Fuji s5 crop size resolution

[elnoralouisa]

Don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I can't find a Fuji

forum, so.....

I bought a Fuji S5 last week after having a Pentax K10D. Truthfully, I am not

sure it was the wisest decision when it comes to money, but I did want to

upgrade my camera, and no where to go when it comes to Pentax.

Anyway, the main reason I wanted to upgrade was for weddings and senior pics.

I did a senior the other day, and several of the pictures I wanted to crop

down to just a headshot. I did this ALL the time with my Pentax, and never

had a problem. I just went to upload them for printing, and one picture is

saying not suitable for printing at 4x6, and the rest of the headshots say not

suitable at 8x10. I knew some people said this camera was really a 6

megapixel, but I never thought something like this would be a problem as

everyone was saying the file sizes were extremely large. I don't know if I

have the camera set wrong (sorry, haven't had time yet to play with everything

on it). Fortunately, I also took my Pentax along that day, and got pictures

with that also.

 

Debbie

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

I've printed full frame shots from my S5 up 16 by 24 inches and they look great, shooting JPEG-Large-fine. I guess it all depends how much you've cropped and what mode you shot in, info you don't provide us with.

[tonybeach]

You shouldn't have any problems getting 8x10 prints from a 6 MP DSLR, even with some cropping. If the printer wants a larger file, resize using bicubic smoother prior to a capture sharpening and then proceed with your normal workflow.

[walterh]

Debbie which software do you use to do the cropping?

You should be able to see the pixel dimensions of your shot. Knowing the number we can give more answers.Without further details like what fraction of the total image your crop is, it is hard to tell you any more.

The same software should tell you the the numbers of pixels like 3000x2000 from your original images. What "people" tell you is not as valid as the actual dimensions of the image you work with.

[elliot1]

Is it possible you shot the images at low resolution rather than 6mp?

[elliot1]

Of course, the amount of cropping you are doing will come into play. Bottom line is if you shoot the same shot with both cameras, you should be able to crop to the same amount and get the same resolution for printing.

 

Do you find the pictures significantly better with the S5?

[vivek iyer]

There are two major differences between the Pentax K10D and the Fuji S5:

 

1. Pixel density

 

2. Shake reduction

 

Both favor the K10D over the S5 when it comes to details.

[elnoralouisa]

I cropped it on PS3. Will have to check sizes tomorrow. Not sure about camera settings as far as 6mp. I am using the camera settings as it came. I basically took it along to try it out. No, can't see much difference at all from the K10D, except I have already experienced the 'green cast' on a few shots, even though with a polarizer it doesn't happen.

Vivek, I know, I know. It was a LONG hard decision to change cameras, but felt Pentax had nowhere to go (I don't know what I will do the day that they introduce a new camera!). I had wanted the Nikon D200, but the camera store, and a problem with ordering online sent me to the Fuji. They said for people photography, it was the best thing around, and I can see from noise tests, etc., that it is better. Now in THAT area, there is absolutely NO comparsion with the K10D. A million times better.

As far as how much cropping, like I said, I normally crop down to a headshot on Pentax, and never a problem. I did take the 6mp into consideration, but all I heard was people complaining that the Fuji files were way too big.

Next week, I should finally have some time to play with it, and the settings.

[harvey_edelstein1]

Dpreview , Practical Photo and many others have said that the oddball sensor of the S5 actually tests out to have the same extinction resolution on test charts as an 8 or 9MP camera. It has 12mp sites but they are not all fully functional nevertheless they and their shape will give you good results. A bunch of wedding pros use the camera instead of the D200. That said if the D300 get decent high iso results and good skin tone the S5 will die out for everything but DR.

[ned1]

Debbie, the Fuji is a wedding photographer's dream once you learn to use it right.

 

First, don't shoot RAW. Shoot jpg.

 

WHAT! Well, give it the right settings and you'll see.

 

Set the output size to Large, that's 12 MP. No, it's not a gimmick. When the camera does the interpolation, it takes into account the relative locations of both image sensors resulting in better resolution than the 6mp you get in RAW. It's not 12, but it's more 9.

 

Set the film mode to STD and the DRange to 400%. What does that mean? It means you get 2 more stops of latitude, like film. Set the tone to std and you get a nice S shaped response curve. No more blown out wedding dresses, and you no longer have to be bang on with the exposure.

 

Set the color to ORIG. Messing with it just makes it harder to get the colors you want later, and the original colors are pretty damned good.

 

Set the WB to Auto. The auto wb on the Fuji is amazing.

 

Try it. You'll like it. I shoot all my weddings raw now and rarely have exposure problems that can't be fixed in lightroom.

 

Don't think about the S5 the same way you would a digital. It's a different beast. Think film and you'll be closer.

[mjt]

hi Debbie ...

 

i have 2 S5 Pro's that i use for weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvah's, portraits, among other genre's. it is a great camera for these types of photographic genre's. i've never had a client question the printed photos. do you know of Lina Jang? she owns 4 S5 Pro's used for her wedding photography (http://www.jangweddingphotography.com).

 

i recently took a couple of shots of my daughter for her 16th birthday and had them enlarged to 24x36 and they looked just fine. one of these was a photo of her and 3 of her girlfriends - i cropped out my daughter's head/shoulders ... from 2-3 foot away, you couldnt tell it came out of an "8 MP" camera.

 

this camera is 6 MP non-interpolated and 12 MP interpolated, but it actually resolves similar to an 8 MP, as Harvey already pointed out.

my suspicion is you need to spend a bit more time with the camera to learn its various settings.

 

once you're in the groove with the S5, you'll find skin tones are truer, the high-ISO-low-noise performance is there if you need it, and the dynamic range is spot-on and unbeatable.

 

i suggest you visit the Fuji SLR forum (and post there) over at dpreview.com: (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1020) you'll get some great hints and suggestions.

 

BTW, as a point of contrast, i also shoot a Nikon D2x and D200 ... i use the S5 Pro over the other two for the events i mentioned previously.

 

regards, michael

[tonybeach]

"...once you're in the groove with the S5, you'll find skin tones are truer"

 

Hmmm, doubt that. In photography, just like in life itself, what is true and what is pleasing are often not the same. Frankly, I completely disregard accuracy in my photography and have no problem getting what I consider pleasing results with my D200 (both of landscapes and of people).

[walterh]

Edward I am puzzled about RAW versus jpg in your post.

 

You recommend jpg and say youself you shoot RAW all the time?

 

Is there a problem of RAW->jpg conversion in PP to get the resolution that in camera RAW->jpg will give you? If so what is YOUR trick to beat that?

[lester_hawksby1]

The S5 is a wonderful thing, but is different from other digital cameras and has a bit of a learning curve. Don't panic - but schedule some serious practice time. Everyone has different setting recommendations and most of them are "right" (in different ways), so you will need to systematically work through the important ones to find out which ones suit you. Don't be daunted, it is entirely worth it and there's no camera I'd rather have.

 

As to your original query: You say "I just went to upload them for printing, and one picture is saying not suitable for printing at 4x6, and the rest of the headshots say not suitable at 8x10". Even if you have the camera in 6-megapixel mode (Jpeg "M") you would have to be cropping quite substantially to really have too few pixels for this. The camera's default settings produce larger files (in pixel terms) than your Pentax though they contain about the same amount of detail. (On the other hand, why crop to headshots? Why not just shoot dedicated headshots as well? The quality will always be better, whatever camera you use)

 

I don't know what you're cropping *from*, but one thing does spring to mind. Have you checked that the "dpi" value in the file info is the same as it used to be from your Pentax? The dpi value is essentially worthless, it *does not mean anything*, but it is just possible that your photo processor is confused and is trying to use it to evaluate printability. I don't know about the Pentax, but on the Fuji you can tell the camera what dpi value to stamp on the file info - try changing it to the same as the Pentax files and see if that helps your print service understand.

 

(My own settings tip: It took me a while to get satisfactory detail. The camera defaults to its highest noise reduction setting, which is too high and causes detail loss. Turn it from "std" to "org" and everything gets sharper, but noise is still admirably low. Also, the 6mp setting looks much better on screen at 100% than the 12mp setting, but in equal-sized minimally-processed prints the 12mp setting does definitely contain more actual detail - providing they are correctly exposed. Under- or over-exposed shots produce very poor 12mp out-of-camera jpegs where they might be acceptable at 6mp)

[vivek iyer]

<i>In photography, just like in life itself, what is true and what is pleasing are often not the same.</i>

<p>

Anthony, Those are wise words not only related to photography! :)

[harvey_edelstein1]

Because Fuji know Velvia intimately their film emulation settings for landscapes and flesh may be as Anthony says very pleasing. I am and old audiophile and lots of people liked the tube sound and the Martin Login electrostatic sound which when put together gave you open three dimensional sound that made the room seem bigger with more depth and more lively. Was it HIFI uncolored, natural, no it was fresh and enveloping. I wish the D3 could be set to Velvia and other emulations. I read yesterday a post from Japan that film cameras are getting more popular. If this is true I would like to know why these users are going to film.

[ned1]

I must have mis-typed. I've completely stopped shooting RAW. I also own a D200 and I would never have dared with that one.

[grphotos]

I just rented an S5 Pro over the weekend. I played with it on Friday and shot a wedding with it on Saturday from 9am-9pm. My plan was to use it as a backup for my Nikon but I ended up shooting all day with it. GREAT PICS! I loved the exposures on almost all the shots. I can't say that for my Nikon. I also used it to shoot three senior portrait sessions on Sunday. Now my delima is should I get the S5 Pro or wait to see how the D300 will work???

 

I didn't play with the settings too much while shooting. I flipped through different ISO's depending on the available light. I set the file format to JPEG HIGH and used my 24-120 VR. I don't think the images weren't as crisp as my Nikon images but maybe it could have been with a different setting. It was the perfect exposures that got my attention.

-greg

[walterh]

Greg interesting report. As for "crisp" images: the lens you used is not one of the best lenses. I suspect that you may be getting differences in ->jpg processing from the camera and not differences in sensor/camera performance. It would be interesting to see what you can report if you use a lens that most of us know to be excellent, like a 50mm AFD f1.8 or f1.4.

 

I presume you had to cover a wide range of contrast shooting a wedding? This would show the best in the S5.

 

To wait or not to wait? We will be wiser once the D300 is out. If you need the camera now this will not help a lot.