Full HD megapixels query

roddydogs

If I only show photos on my HD telly, or my HD Comp display, this gives less than 2 million pixels. Does this mean that theirs no point in setting my camera to more than 2 MP, or does it not work like that. Sorry if its a daft question.

uint32

I think your logic is sound on this.

However, keeping a higher MP setting on your camera will allow you to zoom into the image or crop specific areas without loosing image quality on your display. If decide to use low resolution images then zooming and cropping will result in a loss of quality when viewing.

victor2

If you only do that then there is little benefit.
But if you wanted to zoom in, crop, edit or get a picture printed then there is a great benefit to having the original at a higher resolution.
Apart from a little extra storage space, it costs you nothing to keep higher resolution pictures and you'd be gutted if you got one you wanted to enlarge or get a good print off, but the quality was poor.

googler

If you get a better display in the future, and you've only taken pictures at 2MP, you won't be able to improve them to 5, 12, whatever - they'll be stuck at 2.

If they're important to you, take them at the best resolution you can.

spakkker

My printer claims to print upto -9600x2400?- a lot more than 2mp , if you ever were to consider printing.

Interesting page http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/digitalimaging/f/pixelsprint.htm

uint32

googler wrote: »

If they're important to you, take them at the best resolution you can.

I agree with Googler here. Storage is relatively cheap nowadays so if you can take the highest resolution possible.

If the images are important to you will be glad of it in years to come.

aliEnRIK

The lens etc are far more important than the number of pixels for quality though. Its why the pro photographers dont user their nokia to take pictures

Hammyman

Just to add, the problem with most consumer grade cameras is the quality of the CCD - the bit that detects the image. The more sensor "dots" you cram into the same space, the more electronic noise is generated and sometimes reveals itself as a moire pattern. Those 12MP CCDs that don't are not cheap and unlikely to be found in a sub £100 camera. Unless you're printing massive posters, Average Joe doesn't need more than 5-6MP.

uint32

aliEnRIK wrote: »

The lens etc are far more important than the number of pixels for quality though. Its why the pro photographers dont user their nokia to take pictures

Both the lens and the sensor quality are equally important for getting a quality digital image. However in this case the OP is asking about the MP setting on his specific camera when displaying on his HD TV.

The MP value has nothing to do with image quality at all but it does dictate the final size of the image. With a larger image it is possible to zoom and crop without loosing quality, the trade off here is that the final image is smaller.

uint32

Hammyman wrote: »

Unless you're printing massive posters, Average Joe doesn't need more than 5-6MP.

Agreed .... no one ever prints bigger than A4 anyway do they!

roddydogs

Thanks, the main reason I asked is that my Panny TZ7, takes W/S photos, but you can only have them at 2MP.............they look great to me at any distance, in fact better cause both the TV and comp are W/S, for landscapes any way. And surely if its Optical Zoom, it shouldn't make any difference whether its on Zoom setting or not?