10mp vs 18mp

[sumo67]

what is difference between 10mp and 18mp??? dont answere yet...besides the obvious 18 is bigger than 10.

i was told or read somewhere i dont rember that the number of mp past 10 dosent really matter, its just a gimic by the camera companies....

does that only apply if you are taking pics in jpeg instead or raw??

does it only really apply to the person doing point and shoot??

[OsmosisStudios]

For most applications, 10mp is more than sufficient. More megapixels, especially on a cropped sensor, usually means more noise, which is never good.

That being said, the difference between 18 and 10 is quite substantial and can be warranted.

[jdepould]

Differences in sensors are about much more than number of megapixels. You have to take into account physical size of the sensor, CCD or CMOS, what generation, microlens design, and on and on.

[kirbinster]

More megapixels can be worse, depending on the design. Nikon wanted to be able to compete in ads with Canon so the "upgraded" the 6.1 MP D40 to a 10 MP D40x. It was noisey and did not last on the market long.

[teaking]

One part that it comes into play is print size in a normal photo print 4x6, 5x7 10mp is more than enough your eyes cant see the difference between 18 and 10 at that size, but at larger print sizes A4, A3 and so on they can, they were examples I dont actually know the sizes that it comes into effect

...oh yeah sorry if you use a different paper system than the UK lol

[autofocus]

more isn't always better...Canon's G11 came out with less megapixels than the previous generation G10, and supposedly yields better results

[vandergus]

Originally Posted by kirbinster

More megapixels can be worse, depending on the design. Nikon wanted to be able to compete in ads with Canon so the "upgraded" the 6.1 MP D40 to a 10 MP D40x. It was noisey and did not last on the market long.

The reason it didn't last long wasn't because it was noisy. It was because it was replaced by the D60, which used the same sensor. And the D3000 still uses the same.

And I will have to voice my usual dissent that more pixels does not mean more noise, at least if your judging pictures and not pixels, which you should be. Noise is more a factor of the image processing and sensor size.

For the vast majority of situations, though, especially those encountered by hobbiests, 10 MP is plenty.

[sumo67]

i am also asking because its common for people where i am to blow photos up to 30 inches by 40 inches

[nathanbarlow]

Originally Posted by teaking

One part that it comes into play is print size in a normal photo print 4x6, 5x7 10mp is more than enough your eyes cant see the difference between 18 and 10 at that size, but at larger print sizes A4, A3 and so on they can, they were examples I dont actually know the sizes that it comes into effect

I use 6MP and have printed almost A4 (border) at 300dpi, and looks fantastic. I'd say I could go to A3 with a DPI of 180, but you would see the difference.

Having said that, the larger the print, the further away the viewer tends to be. You aint gonna be putting your nose on a A3 canvas hanging on a wall are you mate?

Main advantage of more pixels (to me at least) is that you could do some insane cropping if you needed to. So you can shoot with a wide aperture small tele (like a 100mm f2.8) and crop and it would appear like you used a 200mm or even 300mm. IF you have less pixels, you wont be able to crop as tight without loosing quality to get a decent size print/image.

Nathan

[kencaleno]

More pixels isn'the answer-what is needed are better quality pixels.

I have, and still use a 3.2 megapixel Olympus D-560 zoom and I print A4 size,and these prints are as sharp as prints from my 6 megapixel Nikon D-50

I have just purchased a Panasonic G1 12 megapixel point and shoot with interchangeable lenses - noise free up to 1200 Iso! regards, Ken