment. I‘d say that it depends on the type of viewer the print is presented to. For me personally I know that I am one of the guys who get really close at the gallery to get in all the details after I have taken in the whole composition. All the details can amaze me for many minutes, while even the best overall picture (by motive, composition, etc.) can only hold me for a few. (Also the technical fascination adds to the general impression.) Do you understand what I mean?
@@akacensored3092 how many people are good enough to show their prints in a gallery? and also people made big prints from the beginning of photograpy, lens were less sharp than nowadays but no one complain, but now a picture to be good enough for a print must have zero noise and incredible details
As a retired commercial printer 300 dots per inch at 150 lines per inch is the standard offset litho output from Adobe Acrobat & Photoshop. Wide format inkjet printer’s have much higher dot per inch output, but often are let down by the software driving them. Different printing algorithms from different RIPs (raster image processor) can make dramatic differences in output. What RIP & printer do you use for your 50” prints?
Tony, it is very interesting point of view for higher resolution cameras; however, I read some articles on the internet which claims that for FF sensors, 61 mp is reached the resolution limit due to diffraction. I personally recalculated it. It seems to be true based on the Airy Dusk effects. I hope that you may look into this. My calculation was based on FF sensors size, for green color light and human size object at 10 meter distance using 50 mm lens. To get dof from 10 meter to infinity, it requires f11 or smaller, but f11 is already has diffraction effect. If you have interest, I may send to you how I calculated.
Of course you will see poor results printing large prints at their native size. But with software and interpolation you can make very detailed amazing looking enlargements with 24 megapixel files and you can make masterful enlargement prints with mind blowing detail at 50-60 megapixels.
Wade Morales yep I made beautiful 20x30 prints with an iPhone 5 camera. And just printed a 30x60 on metal from a d500 that looked amazing. I upsampled it in photoshop to get 300dpi.
This is some nonsense. Interpolation cannot give you any image details beyond the resolution of your camera. It only smoothens the edges, but guess what: That is also done in the printer firmware.
Albert Einstein In the upsize of an image software basically makes up pixels to fill in the gaps of the stretched pixels. So more megapixels means less pixel interpolation. Less made up pixels.
@@terriplays1726 You're right--and it's a matter of the subject. Interpolation works fine for straight lines and broad masses of tone. A picture of an automobile intepolates very nicely; a picture of a leafy tree on a lawn, not so much.
you just nailed it ..... the fact is not many ppl print these days and the maz size one gets is 12"x18" or around this figure .... post cards are most popular followed by 5x7 or 6x4 .... well you rightly put it software and interpolation can help with very detailed amazing looking enlargements
Hi Tony, "the last picture of your dog" struck a chord, and so I went to look at the .. not last picture, but best picture I took of my dog that died a few years ago.. It was taken on a Canon 10D, a 6mp camera. I have a crop of that image sitting on my wall printed at A3+ size.. not sure what that is in inches.. you can look it up... It's not tack sharp, but it works and it brings back the happy memories I had with my dog. I don't think scaring people into getting the "latest and greatest" because it will have the most longevity is really helping your readers - it is of course helping your sponsors and camera manufacturers. I've just sold my Sony 36mp camera and have gone back to using a 12mp DSLR. Not because I don't like inovation, but I've come to realise that for A3+ prints 12mp (uncropped) works for me. And for those days that I really need to print larger..there's a program called AI Gigapixels that will blow up your image. The future may help us continue usng older cameras! Our hardrives will thank us, our memory cards will thank us, and our wallets will thank us. I'm sure that more MP are useful in some situations, but I dont think the majority of your readers will benefit unless they are professional shooters. Keep the videos and reviews coming through, we all enjoy them..
From a technical point of view I cannot agree more, but for me it tends to lose the message that is hidden in a picture. The flower at the wall represents a symbol of love. Would a sharper picture contribute more to this message?
Yes, very good question. I suppose it's possible he zoomed in and shot a six image PANO very quickly before the moon moved... but I doubt you could be quick enough... so this is a superb question. A mystery!
I have not printed out my 12 megapixel files from my vacation to 4x6 yet let alone 16x20😂😂😂. In an era where people are printing fewer Images than ever this I’d say it’s definitely a commercial for megapixels. In the real world 4.000 dollars is a used car 🤔🤔🤔!
It's unclear from the video if before you print are you first resizing them in Photoshop using something like Bicubic Smoother or Preserve Details? It would also be interesting to see you redo this test again using the new LR/PS "Super Resolution" and see if that changes the results.
You are so positive about Sony, pixel shift and high megapixel count So different from when you were so very disregarding of Panasonic and their new S cameras, What happened that you can do such. U-Turn ??
He's obviously testing Sony because he owns Sony gear and because Sony offers the highest res full frame sensor right now. The high res example could just as well have been a D850, Z7, 5DSR, S1R or whatever. The camera brand is irrelevant to the video. The case is simply that the a7r IV has the highest res, plus pixel shift.
Landscope 360 that is not what is bothering me, what is bothering me is that Tony made a video about the Panasonic S r. In this he was dismissing the high megapixel count and saying all the negative things about having high resolution e.g easy to blur, lots of storage space needed. Even more upsetting is how dismissive he has been about high res mode, in the past he has said it’s not that useful be it in Olympus, Pentax, I’m just disappointed in mixed messages
Adams used large format to print his photos that huge. So, if you need prints in same size with good quality, obviously you should go same direction, and take large format camera. At least, it dont have limitations of that "hi-res" modes of digital cameras.
It's not only about sharpness, but color accuracy; You're dealing with false colors with a bayer filtered sensor, so the printer (or the Photoshop print drivers) will have to average between several pixel colors, as well as random color noise, (even from a RAW file). You should include Sigma Foveon in this comparison which has no bayer sensor and three layers of RAW data (.X3F), hence, you can print at lower resolutions comparable to a black and white photo, and still get good apparent "sharpness", because the gradations will be closer together, especially on 6-color or better printer. (This also why professionally scanned negatives and slides look so good when made into prints, they combine three layers of 'True-color', and most scanners, make 3 passes=RGB/CMY) Sigma will be releasing their "60"MP (3x30MP) Full-Frame Foveon based DSLR which I guarantee will render better prints than most cameras on the market, at even native 60MP, because I have been using their cameras for over a decade. Before that, I shot Kodachrome 64 almost exclusively for 35 Years, and Foveon, while it has it's limitations, (just like Kodachrome 64 had) will always be three steps ahead, just like film has been, or CMY separations. But this isn't about 'Sigma', it's about having the proper color components from start to finish, (even most HD television cameras still have 3 Sensors for RGB capture). I have owned Canon, Epson, and HP 6-color 11X19 printers, and have never been happy with enlargements printed from any DSLR I have owned up to 24MP, other than the Sigmas. I don't know why so many people ignore this technology, or poo-poo it waiting for even more megapixels, because all higher pixel counts mean is that you can't see the errors the closer they get until you reach a sensor diode the size of a photon, and then bayer will be dead (no more need to average at the atomic level). Foveon or similar 3 layer sensors are the "future", here today... Of course, the response I always get its that it's a matter of "preference", from people who don't understand things like lens optics and refraction, and the nature of emulsion based images, or sensors, for that matter, or who have not even bother too look into what is being "developed" (no pun intended) and what has come before, like Technicolor®, for example. One might as well say that lens quality is a "preference" and that you prefer a $100 Tamron zoom, over a $5,000 Carl Zeiss, because no one will be able to tell the difference when you print it out... The whole point of digital photography was to create something that would replace film, or look as good or better, and some will say we're way past that mile marker. On the subject of archiving; prints are not nearly as good an archive format as film, for obvious reasons, but perhaps eighty years from now more than a few percent of digital images will exist somehow on optical discs or another more robust format that may outlive analog technology, but no, were not even there yet, because we are still essentially "Beta Testing" millions of models of cameras that are obsolete the next week, as we gain more "megapixels". I'm glad some can make a living or an artistic endeavor with in this fast-paced "image grab" environment, but for me, this is the "Dark" Ages for still photography, despite all the "amazing" images created, but we don't have the time to look at them all anyway, and who knows when if they will be there tomorrow, so I guess you better make the best damned print you know how to make, for posterity sake, because it's all about "turn around", very few photographers are sitting in a gallery somewhere, while people rush into to buy their limited prints, the world at large is just too persistent for that, even the days of waiting for your dose of "National Geographic" to arrive in the mail, when you can see them at a 'glance', on the web-site, meanwhile the camera manufacturers keep everyone well stocked with new and supposedly "better" gear, and oh so slightly better "electronic eyes" to see the world, and capture a "quality", "professional" "photo", even when you're not actually a "professional", (and those 1's and 01s aren't a real photo either), and to what end?
Close-up viewing, which is what we're talking here, is not needed for even fine art. That really big moon print is not going to be viewed at a distance that needs even 150dpi. 75dpi would probably be fine.
key point there, I agree. The crops don't do justice to the way large prints are viewed in real life. One doesn't handle a 32 x 40 print and get close up to it like you would with a 10 x 8...so cropping a section to 10x8 and the looking at it close up is just not a fair test of the way a 32 x 40 print would be viewed. And the size of the print hanging on the wall is not just related to the size of the wall, it is related to the distance available to view the print. A long massive wall in a hallway might accommodatea massive print... but the narrow hallway would not provide sufficient viewing distance to take in the whole scene...one naturally stands back from larger prints...come on T+C, a test result that doesn't try to get people to buy the latest gear would be interesting!
Makes me think about how my 50 inch 4k TV is basically a 8mp image stretched to fit a 50 inch display. TV probably uses internal tech to make viewing better.
There is a small mentioning of an 8MP print of Chelsea, and I think that is the main point to consider: the viewing distance! I print LARGE with a 12MP sensor. The pictures are not intended to be viewed close up. It is the entire scene that is to be taken in. So I don't need more than my old D700 can give me. And all that resolution and detail is lost when you stand in a natural viewing distance from the picture. So a lot of hard disk drives, SD cards and Lightroom catalogues are being filled with MP for no reason in particular.
This is the problem I have looking back on pictures taken in the early 2000's on my 2-4MP P&S cameras. Wish I had stuck with film longer until sensors were more capable. I get people's arguments about viewing distance, but that's missing the point of the video. As with the cardinal, if that detail is there, you have the option to look closer and really appreciate it. Great video Tony! Making me wish there was more budget to upgrade from my aging D600, but it's hard to want to buy into more DSLR gear with mirrorless tech jumping ahead so quickly yet still out of my budget.
If you want to go the extra mile look into software like Topaz's Gigapixel. I've used it for wildlife shots and if your starting picture is good (low noise and perfectly in focus with no motion blur) it can seemingly create detail from nothing. I've had it interpolate accurate feathers/hairs around a hawk's eye that just looked like a flat noise to the naked eye in the original file.
Love the first date rose story. You two are so cute. Thanks for the info on the pixels and print size. I will be considering these things as I consider my switch to Sony
Unless you are cropping your pictures in post processing, you do not need anything more than 24mp really. If you are cropping, depending on how much you crop, you may need more. Dont fall in to the megapixel trap. Also you do not need a 300dpi output for a huge print. Nobody views them at arms length distance.
Tony: Thank you. I always think the same way. But the way you explained about not being able to print the image big and give it to Chelsea, and what you said about your dog literally removed all the hesitation I had about getting a higher resolution camera. Thank you for that. I did my future self a favor today. And no buyer's remorse. I'm grateful.
"One day I want people to be able to look at my pictures from such a close up distance that they can no longer see the composition and still enjoy details" That's just very specific wish, and a fine desire to have, but I wouldn't say it's a requirement for being "future proof". (Unless the people of the future are all pixel-peepers)
Exactly, with a sample size of 10, at least 2 would randomly select the 200MP picture as the best. For control, he should have had folks select from 4 identical photos. I guarantee that would would have seen folks swear that one was better than the other. If he’s going to do sampling, then you have to show statistical relevance.
@@iforgotmyusername0 The point I'm trying to get across is that expecting someone to make a large double blind study for a RU-vid video is ridiculous...
@@weisserth I don't know why you feel the need to straw man his message. He doesn't claim that any particular person needs any particular gear. What he says is that the people he asked were able to distinguish between the prints, technical image quality improving with the resolution of the camera. That's anecdotal, but accurate and better than nothing.
I got my wires crossed, can someone please help me out. Every lab I know which does photographic printing recommends not uploading images higher than 300 ppi as they say their machines can't print higher anyway. Won't they get a heart attack if I send them a 240MP file for a 8x10 print?
I've never had a lab reject high megapixel images, and my home printer does 1200 DPI. Regardless if you scale down the high megapixel image it'll still look way better.
@@TonyAndChelsea Thanks for your reply, just want to mention though that each ink cartridge creates i'ts own printing point, and therefore has to be included in that theoretical calculation of the rasterization. If you only use five colours, which is not much for a high quality printer, there will be only 240dpi left from those 1200.
Great content, @@TonyAndChelsea, but can you please elaborate why the pixelshift photo ends up more crisp in the print than the regular 60MP shot from the A7r4? All the present labs print up to a maximum of 360dpi - and that's already the better ones. If you want to go beyond that you have to take it to specialized fine art studios where they high-res print on Hahnemühle Baryta paper which is needed then to handle all those nuances.
Good day to you Tony and Chelsea... I once flatbed scanned a passport sized photo of my nana in 1941 and enlarged it to a A1 for my mother for her dining room wall and it looked crisp and amazing done at 600 dpi resolution.....i think these are a good opportunity if you need enlargement.... Best greetings to you both from little old england....
So - I'd like to print a couple 200-400MP shots I've got; what's the best place to order such high-res and large prints from? (I'd be interested to hear of options both in the US and Europe as I spend a lot of time in both)
@@steveg2417 I was hoping to hear about some reputable online places! Who still goes to brick and mortar shops these days? :-P A google search reveals White Wall is highly regarded, but I'd love to see some user feedback, and perhaps this is a good idea for Tony for a future video too! There are probably hundreds of places that do high quality 8x10 prints. But I suspect few places can offer a fine art level of quality that you'd send a 400MP file in for, so people can later appreciate it in the way Tony suggest in this video.
back in the days, images from billboards were shot using view cameras in order to retain details when blown up that big. Isn’t that what these high megapixels cameras are meant for nowadays? Most of the time, these high megapixel cameras are meant for commercial, advertisement, and landscape photographers. Every other photographers, no need to get it. It’s not necessary.
Thanks for this great comparison ! I've been looking for just that. Having said that, I think we also need to understand its limitations. Many have mentioned that the small size of the prints affects how they will be viewed - even if a viewer is asked to imagine they were larger, they aren't. Maybe putting the prints on a large whiteboard, marking the rectangle of the full size print, and making some doodle - somewhat connected to items in the print - in the blank space could provide a more realistic experience, without having to spend a fortune on prints. Regardless, I'd consider this a "worst case" viewing situation: there are lot of details, contrast is high, and viewers are encouraged to "zoom in". This means that we can assume any pixel density that passed this test to be safe to use in almost all cases, which can be useful for estimating equipment needs and capabilities for new projects. And I think the type of image is also important: I would expect people to be content with keeping their distance from the print of a painting called "Dream of a Unicorn in the Mist", where everything intentionally is blurry. The other extreme could be an overhead shot of a colorful crowd in a city avenue, with no end of details to discover.
Yes, those Ansel Adams prints are not from 35mm film...but still the other side they are art, not pixels. since we passed the "birth" of photography this week, consider that first photo of Paris, is it tack sharp no, but it is awesome and amazing... And old photos I have of relatives -- the challenge of future proof is you can't because what will exist 10 years from now will be very different -- you will say why do I have all these flat pictures
People normally stand further and further back to look at larger and larger prints, unless they are maps for architectural drawings. Showing someone a reduced pixel 8*10 isn't really true to the context that most large prints are viewed in. Also, in art, resolution is often not the key factor in enjoyment of the image. A friend of mine paints extremely low resolution paintings that people pay good money to own. We get obsessed with the nth degree of resolution when I believe that other factors are far more important. Its good to know what the differences are, so thank you for that, but lets put things into prospective.
Unfortunately the 240 mp mode is not suitable for sea scapes, or trees blowing in the wind etc but yeah, resolution is never enough if you sell for galleries
To be fair if the picture is a shit shot of a studio it doesn't matter cause it looks like crap at any mp count. If it's a good picture with good composition and a strong subject the lack of sharpness and or clarity is a non issue.
This is my first comment on one of your videos, and I'm only just coming to your body of work fairly recently, so I want to start by saying "Thank you!" to Tony and Chelsea for sharing your knowledge in such a clear, unassuming, friendly fashion, and with such integrity. You can be proud of what you've done and are doing! Now to my comment. One factor many don't consider when thinking about how many megapixels are needed for high quality prints is the fact that the printer's software driver is hard-coded to process a maximum number of pixels per inch (ppi). This information is generally not published by the printer manufacturers, but I was told this by an Epson representative a number of years back, and I expect it's still true today. At the time, their top-end printer could only process ~337 ppi in the printer's driver, even though it could print at a maximum resolution of 1200 dots per inch (dpi). According to the Epson rep, the rest of the image's data were literally thrown away. The printer would take that ~337 ppi and then re-insert pixels, or "interpolate," the rest, if a higher print resolution were chosen, up to its maximum dpi. I expect that today's printers are able to process much higher ppi, but I also expect that there's an upper limit upon how much pixel information the printer's software will process. So let's say the printer manufacturers have roughly quadrupled the number of pixels the printer driver is processing, meaning they can accept 1200 ppi of usable information. If you throw an image at it with a higher pixel density, again, it throws away the extra data using an intelligent algorithm in order to maintain the highest possible image quality, and then interpolates the rest of the pixels in order to reach the printer's maximum resolution. Of course there are also the factors of paper and ink used, dot bleed, etc., that affect print quality. Remember that none of this refutes the information presented here by Tony. The higher the quality of the image, and the more pixels presented (to a point) to the printer's driver, the better a job its algorithm can do at producing a high quality, fine detail print. I'd love it if someone with inside knowledge would weigh in to let us know if my information is still accurate. Thanks for reading!
When looked at the picture of our dog that passed away a while ago, the last thing it came to my mind was the fact that it was taken by a low-megapixel camera. But maybe it is just me...
People care a lot less about megapixels and fine detail than people like Tony and other tech geeks think. I get the argument that it can future proof your art to allow for much larger prints, but absolutely no one goes up to a print and critiques the sharpness. And if they do then they're an asshole and don't know how else to judge a photograph besides using technical measurements to gauge what a good photo is.
The point I found interesting was when he was talking about 80" wide and referring to the large images created by Ansel Adams, that was interesting in as much we have been told for years that 5mp easily out performs 35mm film so how many 35mm frames will fit in one of Adams plates, I wonder what size plate would be required to produce those images using Northrups' reasoning???
Geoff Howard I’d like to see a conversation about scanned film negatives. A mid-range scanner can scan 6400 dpi. For a 35mm negative that yields 61 million dots, or up to 21 inches by 32 inches before reaching 300 dpi in prints. Ansel Adams shot those Yosemite pictures with a 4x5 or 8x10 film camera. Scanned at 6400, that makes an image with 3.27 billion dots. Digital cameras can do things that film can’t, especially in low light, but I doubt they’ll ever surpass the larger formats.
While not denying that lack of sensor resolution is the enemy of big prints, there are other factors too. Of course you need high-res glass to go along with your high-res sensor. But noise is a factor too. Surely the bigger the print, the more visible the noise. So a sensor manufacturer can help you out with more pixels but also with better noise response. And faster glass will also help. But the one thing you can do to help with those large prints, and which does not cost money, is to always challenge yourself with exposure time, taking the longest exposure you can without introducing blur.
Paper may well be obsolete by then; technology is, at long last, making paperless a practical proposition, but I think Tony's point still stands regardless of the medium. Assuming an appreciation for still photography remains, we'll simply be viewing on high-resolution displays instead of paper, and so the image capture device will still need a lens and sensor to match.
worstuserever I think still photos will remain relevant a long time from now. Our eyes can't freeze motion or see a scene for such a small moment in time. These still photos reveal a world we can't otherwise see. I suppose you can pull a frame out of a video and call it a still image, but it's not likely to be anywhere equivalent in quality. And why record a video if all you want is a still photo?
Enlightening video Tony! I like that you always have a nice blend of science and human subjectivity. Loved your perspective in your closing statement. Keep it up and enjoy every second with your beloved dog.
I have been printing some big prints for a good few years (36” x 24” up to 60” x 40” recently) originally using national photo printers based in the U.K. I had a established a clear idea in my mind of what a given megapixel camera lens combination could satisfactorily be printed at. So imagine my surprise when I first tried using the latest Fujifilm Ultra HD printing paper under acrylic glass from Whitewall in Germany (I am sure other printers must also offer this service) it destroyed all my preconceived ideas of how big I could print. The bigger I printed the more resolution it seemed I could suck out of the image, the prints now display massively higher resolution than my 27” 5K iMac display can reproduce. So part of the equation of how big can you print from a given megapixel camera lens combination has to be the standard of printer, from domestic home inkjet to professional printers using Ultra HD papers and printing technology.
wlfd I was wondering the same thing. I was also wondering if any visitor to his home has ever said, “Hey, Tony, that photo isn’t very sharp. You need more megapixels.”
It really depends on the size of the prints. Smaller to medium prints most high end phones will be good enough, but as you go bigger you start to see a difference. If you see your images on screen only it is a waste, but I some times print to 48 x 72 and bigger and that is a use that no celular phone will handle not only because of the size of the sensor, the color depth and the possibility of working with true RAW files to do any post production that will make a difference. Phones are great to shoot not being noticed, for reference and recreation, but if you want more than that you will want to test and see it for your self. I agree 100% because I do print big for clients. Two things that where non mentioned: Small and medium prints may need to be printed from larger files because they are usually seen from much closer than large prints are. The other thing is how important is sharpness to your picture and to you? I have seen prints of master photographers where a little loss of sharpens may not be a problem or even add something to a specific print, so don't just go for the sharpness. I remember shooting with plastic and toy cameras on film that were great, pinhole cameras were perfect for some really good photographers, so cut some slack to choose a tool that technically does not meet the highest standards and do your best shot every time working with the tool you have to do each shot.
De-Bayering filters are not on "every sensor ever made". Most broadcast video cameras have (and always had) a 3-chip design. They use a prism to split the light into RGB, then send each of those colors to its own sensor. This is one major reason why broadcast cameras can produce pristine UHD pictures from a small 2/3" sensor. They can use the full, physical resolution of these sensors.
Yeah I talked to people about their choices. Generally they'd look at a focal point in the image, like the camera, and point out that it was clearer or blurry.
