Digital Camera 6.36 Mega Pixels £89.99 (merged)

smashed

Higher resolution allows you to zoom in and see more detail, but it wont make much difference on a normal 6 x 4 photo... not once you are over 4-5 million pixels at least.

You get what you pay for at the end of the day.. unless you can find a real grabbit. There is nothing wrong with the quality of the Sony's etc that have been replaced recently.

Patr100

RedOnRed wrote:

I've been advised that 5 mega pixels is as realistically as high as you'll ever need to go - certainly long into the foreseeable future anyway.

I suppose it makes sense that there's a limit to how deep a definition the eye can take in and going above that doesn't improve image quality at all.

Above say 3-4MP even Higher megapixel count is mostly only significant when you require the need to print at larger sizes eg poster size -

carled

RedOnRed wrote:

I've been advised that 5 mega pixels is as realistically as high as you'll ever need to go - certainly long into the foreseeable future anyway.

I suppose it makes sense that there's a limit to how deep a definition the eye can take in and going above that doesn't improve image quality at all.

Sorry - that's utter dross you've been told!

The more pixels you capture, the more information you are capturing... with the proviso that the pixels have to have come through a decent lens and be stored with decent processing.

Anyway, the argument about only needing so many pixels is only true for a given image size. The eye struggles to take in much more detail than 150 pixels or "dots" per inch (dpi), but traditional commercial printing is done at 300 dpi. So if you had a 6 x 4 " photo, at 150 dpi you would have a digital image of 900 x 600 and at 300 dpi it would have to be a 1800 x 1200 image.

Personally speaking, I reckon that if I have each of those sizes of the same digital image and took them to a kodak instant booth and printed them both out at 6 x 4 then I'd be able to tell which was which, but it wouldn't be glaringly obvious.

However, if I was to print them both out at 10 x 8 then there would be a huge difference in quality as the 900 x 600 image would be effectively being printed out at less than 100 dpi. Take this to an extreme and imagine printing the image out at 75ft high. That's 900 inches. Each pixel or dot from the digital image would now be taking up an inch square on the huge printout. From a great distance, the image would still look fantastic, but get close up and you'd see what looked like a mosaic...

Take the new Fuji 9 mp camera. Images are 3488 x 2616. At 300 dpi that would give you comfortably an A4 image of flawless quality (depending on your printer, obviously). Even at the lower but acceptable standard of 150dpi, you'd be able to print out a 2ft-wide image of very high quality, whereas the 1/2 a megapixel camera (the 900 x 600 image I was talking about) would look an utter mess at that size. Therefore not only does more megapixels get you the opportunity of larger prints, it also gives you clearer prints at a given size than a lower megapixel camera can.

Without looking it up, I'm fairly certain that some of the professionally used digital SLR's aren't far off 20 megapixels now?

smashed

Carl, I think his point was that 5MP is adequate for most home users for 6 x 4's.
I have seen some shocking image quality on a 6 x 4 from 5MP cameras, but thats because they are bad cameras.
If you buy a decent 5MP camera, you can get excellent 6 x 4's.

Most people are probably told 5MP is enough by sales assistants to make the customer buy an expensive camera now, in the belief that it will last them a long time.

But I would agree that the larger the image you want (the same point as what I said about zooming in) the more the increased pxels come into account. However the majority of people will not be going for A4 size photos or bigger.


I think the thread doesnt need to go too technical, just give enough simple advice to people who are looking to buy.

RedOnRed

carled wrote:

Sorry - that's utter dross you've been told

If we're talking happy snappy digital cameras here (which we are) I would say it's not "dross", but if we're talking professional quality 9 - 20 mega pixels then that's different.

For the average person taking mostly holiday snaps and not tending to bother getting them blown up into posters, or exhibited in galleries, or sent by satellite across the globe for tomorrows front page...5 mega pixels is probably all you need.

Kenny4315

Kodak EasyShare LS753 - 5.0 MP Digital Camera

Do any of you guys know much about this camera ???

Patr100

Kenny4315 wrote:

Kodak EasyShare LS753 - 5.0 MP Digital Camera

Do any of you guys know much about this camera ???

Steve likes it, - which is a good start.

"Bottom line - the EasyShare LS753 makes a great choice for anyone who wants a compact, yet durable camera that captures high-resolution images."

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/ls753_pg5.html


Dave makes it one of his "Deleted_User" as well
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/LS753/LS75A.HTM

smashed

The other good thing about Steves Digicams site is that it allows you to see actual sample pics of how they look without being scaled down.
The LS753 has the following sample photos..

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/ls753_samples.html

Click on them and they will probably reassure you of the quality that you can get from that camera

carled

RedOnRed wrote:

For the average person... ...5 mega pixels is probably all you need.

Yeah and 3 years ago, 2 megapixels was "all people needed" and in 3 years time, 9 megapixels will be "all people need" and so on and so on... funny that...

RedOnRed

carled wrote:

Yeah and 3 years ago, 2 megapixels was "all people needed" and in 3 years time, 9 megapixels will be "all people need" and so on and so on... funny that...

You're speaking out of context, in so much as 5 mega pixels is all the average person needs for snap quality pics.