Is A 2.0 Megapixel Camera Good
Don't be seduced by the megapixel counts touted in advertizing materials and on camera packaging. It's no longer true that the college a photographic camera's megapixel count the amend.
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How Many Megapixels Practise You Really Need?
Don't be seduced by the megapixel counts touted in advertising materials and on photographic camera packaging. It's no longer true that the higher a camera'south megapixel count the better. The only matter more megapixels will give you lot is the ability to overstate 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 function in how big you lot tin print your pictures. Considering the more than megapixels you have, the more than detail is recorded, high-resolution cameras allow yous to brand larger prints or ingather shots without worrying almost the image's pixel structure becoming visible.
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The diagram higher up provides a guide to the ideal resolutions for iii pop print sizes. Note that output resolution decreases equally print 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 meliorate quality lens, larger sensor and more than effective paradigm processor.
You should also consider how well your printer tin reproduce fine detail. At that place'southward footling signal in shooting or scanning pictures at high resolution and creating huge epitome files unless you have a printer that can reproduce all the particular in the image.
At that place comes a point beyond which high output resolution on its own is irrelevant. But the pickiest of viewers will look at an A3+ impress close up; most of united states prefer a viewing distance of i-2 metres. At that distance it's very difficult to see any departure between prints from a six-megapixel and a ten-megapixel camera with the same sized sensors. (The shots from the 10-megapixel camera accept slightly greater potential for enlargement, however.)
Sensor Size and Picture Quality
The size of a camera'south image sensor is the main determinant of flick quality and the larger the sensor area, the higher the potential for producing elevation-quality digital pictures. Equally important is the size of the bodily photosites on the sensor that collect the image-making light. The larger the photosites, the more than light they can collect and, consequently, the more than image data they make available to the camera's image processor. (Details of how to calculate the size of sensor photosites are provided below.
| Sensor "Type" | Imaging Area dimensions (width 10 peak x diameter in mm) |
| 1/ii.seven-inch | v.37 ten iv.04 x 6.72 |
| 1/2.v-inch | 5.76 x 4.29 x 7.xviii |
| i/one.eight-inch | 7.18 x 5.32 x 8.93 |
| 1/ane.7-inch | 7.6 x 5.vii x 9.five |
| two/three-inch | eight.8 x 6.half dozen ten 11.07 |
| Four Thirds | 18.0 x xiii.5 x 22.5 |
| APS-C (Canon ) | 22.2 x xiv.8 x 26.7 |
| APS-C (Nikon) | 23.7 ten 15.7 x 28.4 |
| APS-C (Sony) | 23.6 x 15.8 x 28.4 |
| (Catechism professional DSLR) | 28.1 x 18.7 x 33.eight |
| Total Frame (=35mm frame) | 36 ten 24 x 44.3 |
For the by couple of years Photo Review has translated the irrational 'measurements' quoted in manufacturers' specifications into dimensions in millimetres and then readers know merely how minor most digicam sensors really are. The table above shows the dimensions of some of the most popular digicam and DSLR sensor sizes and, to emphasise the differences between the ii camera types nosotros've used red to highlight the digicam section of the table and green for the DSLR section.
As you tin see, the sensors used in digital SLR cameras are substantially larger. The size differences are easiest to appreciate in the diagram below, which compares the areas of the near popular digicam sensor (1/ii.v-inch type) with 3 DSLR sensor sizes sensor and a 35mm pic frame.
Calculating Photosite Expanse
If you know the size of a camera's image sensor and the pixel dimensions of the largest prototype information technology can produce, it's piece of cake to calculate the surface expanse of its light-collecting photosites. This is important because the more light each photosite collects, the less the betoken has to be amplified to produce an paradigm and the better the image quality will be.
The actual calculation is straightforward. But split up the length of one side of the imaging surface area by the number of image pixels that correspond to that side. For instance, a half-dozen-megapixel photographic camera with a 1/ii.5-inch imager produces a high resolution image of 2816 ten 2112 pixels. Dividing the width of the sensor (v.76 mm) by 2816 pixels gives us 5.76 ΓΈ·2816 = 0.0020454 mm (or 2.045 microns).
The tabular array below shows a range of typical photosite sizes for current consumer digicams in ruby-red and DSLR cameras in green with typical examples for each resolution category.
| Camera Resolution | Sensor Type | Image Resolution (pixels) | Photosite expanse microns) |
| 6 megapixels (1) | one/2.v-inch | 2816 ten 2112 | 2.045 ten 2.045 |
| 7.1-megapixels (two) | 1/ii.5-inch | 3072 x 2304 | 1.875 x 1.875 |
| 8 megapixels (3) | 1/two.v-inch | 3264 10 2448 | 1.76 10 1.76 |
| 10 megapixels (4) | 1/i.eight-inch | 3648 x 2736 | 1.97 x i.97 |
| 6.1 megapixels (5) | 23.7 ten 15.6 | 3008 ten 2000 | 7.88 ten 7.88 |
| 10.0 megapixels (vi) | 17.3 x 13.0 | 3648 10 2736 | four.74 10 4.74 |
| 10.0 megapixels (seven) | 23.five 10 15.7 | 3872 x 2592 | half dozen.07 x vi.07 |
| 10.one megapixels (8) | 28.1 ten xviii.7 | 3888 x 2592 | 7.23 x 7.23 |
| 12.8 megapixels (9) | 35.8 x 23.ix | 4368 x 2912 | 8.19 x 8.19 |
(1) Nikon Coolpix L6 (2) Olympus SP550UZ (3) Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100
(iv) Canon PowerShot G7 (5) Nikon D40, (6) Olympus E-410, (7) Pentax K10D, (8) Catechism EOS-1D Marking Iii, (9) Canon EOS5D
Photosite Size and Picture Quality
The surface area of a sensor's photosites dictates the number of photons (particles of light) information technology can capture. The more photons nerveless, the more information the camera can process – and the less the epitome is affected past the groundwork noise that is generated by all electronic devices, which is relatively constant.
Prototype noise tin affect digital photographs under a variety of situations, including:
* When the number of photons (the fundamental 'particles' of light) striking the sensor is very low;
* When the camera's sensitivity (ISO) is set to a high value;
* When the temperature of the sensor is loftier,
* When in that location are errors in the transmission of the signal from the sensor to the processor, and
* When the digital image point is amplified substantially.
The diagram beneath illustrates why larger photosites are less affected by noise than smaller photosites.
PRPG12_pg12A
The larger photosite on the left can collect many more than photons of light than the smaller photosite on the right. But the amount of background noise is the same for both photosites. Consequently, the larger photosite has a much better point-to-noise ratio. It can too collect more light with the same exposure time and, therefore, respond with college sensitivity.
Identifying Image Noise
In most cases, noise tin only exist seen when the image is enlarged substantially – at to the lowest degree 200 times. Dissonance-afflicted pictures look 'grainy'. Sometimes you may see a pattern of tiny white or coloured dots, scattered randomly throughout the epitome. Noise also reduces the sharpness of edges betwixt bright and nighttime areas in the picture and tin can make information technology look unsharp and a little flat.
Sometimes racket can but be seen in shadowed areas, where exposure levels are low. Information technology is mutual for this shadow noise to show a pattern of coloured dots. Long exposures are often associated with 'hot' or 'stuck' pixels, which can be seen as a pattern of bright and coloured dots that is repeated in all shots taken nether the aforementioned weather condition.
PRPG12_pg12B
PRPG12_pg12C
Enlarged sections of two identical shots taken with ISO 200 (left) and ISO 1600 sensitivity, showing typical prototype noise.
Sensor Size and Tonal Reproduction
Sensor size tin also influence the camera's ability to record a full range of tones from white to black. Our regular camera tests consistently show that cameras with smaller sensors fail to accomplish this in brilliant conditions. It'due south mutual to detect blown-out highlights and blocked up shadows in such shots. In contrast, DSLR sensors with larger photosites can ordinarily record the full dynamic range in the subject field (although you may need to shoot raw files in order to extract all the highlight and shadow details in brilliant sunshine).
PRPG12_pg13A
PRPG12_pg13B
The illustration above has been cropped from a shot taken with a high-resolution digicam in bright sunlight. Note the lack of particular in the bright areas on the left wall of the house and also nether the verandah well-nigh the front end 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 camera's lens can influence epitome quality at least as much as the sensor'south megapixel count. There's a big difference betwixt a pocket-sized, inexpensive glass lens that y'all might find on an entry-level digicam and the loftier quality, multicoated lenses you lot would purchase for a DSLR. Five megapixels is probably the limit of resolving power for almost signal-and-shoot photographic camera lenses. Across a certain signal, diffraction will begin to reduce the resolving ability of the lens-plus-sensor organisation, as we have discovered from Imatest tests on many eight- and ten-megapixel digicams.
A farther consideration is the way the camera'south image processor handles the epitome data. In many digicams, the image processor automatically sharpens the image by default. This can farther dethrone picture quality, especially if information technology's already been reduced by diffraction. It'due south non uncommon to find a 10-megapixel digicam with worse performance than a half dozen-megapixel camera with a similar-sized sensor.
Subject lighting will too play a role in image quality, especially with small-sensor digicams. In dim conditions, photographers are forced to increment ISO speeds. However, with a small-scale-sensor digicam, this volition increase prototype noise, thereby reducing image quality. Every bit we've outlined above, larger photosites produce less image noise and requite photographers more flexibility with ISO settings. Shooting at ISO 800 may exist feasible on a DSLR while the same setting on a digicam will probably produce very racket-affected images.
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