Wonder about the value of High Resolution

So many cameras are now competing for super-high resolutions. Nikon Z7 boasts 46.89 Megapixels and others even more, jampacking memory cards, fast-filling hard drives, exhausting computer powers, clogging upload and download channels.

 

Seriously, WHEN oh WHEN have you really REALLY needed such high resolutions to print something really big? If you did, how many times have you done this in your life? If hardly ever, why do we burden ourselves with such a superfluous "want"?

 

This thought is bothering me more and more, especially after I had enlarged a tiny 400x600ppi jpg image to be printable on a 8.5-inch page at 300dpi using Topaz's Gigapixel AI.

 

Think 20 megapixels or thereabout should be plenty.

Overshadowed by the $6500 Sony Alpha 1, Fujifilm just announced a $6000, 102MP GFX 100S. That is a lot of pixels.

 

Meanwhile, while I have a $1000 Epson printer, I haven't used it in years, and it clogged up in 2015. I tried but wasn't able to clear the issue. But I have no need to print since then, 6 years ago. It has been at least 8 years since I had to print something.

Meanwhile, while I have a $1000 Epson printer, I haven't used it in years, and it clogged up in 2015. I tried but wasn't able to clear the issue. But I have no need to print since then, 6 years ago. It has been at least 8 years since I had to print something.

I have out-sourced printing to professional services for years. The images from my old Nikon D300 had been good enough even without enlargement. Some recent images from my Nikon Z7 had to be scaled down(!) to print on the 2021 calendar of my former church. I believe that, in general, there is no need for super-high resolutions unless one makes extreme crops - but such need should be few and far between.

I have out-sourced printing to professional services for years. The images from my old Nikon D300 had been good enough even without enlargement. Some recent images from my Nikon Z7 had to be scaled down(!) to print on the 2021 calendar of my former church. I believe that, in general, there is no need for super-high resolutions unless one makes extreme crops - but such need should be few and far between.

I appreciate higher MP for when I want to do a large print (30x20 inches), for when I want reach (e.g., shots of birds with my current maximum 280mm focal length that require cropping), and having more pixels makes editing fine details easier. I do find my 21 MP D500 to be a great all-arounder, excelling at many things; and conversely I find my 36 MP D800 to be a bit lacking in MP and wouldn't mind having 70+ MP which would come close to eliminating color moiré.

Seriously, WHEN oh WHEN have you really REALLY needed such high resolutions to print something really big? If you did, how many times have you done this in your life? If hardly ever, why do we burden ourselves with such a superfluous "want"?

 

High resolution is not just for printing big images. It also allows one to crop and then post or print the cropped image at a "normal" 8 x 10 or 11 x 14. It could come in quite handy if you do not happen to have a $12,000 60mm lens or a $16,000 800mm lens. :)

 

[sorry Tony, I replied before I saw your post; you have covered it.]

Edited January 28, 2021 by bgelfand

I think this is tied to the wish for super-sharp lenses.

I'm often shooting with a shorter lens than I'd like, say a 300mm 2.8 when it would have been nicer to have a 500mm f4.

Or, maybe my Sigma 40mm in a church interior. Someone wants a detail of some column top that's maybe 5% of the sensor area. If they'd said at the time, I'd have made a detail shot, but i didnt. No problem, I'll crop in post. There are still enough pixels not to see them (D850) and the lens is sharp enough not to go all blurry.

It wasn't really possible to sucessfully do this in film, although making big enlargements from a Velvia slide was more than acceptable.

40+MP sensors allow this very simply as long as it's sharp enough.... thus many shooter's (me!) slight obsession with resolution figures for new lenses... and the hunt for flat MTF graphs.:cool:

While I see the value in hi-rez bodies for some specialized purposes, mentioned above, I'm still quite content with less ambitious iterations. I rarely have printing done beyond 30x40 inches on canvas, and for my works, current bodies do the job just fine, as long as I don't have to crop much. Nevertheless, I'd love to try out one of the new beasts...just for fun.

...and not forgetting you can downsample 'in-camera' if you don't want massive files on the card, on this occasion, but you might on others.

 

Upsampling is to be avoided at all costs, and yes, sometimes there's no other option. We've all been there....:(

 

Big original is way better than big fabricated!

 

Nevertheless, I'd love to try out one of the new beasts...just for fun.

Like borrowing a sports car..? You might get to like it....:D

You don't necessarily need high resolution images to print large (any image can be printed at any size, within reason). Large prints are typically viewed from further away than small prints. However, 45 MP does look a bit crispier and more detailed than 20 MP, provided that the ISO is not too high. If you need to crop a bit and still make a print, a high-resolution original means that there is less image quality damage from the cropping (again, assuming low to moderate ISO).

 

It's not necessarily a "need" but people like nice things. :-)

 

I do find it curious that camera resolution is going up while the images are more and more viewed on mobile phone screens which don't require (or display) much resolution.

I do find it curious that camera resolution is going up while the images are more and more viewed on mobile phone screens which don't require (or display) much resolution.

That is the dilemma. As I said, I haven't made any big prints, not even 8.5 x 11, in several years. Maybe I can use a few large landscape prints around the house; that is about it. Coincidentally, Costco, a large chain in the US, has just announced that they'll stop all in-store photo-printing services next month: Costco photo departments to close Feb. 14

 

I have some slight interest in the new Fuji "medium format" 100MP mirrorless body. Cost aside, I am not sure I want to carry another body, a couple more lenses for it, batteries, charger, etc. when I travel. I think either a D850 or Z7 II is more than sufficient, especially for web viewing. ;)

Edited January 28, 2021 by ShunCheung

High resolution is not just for printing big images. It also allows one to crop and then post or print the cropped image at a "normal" 8 x 10 or 11 x 14. It could come in quite handy if you do not happen to have a $12,000 60mm lens or a $16,000 800mm lens. :)

Addressing this and others about the benefit of high res for printing.. Yes..but..

 

Try Topaz Gigapixel AI. You will be blown away by how it enlarges a file to wonderful results. So, what I am saying is that high expensive MP's are really not that critical in everyday life because, first of all, we don't print big files all the time and, in the few occasions that we do, we can always use this software. We don't (should not) extreme-crop as a regular practice either.

 

These large files come with a lot of undesirable side-effects - the need for larger- and faster-everything.

 

I have already prepaid for a Nikon ZII upgrade. Now I am wondering if I should get a Z6II instead...

Edited January 28, 2021 by Mary Doo

I have already prepaid for a Nikon ZII upgrade. Now I am wondering if I should get a Z6II instead...

I was about to ask you the same question...:)

I was about to ask you the same question...:)

I would like to provide a simple decisive logical answer (change the order to Z6II). Hwvr, I can't provide a final answer at this time. Life is not always logical. :(

Edited January 28, 2021 by Mary Doo

Life is not always logical. ;)

Life is NEVER logical...if it is, you're missing something!

 

Sensor resolution is a horses-for-courses issue.

 

I do a lot of Fine Art photography and many clients simply want to keep on zooming IN 'til they see the tiny brush strokes and don't seem to realise that for a 3 x 2m painting, the total file size needs to be in the 100s of MP..... and unless quite heavily JPEG compressed, will be many 100s of MB in file size.

 

That new Fuji looks kinda interesting (but a bit £££!) or maybe the A7RIV on Pixel Shift, a much more wallet friendly option....:cool:

 

Conversely, I photograph horses during 3-Day Eventing and for the action, 20 MP is more than enough. If the client wants a 20 x 30 inch canvas print that's OK too as canvas is a pretty low-res medium. If they (rarely) want a glossy print at that size I may have to tweak it a bit....;)

Edited January 28, 2021 by mike_halliwell

So many cameras are now competing for super-high resolutions. Nikon Z7 boasts 46.89 Megapixels and others even more, jampacking memory cards, fast-filling hard drives, exhausting computer powers, clogging upload and download channels.

 

Seriously, WHEN oh WHEN have you really REALLY needed such high resolutions to print something really big? If you did, how many times have you done this in your life? If hardly ever, why do we burden ourselves with such a superfluous "want"?

 

This thought is bothering me more and more, especially after I had enlarged a tiny 400x600ppi jpg image to be printable on a 8.5-inch page at 300dpi using Topaz's Gigapixel AI.

 

Think 20 megapixels or thereabout should be plenty.

The places where the difference becomes apparent to me is on insect shots or very distant wildlife with very extreme crops. The extra MP of the D810 produces better results. For everything else, the D750 or D 7200, or even the DF at 16MP is just fine. I would not want any more than the D810 as I find even that slows workflow.

insect shots

Indeed, Focus-Stacking 60 or so D850 frames does make the PC groan a bit!

It's all been said above. There are a few applications (like @mike_halliwell's fine art photography) that can leverage more pixels. His point that the useful range of digital cropping is tied to the optical resolution of the lens (or scanner) is - I think - an important one too.

 

IHMO, there are two more drivers for this trend towards 'more pixels'.

The first is that the technical resolution of digital screens is slowly but steadily increasing. My 20 MB camera (with only marginal cropping) is fine or for '4K' screens (for film projection, 4096 × 2160 pixels). 8K resolution (7680 × 4320 pixels) TV's account for a very small % but are expected to go 'mainstream' around 2023. The current 'bleeding edge' is 16K resolution (15360 × 8640 pixels) which at the moment can only be viewed with multiple screens. The increasing 'technical resolution' is unlikely to influence the 'perceptual resolution'for most viewers most of the time. But I'm sure new applications will develop that viewed on hi-res screens. So camera manufacturers want to stay ahead of the curve (even if, at the moment a small % of consumers are at all interested in the curve).

 

A second reason is that in tech, new developments and added/improved 'features' are continually necessary to re-assure both consumers and shareholders that a company is still developing and releasing 'cutting edge' products and (heaven forbid!) is not "falling behind" the competition. Some of these 'features' are in fact not so useful or relevant for most consumers. But many consumers (unfortunately) still want to buy 'the most technologically advanced products available today". Often assuming that these will be the most 'future-proof'.

 

For my own humble voluntary work, publishing in a local newspaper and on-line,I start out with 20 MB (5472 x 3648) raw photos and I deliver roughly 1MB (1500 x 1000) for a print publication at 300 dpi. So I personally have no desire for more pixels!

Think 20 megapixels or thereabout should be plenty.

Why did you buy one then - and not the Z6?

EDIT: I see the question already came up. For myself the answer is simple (with the additional caveat that video plays no role in my decision): better have it and not need it than not having it and needing it. Probably better to replace “need” with “want”. I do like the crispness of the D810 images as compared to the lack thereof in the D700 ones. The only 24 MP bodies I owned where Sony A7/A7II - replaced now with a Sony A7R3.

has been at least 8 years since I had to print something.

Same here - likely even longer.

believe that, in general, there is no need for super-high resolutions unless one makes extreme crops - but such need should be few and far between.

A very large percentage of my bird images taken with the D500 are cropped to some extent. If I was to use an FX body instead, only the high-MP D850 would do; I’d never be happy with a D5 or D6. And a 800/5.6 simply isn’t in the cards for me.

Sony’s A1 now finally provides a camera that doesn’t force a choice between high-speed and high resolution - the first do-it-all camera (video included)

So, what I am saying is that high expensive MP's are really not that critical in everyday life because, first of all, we don't print big files all the time and, in the few occasions that we do, we can always use this software.

When I go somewhere to gather shots I don't want to play around with using a longer focal length and bringing home multiple files to be stitched when I envision making a larger print, and I want the ability to decide after the fact how large I want to print. Ironically, having a higher MP camera with me has made gathering photographs much easier (same is true of having more DR in my current cameras than what I had before).

 

As for software solutions, I'm not interested in creating false detail and I don't like it when viewing a photograph closely reveals its flaws.

 

These large files come with a lot of undesirable side-effects - the need for larger- and faster-everything.

It costs less today to store and process my D800 files than it cost to do the same with my D300 files when I bought it. I'm pretty sure the same is true if I doubled the D800 file sizes.

 

I mentioned my D500 versus my D800, and when push comes to shove I will take the D500 over the D800 in part because going from 21 MP to 36 MP isn't as much of a jump as it looks like on paper, thus why I would ultimately want twice as many megapixels as I get from my D800. OTOH, I remember shooting with my D200 and D300 cameras and always wishing I had more megapixels, and going to 24 MP felt liberating whereas 16 MP was just an incremental advantage.

My camera is the Df with only 16MP and that is enough for all the prints I want to make but... I can't crop. Also if I have an 8K monitor in the future there aren't enough pixels to fill the screen.

A very large percentage of my bird images taken with the D500 are cropped to some extent. If I was to use an FX body instead, only the high-MP D850 would do; I’d never be happy with a D5 or D6. And a 800/5.6 simply isn’t in the cards for me.

Sony’s A1 now finally provides a camera that doesn’t force a choice between high-speed and high resolution - the first do-it-all camera (video included)

I too photograph a lot of birds, but in these days frequently my subjects are bald eagles and pelicans. Those are large birds so that I tend to use an FX body with the 500mm PF. When the subjects are smaller or farther away, I tend to use the D500 instead.

 

Below is a fairly typical situation. That is the entire frame and I'd crop it as outlined. For birds in flight, I leave some room for the moving target as it is otherwise difficult to keep it in the frame. It is very different from shooting landscape and other still subjects. To me, 20MP is sufficient. Instead, I prefer a high frame rate so that I can choose the action I prefer. The end result is that I have had my D850 for two years, and currently it has fewer than 10K actuations.

 

I am not interested in 800mm lenses. Obviously cost ($16K for the 800/5.6 AF-S VR) is an issue, but I think it has too much magnification and is difficult to handle.

 

That is the entire frame and I'd crop it as outlined.

I’d be doing the same crop - just in camera by using the D500:D. While still having the full 21MP in the image:p. Sometimes, the 500PF on the D500 can be too much reach; using my D810 isn’t really an option though as the camera is just too slow.

think it has too much magnification and is difficult to handle.

The only reason I brought up the 800mm is that the 500PF on a DX body gives the FOV of 750mm on FX - so I would need that lens to do with a D5 what I am now doing with a D500/500PF combo. Nevermind that the 800mm lens wouldn’t be handholdable or as easy to carry.

Since the frame size is fixed at either DX or FX, the number of pixels controls the pixel size. There's a tradeoff of noise and dynamic range when pixels get smaller. Figuring out what's optimum is way above my pay grade, but marketing is trying to sell more-more-more pixels, when you can't often take advantage of them. Lenses are only so good, stabilization doesn't 100% compensate for camera shake and light levels are rarely optimum. Even if we have infinite storage space and lightening fast computers, there will be some number of pixels you probably don't want to exceed.

If you have it, you can use it. If you do not, you can't.

You do not have to use a high MP camera all of the time.

You do not have to use a high MP camera all of the time

You can also use a high MP camera at pretty much any res you want to....at any time...;)

Edited January 28, 2021 by mike_halliwell