How Big Of A Enlargement Can You Make With A 12 Megapixel Camera
Don't be seduced by the megapixel counts touted in advertising materials and on camera packaging. It's no longer true that the college a camera's megapixel count the better.
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How Many Megapixels Practice You REALLY Need?
Don't be seduced by the megapixel counts touted in advertising materials and on camera packaging. Information technology's no longer truthful that the higher a camera'south megapixel count the better. The but thing more megapixels volition give you is the ability to enlarge and crop pictures without private pixels condign visible. Other factors are much more important in determining overall picture quality.
Output Size
Megapixel resolution plays an of import part in how large you can print your pictures. Because the more than megapixels you lot have, the more than detail is recorded, high-resolution cameras allow you to make larger prints or crop shots without worrying virtually the paradigm's pixel structure becoming visible.
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The diagram higher up provides a guide to the ideal resolutions for iii popular print sizes. Notation that output resolution decreases as impress size increases because larger prints are viewed from a greater distance.
Paying for pixels you don't demand is a waste of money. Information technology's better to invest in a camera with a better quality lens, larger sensor and more than constructive image processor.
Yous should also consider how well your printer can reproduce fine detail. In that location's little point in shooting or scanning pictures at high resolution and creating huge paradigm files unless you lot have a printer that tin can reproduce all the particular in the image.
At that place comes a point beyond which high output resolution on its own is irrelevant. Only the pickiest of viewers will look at an A3+ impress close upward; most of us prefer a viewing distance of 1-2 metres. At that altitude it'due south very difficult to see whatsoever difference between prints from a six-megapixel and a x-megapixel camera with the same sized sensors. (The shots from the 10-megapixel camera have slightly greater potential for enlargement, however.)
Sensor Size and Pic Quality
The size of a camera'south image sensor is the main determinant of moving-picture show quality and the larger the sensor surface area, the higher the potential for producing top-quality digital pictures. Equally of import is the size of the bodily photosites on the sensor that collect the image-making calorie-free. The larger the photosites, the more calorie-free they can collect and, consequently, the more than image data they brand available to the camera's epitome processor. (Details of how to calculate the size of sensor photosites are provided beneath.
| Sensor "Blazon" | Imaging Expanse dimensions (width x height x diameter in mm) |
| 1/two.7-inch | 5.37 10 iv.04 10 vi.72 |
| 1/2.5-inch | 5.76 x 4.29 x 7.18 |
| 1/1.8-inch | 7.18 x five.32 x 8.93 |
| 1/1.7-inch | vii.half dozen x 5.7 x 9.five |
| 2/3-inch | 8.8 x 6.6 ten 11.07 |
| Four Thirds | 18.0 x 13.5 x 22.5 |
| APS-C (Canon ) | 22.2 x 14.8 ten 26.7 |
| APS-C (Nikon) | 23.7 x xv.7 10 28.4 |
| APS-C (Sony) | 23.six x 15.8 x 28.iv |
| (Catechism professional DSLR) | 28.one x eighteen.7 x 33.8 |
| Total Frame (=35mm frame) | 36 x 24 x 44.3 |
For the by couple of years Photograph Review has translated the irrational 'measurements' quoted in manufacturers' specifications into dimensions in millimetres so readers know just how small-scale most digicam sensors really are. The table to a higher place shows the dimensions of some of the most pop digicam and DSLR sensor sizes and, to emphasise the differences betwixt the two camera types nosotros've used cerise to highlight the digicam section of the tabular array and light-green for the DSLR section.
Equally you lot can see, the sensors used in digital SLR cameras are substantially larger. The size differences are easiest to capeesh in the diagram beneath, which compares the areas of the most pop digicam sensor (1/2.5-inch blazon) with 3 DSLR sensor sizes sensor and a 35mm picture show frame.
Calculating Photosite Surface area
If you know the size of a camera'southward image sensor and the pixel dimensions of the largest epitome it tin can produce, it's easy to summate the expanse of its light-collecting photosites. This is of import considering the more low-cal each photosite collects, the less the point has to be amplified to produce an image and the amend the image quality will be.
The actual calculation is straightforward. Simply split up the length of one side of the imaging area by the number of image pixels that correspond to that side. For example, a vi-megapixel camera with a i/ii.5-inch imager produces a high resolution image of 2816 x 2112 pixels. Dividing the width of the sensor (5.76 mm) by 2816 pixels gives us 5.76 ΓΈ·2816 = 0.0020454 mm (or two.045 microns).
The table below shows a range of typical photosite sizes for current consumer digicams in red and DSLR cameras in green with typical examples for each resolution category.
| Camera Resolution | Sensor Type | Paradigm Resolution (pixels) | Photosite surface area microns) |
| 6 megapixels (1) | 1/2.5-inch | 2816 ten 2112 | 2.045 x 2.045 |
| vii.1-megapixels (two) | 1/2.5-inch | 3072 x 2304 | ane.875 x i.875 |
| 8 megapixels (iii) | 1/2.five-inch | 3264 10 2448 | 1.76 x 1.76 |
| 10 megapixels (iv) | 1/1.8-inch | 3648 x 2736 | ane.97 10 1.97 |
| half dozen.1 megapixels (5) | 23.7 x 15.vi | 3008 x 2000 | vii.88 10 7.88 |
| 10.0 megapixels (6) | 17.iii 10 13.0 | 3648 ten 2736 | 4.74 x 4.74 |
| 10.0 megapixels (7) | 23.v ten 15.vii | 3872 10 2592 | 6.07 x vi.07 |
| x.ane megapixels (8) | 28.ane 10 18.vii | 3888 x 2592 | 7.23 x 7.23 |
| 12.eight megapixels (9) | 35.8 x 23.ix | 4368 x 2912 | 8.xix ten 8.19 |
(1) Nikon Coolpix L6 (2) Olympus SP550UZ (3) Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100
(4) Canon PowerShot G7 (v) Nikon D40, (half-dozen) Olympus E-410, (7) Pentax K10D, (8) Canon EOS-1D Mark 3, (9) Canon EOS5D
Photosite Size and Flick Quality
The surface expanse of a sensor's photosites dictates the number of photons (particles of lite) it tin capture. The more than photons collected, the more than information the camera tin can procedure – and the less the paradigm is affected past the background noise that is generated by all electronic devices, which is relatively abiding.
Paradigm dissonance can affect digital photographs nether a multifariousness of situations, including:
* When the number of photons (the key 'particles' of light) hitting the sensor is very low;
* When the photographic camera'due south sensitivity (ISO) is set to a high value;
* When the temperature of the sensor is loftier,
* When in that location are errors in the manual of the signal from the sensor to the processor, and
* When the digital paradigm signal is amplified essentially.
The diagram below illustrates why larger photosites are less affected by noise than smaller photosites.
PRPG12_pg12A
The larger photosite on the left tin can collect many more photons of lite than the smaller photosite on the right. Simply the amount of background racket is the aforementioned for both photosites. Consequently, the larger photosite has a much better signal-to-noise ratio. It can also collect more light with the aforementioned exposure time and, therefore, respond with higher sensitivity.
Identifying Image Dissonance
In nigh cases, racket tin only be seen when the image is enlarged substantially – at least 200 times. Racket-affected pictures await 'grainy'. Sometimes you may see a pattern of tiny white or coloured dots, scattered randomly throughout the epitome. Noise too reduces the sharpness of edges between bright and dark areas in the pic and tin can make it look unsharp and a lilliputian apartment.
Sometimes noise can only be seen in adumbral areas, where exposure levels are depression. It is common for this shadow noise to show a blueprint of coloured dots. Long exposures are often associated with 'hot' or 'stuck' pixels, which can be seen equally a design of bright and coloured dots that is repeated in all shots taken under the same atmospheric condition.
PRPG12_pg12B
PRPG12_pg12C
Enlarged sections of two identical shots taken with ISO 200 (left) and ISO 1600 sensitivity, showing typical epitome dissonance.
Sensor Size and Tonal Reproduction
Sensor size can too influence the photographic camera's power to record a total range of tones from white to blackness. Our regular camera tests consistently show that cameras with smaller sensors fail to achieve this in brilliant conditions. Information technology's common to find blown-out highlights and blocked up shadows in such shots. In contrast, DSLR sensors with larger photosites can unremarkably record the full dynamic range in the subject (although you may need to shoot raw files in lodge to extract all the highlight and shadow details in brilliant sunshine).
PRPG12_pg13A
PRPG12_pg13B
The analogy to a higher place has been cropped from a shot taken with a high-resolution digicam in vivid sunlight. Notation the lack of item in the bright areas on the left wall of the business firm and also nether the verandah most the forepart door. Contrast these areas with a similar shot taken with a DSLR camera, which can capture a full range of tones in both brightly-lit and shadowed areas because of its larger photosites.
Lens Quality
The size and quality of a photographic camera'southward lens tin can influence image quality at to the lowest degree as much as the sensor'south megapixel count. There's a big difference betwixt a pocket-sized, inexpensive glass lens that you lot might find on an entry-level digicam and the high quality, multicoated lenses you lot would buy for a DSLR. 5 megapixels is probably the limit of resolving ability for almost point-and-shoot camera lenses. Beyond a sure point, diffraction will begin to reduce the resolving power of the lens-plus-sensor organization, as we have discovered from Imatest tests on many 8- and 10-megapixel digicams.
A further consideration is the way the camera's epitome processor handles the paradigm data. In many digicams, the epitome processor automatically sharpens the image past default. This can further degrade picture quality, especially if it'south already been reduced by diffraction. It's not uncommon to observe a 10-megapixel digicam with worse performance than a 6-megapixel camera with a similar-sized sensor.
Bailiwick lighting will also play a part in image quality, particularly with small-sensor digicams. In dim weather, photographers are forced to increment ISO speeds. However, with a small-sensor digicam, this will increase image noise, thereby reducing paradigm quality. As we've outlined above, larger photosites produce less epitome noise and give photographers more flexibility with ISO settings. Shooting at ISO 800 may be viable on a DSLR while the same setting on a digicam will probably produce very dissonance-affected images.
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