What meg camera should I buy?

UT
Posted By
uncle Tom
Aug 22, 2003
Views
195
Replies
9
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Closed
I will on a rare occation want to enlarge photos to 11X14.
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KW
Ken Wolin
Aug 22, 2003
If you’ll be enlarging photos to 11X14, a 4 megapixel camera would be the minimum… and that’s if you plan on not cropping much.

But do check out the optics of the lens you’re considering. Some 3MP cameras will turn out sharper images than a 4 or 5 MP due to superior lens quality.
SR
Schraven Robert
Aug 22, 2003
Ken,

What camera’s with better lenses are you referring to?

Robert
SR
Schraven Robert
Aug 22, 2003
Ken,

One more question.
In terms of sharpness, how does your digital camera compare to a conventional camera? Reason I am asking is that I am getting slightly annoyed with the (not so)sharpness of my digital camera (nikon 990).

Robert
CS
Chuck Snyder
Aug 22, 2003
UT – look at the Canon G3 (4 MP), the Canon G5 (5 MP) and the Minolta Dimage S414 (4 MP), three popular cameras in the performance range you need for your enlargements.

Chuck
W
Woolie
Aug 22, 2003
I have a Nikon Coolpix 5700 which I love. Small enough to carry around, but with 5 mp it takes great shots. Heard they just had a price drop plus rebate on the thing too.

Karen

"Schraven Robert" wrote in message
Ken,

One more question.
In terms of sharpness, how does your digital camera compare to a
conventional camera?
Reason I am asking is that I am getting slightly annoyed with the (not
so)sharpness of my digital camera (nikon 990).
Robert

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SR
Schraven Robert
Aug 22, 2003
Kenny,

Thank you for your advice.
I already do a certain amount of tweaking etc.
Despite the enhancing I feel I don’t get the maximum sharpness out of the camera. But may be I expect too much too soon.

Robert
LK
Leen Koper
Aug 22, 2003
Just a little math.
You need 11×14 at 300 dpi; that makes 3300×4200 pixels. (13 megapixel) I know some people on this forum question this, but my experience is you can upsample about 4x without any serious loss, applying the bicubic upsampling as provided in Elements.
Let’s be on the safe side and upsample just only 3x linear; this makes 1100×1400=1.54 megapixel and so a 2 megapixel camera will be able to do the job.
My Fuji S2 allows me to print at least at 20×30 and no customer has ever complained yet. But, as usual, the more pixels the better.

Leen
P
Phosphor
Aug 23, 2003
I understand that it’s also true that a DSLR with a larger sensor allows you to upsize a lot more than a compact with the same number of pixels – the individual sensors are larger and not so squashed up, (very technical!) meaning that there’s a lot less noise in the recorded image and together with the sharper image from the decent glass in front of the sensor gives a much sharper result. My friend with a Canon D30 (3MP) can get more satisfactory enlargements than I can with my compact Canon G3 (4MP – and now discontinued I believe, but a very good buy)
Of course now Canon have announced their sub $1000US (including lens) 6MP DSLR, I am slightly regretting rushing into buying a compact. I could almost have afforded one of those…
Susan S.
CS
Chuck Snyder
Aug 23, 2003
Susan, I would have guessed that the differences between the D30 and G3 images would have been mostly the result of the larger and better quality lens being used on the D30 – seems like the additional light-gathering power would translate into some improvement in final image. That’s just a gut feel, though.

The new Canon 300D sure looks like a breakthrough in price/performance; they may have just the right camera for the amateur film SLR enthusiast who’s looking for a similar experience with digital without having to take a second job to pay for it.

Chuck

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