There is often a big price difference between a 20-megapixel camera and a 50-megapixel camera. Understanding the value of megapixels is essential to avoid wasting money.
Coming to you from Nathan Cool Photo, this insightful video explores how you might be spending unnecessarily on high-megapixel cameras. Cool explains the concept of visual acuity—how sharp our vision is and how it relates to megapixels and sensor size. He starts with a simple calculation based on the common eye chart, using an angle known as arc minutes. This basic trigonometry helps understand how far we see something clearly and translates it into a constant, which is used in a simple formula to determine the necessary pixels per inch for printing or viewing images.
This video shows how distance impacts perceived sharpness. At one foot away, 300 pixels per inch (PPI) is needed for a sharp image. But as you move back to two feet, this drops to about 150 PPI, and at three feet, it’s around 100 PPI. This demonstrates that for most practical purposes, high megapixel counts don’t always translate to noticeable improvements in image quality, especially when viewed from a typical distance.
A comparison of cameras highlights that higher cost doesn't provide proportionate benefits for most use cases. For example, a 24-megapixel image printed at 300 DPI can look very sharp up to about 17 inches wide. However, when printed at 150 DPI, suitable for viewing from two feet away, the print can be around 34 inches wide. Therefore, for most prints and viewing distances, a 24-megapixel camera suffices, and the benefits of 45 megapixels are minimal unless you're printing very large images.
When considering large prints, megapixels do make a difference, but often not as much as you'd think. For instance, a 48-megapixel camera might offer better cropping ability for wildlife photography, where heavy cropping is sometimes necessary due to distance from the subject. However, for genres like real estate, portrait, or landscape photography, a 24-megapixel camera is often more than adequate.
Cool also points out the diminishing returns of high megapixel counts. More megapixels mean smaller photo sites on the sensor, which can lead to less light capture and more noise, particularly in low light. This is why video cameras don't need high megapixels—4K resolution, common in high-quality video, is only 8 megapixels. Thus, for video work, fewer megapixels can be advantageous.
Understanding these factors helps in making an informed decision about purchasing a camera. The need for higher megapixels depends largely on your specific use case, such as extensive cropping or large print sizes. For most, investing in lenses and other equipment might offer better value than chasing the highest megapixel count. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Cool.
They promised there was no math.
I stopped worrying about mega pixels in 2007 after I printed a very large image from my 6mp Nikon D50, which was them framed and is hanging on someone's wall to this day and looks great. It's 2024 - even an iphone can make a great large print if post-processed correctly.
Sensor size and pixel density makes as much a difference as simply number of megapixels. Does a 24 mp cropped sensor camera produce the same images as a 24 mp full frame? I prefer higher mp on a full frame for the ability to deep crop should I desire. Also, based on this presentation why do 100 mp medium format cameras even exist? Ask that to Hasselblad and Fujifilm. It's not only about the megapixels.
Interesting. Its just like tv size based on the room in which you are viewing. In photography I don't worship mega pixels, specs, or the insignificant differences between x and y. I shoot both film and digital and focus more on the content and the artistic vision rather than ultra high detail everywhere in the frame. To me it can be too much sometimes. And yes I shoot landscapes at 400 iso. I have a Nikon Zfc and it is the perfect system for what I do. I chose it because of its size, portability and the fact that it simply looked cool. Megapixels were secondary.
Well, subjective view, since I moved to medium format for a decade almost, last few years on GFX, they really DO MATTER, and the larger the sensor the better.
a very smart guy that does not really understand the printing process...