More shots in the Megapixel Wars

[scott_ferris]

<p>Zack,</p>

<p>I assumed you had just overlooked something you understood, I didn't realise you don't understand the concept.</p>

<p><em>"Were it light, maybe"</em></p>

<p>Well for a start, it is light, it is reflected light from the print. But if something becomes half as wide and half as high it is one quarter the size it was, that is the case for you individual pixel.</p>

<p>But if your viewers are happy to not get close to your prints all power to you, I have never put a print out anywhere at any size where within an hour somebody hasn't stuck their nose on it. How do you propose to keep people ten feet away? I'd love to know.</p>

[zack_zoll]

<blockquote>

<p ><a name="00ZHDQ"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=657840">Scott Ferris</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Sep 02, 2011; 09:59 p.m.</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Zack,<br>

I assumed you had just overlooked something you understood, I didn't realise you don't understand the concept.</p>

</blockquote>

 

<p>Wow, Scott. Seeing as your post was worded in such a way as to agree with my point, even if it did correct my math, and since I made NO effort to argue with you whatsoever, I have no idea where this negativity is coming from. Seriously, if you want to get all upset and flame somebody, you're going to have to find someone else, as this will be my only post on the matter.</p>

<p>The inverse square law is usually applied to 'light' in the sense of how much reaches the subject, aka how bright it is. A focused light source that projects a beam the same size 5 and ten feet away will expose brighter at the closer distance, despite having the same size spead. Printed matter may <em>reflect</em> light, but since it is not a light <em>source</em> it will also take into account the user's vision, how it's lit, the texture of the paper on which it is printed, and all manner of other things that I frankly don't have any authority on or the desire to argue. I suspect that you have one of those things, although phrases such as "I would gamble", "I don't have a chart to quote," and "would (visually) appear" should not have given you the impression that I was presenting myself as a mathematical expert.</p>

<p>If you don't have anything nice to say ...</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>But if your viewers are happy to not get close to your prints all power to you, I have never put a print out anywhere at any size where within an hour somebody hasn't stuck their nose on it. How do you propose to keep people ten feet away? I'd love to know.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's a very simple concept, Scott. If you have a compelling image, people will decide that they love it or hate it before they get close. No one that appreciates art is going to like an image, get close enough to see grain or pixels, and then change their mind. Pixel-peepers do that. As far as keeping people away, here is a short list of places where an image can be where people are unlikely to get close to it:<br>

Above a fireplace<br>

Behind a desk<br>

More than six feet up on a wall<br>

Billboards<br>

Above a bed<br>

Most in-store advertisements<br>

At the top of a stairway leading down</p>

<p>Lastly, I'd like to remind you that if you get very close to a Georges Seurat painting, the image actually GOES AWAY! And yet, we still study him in art history classes. How weird is that?!</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Zack,</p>

<p>I apologise if you feel insulted/hurt or any other negative feeling from my comments, it was not my intent. I thought I remembered you posting some interesting comments in the lighting forum so was genuinely surprised.</p>

<p>I know the photography's most common use of the inverse square law, but that doesn't stop it applying here. Remember, the flash is just reflected light off the subject, in a print you are just viewing ambient light reflected off the print, it follows the same law. Neither the subject nor the print are light sources, they are both reflecting subjects.</p>

<p>I didn't say people could find something compelling but then be disappointed on closer inspection. But I have been very disappointed in some work on closer looks, are you suggesting if an idea is compelling but the execution or workmanship sucks the acceptable route for acceptance is to make people stand further back! My experience has been when people do like an image they get closer and closer, then back off, then get closer again, they take in the detail and nuances, even in a print with no detail, they take in the complete picture and the negative space around it, but nothing I have ever seen has stopped them getting closer than traditional viewing distance figures would suggest were optimum.</p>

<p>The fact that, Georges Seurat's images dissolve as you get closer is irrelevant, I have seen images you can only see on interference patterns on phone screens, yes you have to view the art through a phone. I have seen big paintings of regular subjects painstakingly made from tiny wooden block stamps that contain sign language, if you don't go right up to them you can't even see the 1/4" stamp marks they are comprised of, let alone read the messages contained within them. I've seen faces carved into mountains that make no sense unless you are half a mile away, but that still doesn't stop people climbing up to practically touch them. How weird is that?</p>

<p>Take care, I really meant the apology, Scott.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>Scott's square law is in fact correct - think about the conical angles. For a pixel to have the same conical angle when seen at twice the distance it needs to be twice the radius and thus four times the area.<br>

By the way this article on the human eye and the camera is quite interesting<br>

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/eye-camera.shtml</p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>In light of your response Scott, I believe I owe you an apology as well.</p>

<p>I was not suggesting that distance is an appropriate way to increase quality. Some images just plain look better and have more impact big; I was suggesting that since the typical viewing distance of a large print is several feet back, and the typical viewing distance of a small print is only a foot or two, an artist that feels that they have a genuinely strong image should not be at all concerned with a loss of resolution in larger print sizes unless it is really awful. From an impact standpoint the impression has already been made before the viewer can get up close, and from a sales standpoint there are plenty of places in your average home where a potential buyer could hang the image without guests noticing any pixellation. For this reason, I've seen plenty of 'digitally flawed' images sell for well over a thousand dollars.</p>

<p>Also for this reason I didn't upgrade by D70 until it finally crapped the bed this year. I always shoot at 200 ISO and almost never print larger than 12x18, so what was I going to gain? A little broader tonal range isn't even terribly useful, since I'm controlling contrast with lights anway. But now I've got the bug, so ...</p>

<p>As to the lighting, I've pretty much stopped caring about techie stuff, really. I finally have a setup that (mostly) does what I need it to do, and I've pretty much just blanked out everything that doesn't directly apply to me. There's so much that I need to know, that I can't be bothered to learn anything that doesn't directly affect my work. I think that mentality started about the same time that I learned that most of Robert Mapplethope's images were printed from Polaroid negatives. I figured that if one of the best photographers in the history of the medium wasn't concerned with anything technical beyond 'how do I make this image happen?' then I didn't need to worry about anything else either. I'll leave that up to the engineers.</p>

[yog_sothoth]

<blockquote>

<p>>> I honestly don't care much about more megapixels.<br>

Just enough to begin a discussion of more megapixels.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Oh, cool, you can take half of one sentence out of context and criticize the snippet. Good for you. </p>

<p> </p>

[abbas_haider]

Most of the people thing that higher MP results better IQ and here where they get disappointed with their dslr. I am shooting nikon,

canon, sigma and I have good result in all of them. Most of us will end up storing his shots in hard desk or 4x6 print to extent A4size.

All of this you can do with 5 Mp camera.

 

It s good to invest on lens & lighting rather changing bodies.

 

There are some tech. You can increase the MP with existing camera, and that's why HB40 was changed from 40MP to 120 by taking

3 shots with sensor shift

 

Most of the camera will take random photo sites on the sensor and you can stack multiple shots for higher MP

 

Finally even I am canon fun but I like shooting with my SD14 faveon sensor the results are awesome and I don't know why canon and

nikon are not going for it

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em> I didn't upgrade by D70 until it finally crapped the bed this year. I always shoot at 200 ISO and almost never print larger than 12x18, so what was I going to gain? </em></p>

<p>Higher MP shows significantly better detail even in 8x12 inch size ... which increases even more when you go to larger print sizes. If you're not seeing e.g. 12MP (even in DX) as clearly crispier than 6MP in an A4 size print then you've got a technique problem, a lens issue, a vision problem, or a problem in the process chain of making the print. It should be immediately obvious when looking at the print if the subject is of a detailed nature.</p>

<p>At A3 and A2 sizes, prints made from 40-60 megapixel scans of 6x7 black and white film blow your mind (again when properly made). The print medium is capable of showing stunning detail and it does make a difference in the impression on the viewer, if the subject is of such nature that detail matters.</p>

<p>There are those who settle for "good enough" by the lowest critic, and others who seek to push what is technically possible. Since the push for technical perfection rarely interferes with your creativity (if you're using a tripod then this is already the case; you've already slowed down sufficiently so that you can go all the way) then you should go as far as you can because someone somewhere will always do that and have at least as compelling a subject as you do, some time in the history of man, now, in the past, or in the future. I don't see what the point of a creative endeavor is, if the goal is merely "good enough" instead of what is the very best that is humanly possible. </p>

<p>Then there are subjects where movement is in the picture and sharpness is not part of the equation. Those are not the subjects of high resolution cameras. But to say that there is no picture which substantially benefits from high MP is just ridiculous. </p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>On an inkjet print - which is what my digital files generally are - the size of the ink droplets themselves is a limiting factor. Again, I am not claiming to be an expert in the matter - but I think that we can all agree that at a certain size, ink droplets will become the same size or larger than pixels. At whatever that size is, anything beyond that resolution is unneccessary. I'm not arguing that the detail is not there; just as a 4x5 contact printed negative has more detail than a negative enlarged to 4x5. I'm just saying that having detail there is not the same as making it visible to the viewer.</p>

<p>But again, I refer you to Robert Mapplethorpe, who created stunning prints from a 25 ISO Polaroid negative that was, by all accounts, lower resolution, accutance, and dynamic range than a regular 25 ISO negative. Or Cartier-Bresson, whose camera and negative technology would both test extremely poorly on a modern test chart. There are the Ansel Adams' of the world of course, but there are other approaches as well.</p>

<p>It is a different approach, and not a linear scale of good and bad.</p>

[billangel]

<p>I used to shoot Kodachrome with a Canon F1N equipped with a FD 100mm f2.8 lens. A 35mm Kodachrome transparency contains an equivalent of approximately 20 <a title="Megapixel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megapixel">megapixels</a> of data. I was perfectly happy with the sharpness of the images, even when they were projected to large size on a wall or screen. The Canon EOS 5D Mark II has a 21.1MP Full Frame CMOS digital sensor. So I would seem that digital cameras have reached the level of performance (in terms of sharpness and resolution ) needed for most photographic situations. The additional performance enhancements that photographers are paying for in digital cameras come in the area of autofocus, image stabilization, and the shooting rate (in frames per second) that is useful for sporting events. If Leica can produce both digital and film cameras that utilize their line of lenses, I think that Canon could have continued to support their FD line of lenses with a compatible digital body. Some photographers, like myself, actually LIKE to focus their lenses manually!</p>

[DickArnold]

OK. I am just a dumb shit ex-wedding photographer. How would all this have an effect on me were I still doing weddings and photogpraphing for a newspaper and running my own studio. Several very successful wedding photographers are still using the 5D1 and 12.7 MP. They have happy customers who don't give a rats about whether their pictures are 12 or 24 or 47MP. There is a law of diminishing returns in R&D where I worked that roughly says that when you reach extremities in development they become increasingly more costly and provide much smaller actual gain that when technology was leaping forward and when there was a lot of gain to be achieved. Now to got Back to being again a dumb ex wedding photographer who was doing business where I think most professionals do today do theirs; I wonder what they all get out of more megapixels. If I do a wedding and have to process 48 MP raw images to get a thousand wedding prints out I will have to get a computer with with 50 gigs of ram. Do I think I would do that. Probably not. Like Zack says I would have to upgrade my printer to something that has really tiny droplets. Now let me put a marketing hat on. The market IMO for all these changes that produce somtimes unseeable benefits to the unwashed seems to get narrower and narrower particularly if the next 5D is 5000 bucks or better. Then I think if it got as good as some of say it will be there go my years of investment in L lenses. If I were marketing I would be far more concerned about Apple and Android taking my low end business by improving photo capabilities in multi-use technologies than I would by producing huge incremental advances in the number of megapixels. I still think the price point for a large measure of DSLR customers is around the D60-7d-5DII range. I don't have Canon's sales numbers but I bet that's where the bulk of professional sales are and the consumer cameras are in the new Rebel area. Someone tell me , where Canon and Nikon and others will attract enough customers to move forward with large incremental advances in MPs.

After all I am just a dumb shit ex wedding photographer who doesn't really belong in this discussion. In my humble and flawed opinion I agree that dynamic range is much more important than MPs. I think that having humped literally tons of heavy eqipment around for about twenty years that better quality for lower weight and bulk as Apple has done with iPads may be the next frontier. I also believe that even with Lightroom and CS5 I think learning processing is a great hobby for me but far to complex compared to the big airplanes I used to fly. I think, in the long run, it would be nice to download pictures and have them processed with a Lightroom with an effective application of Articial Intelligence to spit out wedding pictures that look good to brides without my playing with them. Ah, but I am dreaming.

[scott_ferris]

<p>Zack,</p>

<p>No, the size of an inkjet droplet does not limit resolution on a good sized print. A 7D pixel is 4.3 microns, an inkjet droplet is around 100 microns, seems obviously limiting doesn't it? But wait we have to revert to maths and the way inkjets make millions of colours from ten or less colours.</p>

<p>If you make a 12"x18", or 30cmx45cm for ease of calculations, print from a 7D you have to divide 450,000 by 5,184. This gives you 87 microns. Again common sense would suggest the bigger ink droplet is going to limit your resolution. But one droplet is not all it takes to make a print representation of your image, even a test target. Ink is laid down in layers, one drop on top of and overlapping others, some drops are full drops, some are not, it is called dithering, this makes it possible to accurately represent small things with ostensibly bigger things. And that is with a comparatively small print. Go much bigger, use a camera with less pixels, crop etc and it becomes even easier for the printer. Besides, printers don't actually understand pixels as you would think, they don't print one pixel, then another then another, they turn the pixel map of your image into a series of colour sets that it then lays down, that is one reason why printers are so good at working around image pixel per inch calculations, it will continue smoothing the edges of colours and details to give you a sharp and accurate rasterized interpretation of your pixel based image file.</p>

<p>I took some big liberties with the methodology to make it a concise explanation.</p>

<p>Dick,</p>

<p>Specifically for you, for weddings it would enable you to crop the shit out of an image (to use your vernacular), say you have a penchant for the legendary 35 f1.4, you stand back to take some environmental portraits of the bride and groom, but as you look through the viewfinder, she touches his hair, it is the quintessential moment of the wedding, all the love and dedication the couple share is in that moment, but it is completely lost because you don't have an 85 or 100 to get in tight. Fear not, your new high mega pixel camera can crop into that moment, you are a genius, the tight portrait image cropped from the wide angle one wins you a wedding photographer of the year award, you can triple your prices, you need to take on two more assistants a studio manager and a secretary.</p>

<p>Seen like that, why would you not want the extra MP? I can't think how many times I have wished I had a different lens to my eye, so I use a zoom, I have the zoom on and I can't tell you how many times I've wished I had a prime on. Very high MP will enable me to not buy a lens or two, I carry less, I feel better and I can work longer, I make even more money, the benefits just get bigger and bigger.</p>

[keith_anderson7]

<p>They make a lot of money stringing the consumer along by putting out something [barely] incrementally better every year or two. Milk it baby, milk it!</p>

<p> </p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Keith,</p>

<p>Only if you choose to play the game and buy into it every year. It is your choice on what features you want to buy and which you feel will help you. I am using three year old and seven year old DSLR's, they work for me.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>The real problem is the rate of development - my 7D is as good as my 1DIIN (better in some areas e.g. resolution, menu system, live view and worse in others e.g. build, multi spot metering, possibly AF, viewfinder blind) but was 1/3 of the price 3.5 years later!</p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>I'm sorry Scott, but it sounds very much like in arguing with myself and Dick in the same post, you've practically rebutted yourself. You already made it very clear that more megapixels make a better image, so why would you want to crop in and reduce image quality? How can Dick possibly win wedding photographer of the year if he crops in and produces an image that is so obviously worse?</p>

<p>It also sounds like you've rebutted yourself in your description of printer technology. Are you suggesting that even though an ink droplet is larger than a pixel at 12x18 (in your description) it doesn't matter because there are multiple droplets? I hate to play Dr. Phil here, but old-fashioned learning would suggest that those additional droplets will <em>also </em>be larger than the pixels that they represent. And half-droplets? Come on man, you're making that up. Do you know what the vernacular for a half of a droplet is? A smaller droplet. If the smallest amount if ink that a printer can lay down in a single drop is 100 microns, then the smallest amount of ink that a printer can lay down in a single drop is 100 microns. If a half a droplet is a real thing, then that means that the smallest amount of ink it can lay down is 50 microns. Not 100 divided by two.</p>

<p>Plus at the end of it, you tell me that the printer doesn't even see pixels as such, provided there are enough to create sharp edges and smooth transitions.</p>

<p>I'm not saying that you don't know your stuff mind you. But I am saying that if you wish to inform someone, you should word your post in a way that makes it about teaching them, and not showing what you know. Because if you go the latter route, there are always going to be devil's advocates like me calling you out on it.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Zack,</p>

<p>The my ability to covey complex issues in short paragraphs is the problem. I didn't say, re Dick's comments, more MP makes a better image per se, what I said is there are occasions, despite Dick's reluctance, where even he could use those extra pixels to dramatic effect, even if he prints to a size where all the native pixels can't normally be rendered.</p>

<p>For wedding photographer of the year he can electronically submit a comparatively tiny file, he can't make as good a 20"x30" print from his crop as he can from the entire image, but as you so correctly pointed out earlier, most times we might not need all we have. That doesn't mean always though, if it did the market for any camera above a 5D MkII would stop tomorrow.</p>

<p>For the printer stuff, well you either believe it or don't, it is up to you, do your research, read up, it might not be important for your imaging now but who knows what affects it might have on your career in the future. I don't claim to be a teacher, though many of the people who have worked with me would say I do a pretty good job of helping them learn a lot, but as I say, my ability to paraphrase very complex processes that I understand myself but struggle to convey adequately in a few short paragraphs is my downfall. </p>

<p>But do believe I am not interested in writing this stuff to boost my ego, I do it in the true belief that I can help people. I live in a very isolated location and whilst my motives are not 100% altruistic (I find answering questions forces me to better understand and explain the things I do know and sitting at a computer for two weeks processing 45 GB of images is boring!) I have never curried favour, linked to my own website or solicited critiques etc.</p>

<p>Call me out, play devils advocate, I have on many occasions, but keep learning.</p>

[keith_anderson7]

<p>I think the only time I cared about MP count was when I had a ~3MP and wanted at least 5, I ended up getting a 6 or 7 model. After that, I haven't paid much attention, I don't think it makes much difference in IQ.</p>

<p>@ Scott, my earlier comment was to suggest the camera companies probably deliberately focus on incremental changes because there isn't much to gain by forging ahead by leaps and bounds. Staying a little bit ahead and putting out new models when the market suggests its time is perhaps a better business model. The consumer pays (in $$) for the strategy and thinking their camera is now "obsolete" because a new model with 3 additional MP just hit the market.</p>

<p>Who gives a F&%k?</p>

[DickArnold]

Scott. I have no doubt that if I had 48MP I could do better airplane pictures because I could do smaller crops but the further you get away the more atmospherics interfere with sharpness. More to the point when I did weddings starting in 1997 I had adequate film gear to do the job. I used MF and fixed focus lenses and could crop some to make pictures work. However I slowly gravitated to Canon zooms because film improved and I got tired of walking around weddings carrying six camera backs, loading them when they ran out of film and I got tired of changing lenses. Not one of my customers ever noted the difference. However, as with my newpaper work I always made enoough pictures to cover my assignment and I did not care if I lost some keepers because I always satisfied my editor and customers by taking more pictures by a factor of two or more than I needed. I was not then and am not now shooting for masterpieces rather just interesting images for the audience I was shooting for. The other thing about running a business is that I had a rule not to buy stuff that was not essential to do the job or alternatively would make a quick return on investment. So increasing capability that did not make good business sense was not my policy. My bottom line was extremely important to me. So from a philosophical working standpoint it did not then and does not now make a lot sense to me to spend a lot of my working budget to get a small product incremental improvement. I think some people trying to do business would agree with me. If I were still in business my question would be how would an investment to radically raise Megapixels affect my bottom line based upon initial investment and ROI and what would be my financial or now in retirement my aesthetic benefit? or loss?

 

I also made some comments about where I thought the broader photo business was headed. I can't predict the future but from earlier executive training, studies and work experience I see the digital wave going to a more mature stage where progress is slower, costs more and delivers change in smaller more expensive increments. I was responsible for major acquisitions regarding the use of GPS for civil aviation. I found along with my colleagues that the last increment of any technical project was always the hardest and disproportionally expensive. In my simplistic opinion this is the phase we are heading. I have an old friend whom I used to work with at United Air Lines who would continually tell me that the best was the enemy of the good. I also think that as these businesses mature they are ripe to be undercut by new competitors from outside the photo industry. I think the DSLR and P&S business models are changing and the rapid advance of marketable innovations has slowed. Canon has sold a huge number of cameras in the past ten years. I wonder if that can be sustained in the next ten I think they are too big to fail but they may change.

 

But the question has always been the same for me does what I am buying make sense for the use I intend for it. That was always my job in my business and as a former pilot running aviation acquisitions to keep programs on a practical track. Scott I admire your knowledge of the technical side of this and always carefully read your posts. Only you can tell what makes sense for you.

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p>So the Canon is a better camera, despite the fact that it comes second to the various D3 cameras at high ISO, megapixels, and dynamic range? Isn't that like saying an Olympian with two silver medals is a better althete than an Olympian with a single gold medal? Certainly the guy with two silvers is more consistent, and I'd want him on my team more than a guy with the one gold. But having said that, I know I'd trade lots of silver medals for a single gold, and I'm pretty sure most other people would too.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Expanding on the Olympics analogy, the D3S and D3X are gold medalists in individual sports, whereas the 5D Mark II is the gold medalist in the Decathlon. It does everything well. And do you know what they call the gold medalist in the Olympic Decathlon? "World's Greatest Athlete." They don't give that title to the winner of the pole vault. (Sorry, D3S). Or the winner of the 200. (Sorry, D3X).</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Even the D700 has better high-ISO performance. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>I own a D700 and have used it extensively. The D700 has better dynamic range than the 5D2. You can pull more detail out of the shadows with less noise. But that's where the advantage ends. If you compare output at 100 percent, the Nikon looks a little cleaner. But at 100 percent, the Canon has 75 percent more information. If you look at them at the same SIZE, there's no difference in noise performance except for the shadow detail issue that I mentioned above. Granted, the 3DS is approximately a stop better than either the 5D2 or the D700, but 12 MP is a lot less forgiving when cropping is necessary. Bottom line: The Nikon ISO advantage is small and it's offset by a striking difference in resolution.</p>

<p>The D3X has a little more resolution at ISO 100, but it struggles at ISO 800 to do what the Canon can do at ISO 3200. I have enjoyed using ISO 3200 EXTENSIVELY with the Canon. Lots of handheld urban and interior shots would not have been possible at a lower ISO setting.</p>

<p>As for base ISO comparisons, has anyone done a double-blind test of D3X and 5D2 prints side by side? I can't claim that I have ever heard of such a study, but I doubt that people would be able to pick one camera out over the other one (either way) consistently. Is a ten percent bump in resolution worth five grand? My 4x5 exceeds the resolution of any sub-60-MP digital camera, so when I really need to crank up the resolution, I reach for a dark cloth and some film holders.</p>

<p>Video specs: 5D2 (1080p), D3S (720p), D3X (N/A).</p>

<p>Live view implementation: 5D2 (excellent), D3S (improved), D3X (poor).</p>

<p>Weather sealing: 5D2 (poor), both Nikons (excellent).</p>

<p>Battery and shutter life: 5D2 (average), both Nikons (excellent).</p>

<p>Street price (USD): 5D2 (2600), D3S (5k), D3X (7500).</p>

<p>Lenses: Canon offers pro f/4 zooms and a more flexible tilt-shift design. Canon AF lenses adapt very well to manual focusing with live view. Nikon excels with two lenses: 14-24 and 200-400.</p>

<p>Is the Canon a better camera? Well, it's clearly better than either of the Nikons given that it exceeds most of their capabilities. Is it better than the Nikon duo? Getting back to the sports analogy, it's probably a dead heat. Yes, you'll pay a lot more for the two Nikon bodies, but that investment provides 600,000 shutter actuations. The 5D2 is going to need a heart transplant after 150,000. So if you shoot a LOT and you need weather sealing, the Nikon combo isn't a bad investment. If you need a light body and lens package for trekking, brilliantly implemented live view, a better T/S lens design, or if you need the best feature set that a single body can offer, the Canon wins hands down. Just don't expect to use it in a typhoon.</p>

 

[ty_mickan]

<p>don't really care about megapixels or noise reduction - what I want is more dynamic range. digital still trails ag-x by a long margin, and will always be just a more convenient medium, yet vastly inferior to film until it begins to catch up.</p>

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p>Several very successful wedding photographers are still using the 5D1 and 12.7 MP. They have happy customers who don't give a rats about whether their pictures are 12 or 24 or 47MP.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>McDonald's has happy customers, too. LOTS of them!</p>

<p>The market for a fine steak is smaller, but for those who care, the difference is obvious.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>Several very successful wedding photographers are still using the 5D1 and 12.7 MP. They have happy customers who don't give a rats about whether their pictures are 12 or 24 or 47MP.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>When the 6MP Nikon D100 and Fujifilm S3 were current, many wedding photographers stated that they were the ideal cameras for weddings. Now 12MP is not enough?</p>

[DickArnold]

Dan. I took classes from Monte Zucker who has been deceased since 2007 He reached the apex of the wedding business in terms of inspiration, artistic merit and just simply beautiful pictures. At last look someone was maintaining a web site of his work; it is compelling. You should see the work he did with 6MP. It was not steak it was chateaubriand rendered by one of the worlds finest chefs. I don't think anyone gets to his level with MPs. It is pure inspiration and talent, hard work and in his case a compelling personality. I admit I serve a lot of McDonalds quarter pounders and I will never come close to what Monte did but my rather mundane talents and work have nothing to do in particular with megapixels. It has to do with my lack of inspiration and talent and knowledge of the business. Several of those 5d mark one users I cited also serve exquisite highly professional meals and are able to charge appropriately for their work. I just don't ascribe to the idea that one has to use 48 or 30 MPs to be an effective photographer.

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p> I just don't ascribe to the idea that one has to use 48 or 30 MPs to be an effective photographer.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Nobody has said you do - but there's no question that there are numerous situations where more pixels is an advantage.</p>

<p>And - frankly - wedding photography as a genre hardly pushes the envelope of what can be done with a camera.</p>