How many megapixels do I need in a camera?

I am an ex-pro photographer, but new to digital. Now a writer, I am considering purchase of a digital camera to use both for personal and publication use. Using CS2 Premium on WinXP. Here is my workflow:

- Weekly 2-page, 8.5x11 journal laid out in InDesign; 3/4 text, 1/4 graphics. - Distill to PDF and distribute via e-mail to subscribers. I try to keep PDF below 500 KB in size. - Some subscribers read on-screen, some print to desktop printer to read. - My publications are never printed professionally--only to color laser, desktop printer. Images used in my publication rarely exceed 4x6 inches on the page and, presently, are usually JPG images of artwork. (For examples, my website is <http://dlampel.com)>

My question is this: With a limited budget, what megapixel level would satisfy this work? Would I be satisfied with the image quality of, say, a 6 or 6.1 megapixel camera, or do I need to go up to 10?

Thank you,
Dave

A 6 will give you an 11x17, 300dpi image which is more than sufficient for a cover shot.

just to verify id's assertion. i just got a 6 (canon s2) and it prints beautiful 8x10s (kodak 1400 dye sub).

wrote:

I am an ex-pro photographer, but new to digital. Now a writer, I am considering purchase of a digital camera to use both for personal and publication use. Using CS2 Premium on WinXP. Here is my workflow:

- Weekly 2-page, 8.5x11 journal laid out in InDesign; 3/4 text, 1/4 graphics. - Distill to PDF and distribute via e-mail to subscribers. I try to keep PDF below 500 KB in size. - Some subscribers read on-screen, some print to desktop printer to read. - My publications are never printed professionally--only to color laser, desktop printer. Images used in my publication rarely exceed 4x6 inches on the page and, presently, are usually JPG images of artwork. (For examples, my website is <http://dlampel.com)>

My question is this: With a limited budget, what megapixel level would satisfy this work? Would I be satisfied with the image quality of, say, a 6 or 6.1 megapixel camera, or do I need to go up to 10?

Thank you,
Dave

If I had the money, I'd get the camera with the most MP and the largest CMOS sensor I could (it's not just the
number of MP that define the quality of an image). Cheaper cameras have huge MP's (6+ MP) but tiny sensors.

As an example, take a look at the 8.5MP Canon's EOS-1D camera ($3,600 for the body). That has a 29mm x 19mm CMOS sensor.
Then there is the $7,000 17.2 MP Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II with a full size CMOS sensor (36mm x 24 mm).
Compare those to a 10.5MP Canon Rebel XTi ($700 for the body) with a mere 22mm x 15mm sensor.

Why should you get a camera with so many MPs? If you crop an image, you're most likely going to throw away a large percentage of your image. That's why I liked larger format film cameras.

That said, since you're on a limited budget I've seen some mighty fine images come out of a $230 7.2MP Sony DSC-W70

Depends what your limited budget is. while i agree the 6 should be good for your needs, it never hurts to have a little extra for that odd job that requires more. nikons new d80 at 10 meg is a reasonable buy compared to the d200. same sensor but less money.

And it also depends a bit on what you shoot... If you do a fair amount of action stuff or anything that's difficult to frame fast, you should figure that you're framing the subject loosely and would crop after the fact. Which means more pixels to give you a cushion for tight cropping.

Also, the PMA show (the major spring photo equipment show) is coming up soon, so there are going to be a number of new product announcements and subsequent existing old product drops.

Art

Hi David,

I recently did a comparrison between my first digital camera, a 1.2 mega pixel Kodak DC260 and my current digital camera, a 10 mega pixel Nikon D200.

For mainly on screen work or relatively low quality printing you might even get away with a 3 mega pixel model.

Here's the link to the two comparitive images.

<http://www.planetnikon.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3019>

Considering what has happened to the digial camera in the years between these cameras, the DC260 still puts out a good image for on screen viewing. I still have a couple of images printed to A3 size from the DC260 which are framed and hanging on my wall at home. They look OK to me.

In reality, for the sort of things you are doing, a six mega pixel model will give you everything you need plus a bit left over.

Bye for now.

Thank you all for your generous advice.

Donald - by "limited budget" I mean around the $200-250 mark.

Art - except for the two new, hyper-kinetic kittens we just added to our family, most of my stuff would be static, as in old barn shots, seasonal scenics, etc. I'm looking at the Canon PowerShot A540, and one of the criticisms is the long lag time between shots, but then, I'm guessing that for my situation, that is less important than the Pro of having all the manual controls--which this old Tri-X man would like to have.

George - thank you for the comparison shots. Very helpful.

Dave

It depends on how large you want to print and how much cropping room do you want. a 6MP image will do just fine for a good size print. However, if you do any more than light minor cropping you will run out of image data and not be able to print at a descent resolution.

More MP doesn't always (seldom does actually) give you more image detail. You usually have to make a 4MP jump before you do and even now with 10 and 12MP cameras that isn't always the case. More MP does give you the option of doing extreme crops (I do this often, you can only get so much zoom in a camera lens) so I always try to upgrade cameras to the most resolution I can get that is good (good picture quality). I had a Panasonic FZ30 (8MP) and now I also have a Pentax K10D (10MP). Just more crop room, but other advantages because of the larger sensor in the Pentax (dSLR). However, it is hard and expensive to match the zoom I have my the FZ30 (12X optical).

ljc

wrote in message

I am an ex-pro photographer, but new to digital. Now a writer, I am considering purchase of a digital camera to use both for personal and publication use. Using CS2 Premium on WinXP. Here is my workflow:
- Weekly 2-page, 8.5x11 journal laid out in InDesign; 3/4 text, 1/4 graphics.
- Distill to PDF and distribute via e-mail to subscribers. I try to keep PDF below 500 KB in size.
- Some subscribers read on-screen, some print to desktop printer to read. - My publications are never printed professionally--only to color laser, desktop printer. Images used in my publication rarely exceed 4x6 inches on the page and, presently, are usually JPG images of artwork. (For examples, my website is <http://dlampel.com)>

My question is this: With a limited budget, what megapixel level would satisfy this work? Would I be satisfied with the image quality of, say, a 6 or 6.1 megapixel camera, or do I need to go up to 10?

Thank you,
Dave

Hi David,

My question is this: With a limited budget, what megapixel level would satisfy this work? Would I be satisfied with the image quality of, say, a 6 or 6.1 megapixel camera, or do I need to go up to 10?

I think you need to look beyond the MP. 6MP image from one camera may look wastly different than from another 6MP camera when it comes to sharpness and contrast. Are you looking for P&S or are you looking for DSLR? If you are looking for DSLR you might want to check out used cameras on ebay. Whatever you are after you need to look at the sharpness of the images from the camera you are considering. I had an old 2MP Sony camera few years ago that took really good photos as long as you didn't use the digital zoom<g> Since then we have bought a few P&S and none of them has measured up to that old 2MP Sony. DSLR are in a different league and my Canon 350D is pretty good.

--
Arnor Baldvinsson
San Antonio, Texas