Why megapixels arent important

Unfortunately though, many of the manufacturers went off on a megapixel quest as a marketing opportunity rather than an image quality quest, which is, of course, what it should be. Many photographers fall into the trap of believing more megapixels equal better quality, and while more megapixels do equate to higher resolution, it does not necessarily mean better image quality.

Megapixels are made up of millions of pixels. These pixels contain specific colour information that make up the image. Often used interchangeably with megapixels, the term resolution does not simply refer to the number of megapixels in an image.

More accurately, it refers to how clearly the medium can capture and record detail this is particularly important when it comes to printing images. This can be influenced by factors such as lens and sensor quality, file type, and ISO. Photosite sizes can range from as small as 1. Larger photosites can record much better dynamic range, which gives a better transitional tonal value, greater tonal accuracy, and better colour accuracy.

For example, the image quality of a megapixel camera phone will be far less than that of a megapixel medium-format camera. Think of it this way: a larger bucket will catch more rain than a smaller bucket.

Megapixels can be calculated by multiplying the height and width of a sensor in pixels or, in other words, the dimensions of the image and dividing that number by 1 million. For example, an image with a resolution of x would produce a 20MP image:.

Individual pixel size can be calculated by taking the width of the sensor in millimetres divided by the image width in pixels, and multiplying by For example, a camera with a x resolution and a 36 x 24mm full-frame sensor would have 6. While sensor type and size, megapixel count and pixel size are all important when it comes to image quality, there are other, often overlooked, factors such as lens choice, file type, and the setting combinations used to capture the image that also have an impact.

An image shot with an older model lens will result in a lower resolution image than the same image, shot with a newer model lens with better optical design. Even though the same number of megapixels will be recorded because it is the same camera , the newer lens design will likely have better contrast, colour accuracy and sharpness, resulting in better resolution. One of the most important things to consider when it comes to lens choice is the actual quality of the lens.

Chromatic aberration is one factor that you should pay particular attention to. A common optical problem in lower quality lenses that results in colour fringing along high-contrast edges, chromatic aberration is a result of dispersion when wavelengths of colour are focused at different positions on the focal plane or, in simpler terms, when a lens fails to focus wavelength colours to the same point. Regardless of how many megapixels there are in an image, if a lens is poor quality, a factor like this will always result in a lower-quality image when compared to a lens that does not result in chromatic aberration.

A second factor to consider is diffraction, which can result in reduced sharpness in an image. This is a result of light rays passing through a small opening, such as the aperture. It can also occur if the photosites on a sensor are too small. If the opening or photosites are too small, it causes the rays to overlap and interfere with each other.

This interference means light is added in some places, and reduced in others. When the rays hit the sensor, they create a pattern known as an Airy disk, which basically describes the best-focused spot of light. If the focused spots of light are too close, it becomes impossible to resolve the individual patterns, causing a loss of sharpness and image quality.

The file format you choose to shoot in will have a big impact on how much information can be stored in an image. Although both file types contain the same number of pixels, RAW images store far more information within those pixels than JPEG images you could think of it as hidden data which can be extrapolated from the RAW file to produce better quality images , which compresses the data and results in less being available to process. Another factor that influences image quality is knowledge.

Only if you understand how cameras work; how to correctly expose an image; where to focus; what lenses, equipment and setting combinations to use; and how to correctly light images to compensate for dynamic range will you be able to create the highest quality images. Dynamic range refers to the number of steps between the blackest blacks and whitest whites in an image. Each camera and even the different recording mediums has its own dynamic range, although the ultimate goal is to have the maximum range of tones in between the black and white values.

Your camera settings also play a role in the image quality, particularly the aperture. Using small apertures like f22 will enhance the diffraction problem I mentioned earlier and result in small details in the image to be lost, causing a softer looking image. As you can see from the points discussed above, image quality does not just depend on the number of megapixels in an image.

Although megapixels play a role in overall image quality, they are not the be-all-and-end-all. The higher the megapixel count on a camera sensor, the greater amount of detail that can be captured in a picture.

For instance, a 6MP sensor captures roughly fifty percent more detail in an image than a 4MP sensor and double what a 3MP sensor has and four times that of a 1. For images viewed on a HDTV, computer monitor or even a smartphone, this may not matter much but it has a huge impact on those that actually want to print their images out. When printing pictures out to photo paper, it is generally considered that the best print is obtained with a dpi dots per inch setting.

This is viewed as the highest level that the human eye can distinguish detail at a standard viewing distance. Now, the number of pixels required to to print at this highest quality setting is going to vary depending on the size of the print. You can still get acceptable images printed as low as dpi which requires a much smaller sensor size.

Here is a table of required sensor sizes for printing at the two different dpi levels:. So if you want really large prints, you need a very high megapixel sensor. With the majority of cameras, tablets and smartphones offering at least 4MP for their sensors, all can take some very highly detailed pictures suitable for the majority of consumers.

An example of what the final image would be using a 4x digital zoom crop against the full sensor image. Click for Larger view. So why did I bring this up? Well, with cameras offering extremely high number of pixels, the digital zoom can result in closer images that still offer a high level of detail when it comes to printing or using on the web. For instance, a 14MP image that is zoomed in at a 4x level still has 3. This can be a huge benefit for something like a smartphone camera which is restricted to a fixed focal length and cannot zoom in optically with lenses.

Based on what I have said so far, it is obvious that if you are looking to get a camera, you want the highest number of megapixels as you can get. This is precisely what the camera companies would like you to think because the first thing they always mention when talking about a camera or camera features is to bring up how many megapixels the sensor is. The problem is that the size of the pixels can matter just as much as the number of them.

So today, I want to share just one of them. So, since no two photographers are the same, no single piece of advice can ever be one size fits all. But, it still bears repeating. We are photographers. We love cameras. It is highly likely that our infatuation with the art form began sometime around the first time we held one of those strange combinations of metal and glass in our hand and heard that distinctive sound of the shutter as it went click.

As we journeyed towards our new passion in earnest, we obsessed over every new camera body that arrived in the marketplace, each more beautiful than the one before. We committed manufacturers' spec sheets to memory. One of you may argue that megapixels is far too many. Another may argue that 20 megapixels is too little. I get it. I have cameras ranging from 24 MP to MP. And there are differences. But, often along the way, I also tend to conveniently forget that I began my career on the back of a 10 MP camera.

It was enough to get me published in major international magazines and get the ball rolling on a portfolio. To be sure, the images I take today with higher-megapixel cameras are far better than the ones I took with my old Nikon D But I hasten to say that the improvement is more the result of me being a better photographer now than I was 15 years ago, rather than just an upgraded sensor.

Long story short, great camera, but perhaps not the best fit for my shooting style. It produces amazing image files, but with a tendency to frustrate the heck out of me along the way. Without question, I can do everything with it that I can do with my D But, in practice, it takes a lot longer to do the same things, and the process of doing them is a lot less fluid. Ironically, 15 years in, that effort started back at the beginning. Certain shortcomings of the GFX highlighted certain gaps in my technical knowledge that I never had to address before.

So, I had to do an extended amount of research to strengthen those muscles just to be able to use the GFX properly. Yet, a funny thing happened. Rather than my newfound technical knowledge causing me to fall in love with the GFX , I instead found myself applying those newfound skills to my trusty old Nikon. Suddenly, a camera that I was giving serious consideration to leaving behind was again staking its claim as my favorite camera.

Without a doubt, shot in a vacuum, the sheer image quality of the GFX was still a cut above the rest. But, by applying those new skills that had been forced upon me by the new system back into my old system, I was realizing that my existing lower-megapixel camera was perfectly capable of producing files that looked just as good. Some benefits that I had been ascribing to high megapixels were really just a matter of technique.

Even more unexpected, after a decade and a half of asking how I could get more megapixels, I instead found myself looking for every opportunity to use less. And I was doing so with a camera body that I personally found more efficient and enjoyable to use. I suddenly found myself in a position where my most expensive and impressive camera in terms of specs was the one I least enjoyed using.

And while, if one were to put the files from all three cameras side by side, there would be a definite difference in quality when pixel-peeping, when I stepped back and tried to just judge the artistic merit of the various images I was creating, I found I was still creating better work with the Nikons.

Of course, this is purely subjective and impossible to quantify. That could simply be a result of having so many years of experience holding them. Again, completely subjective, and not an official review that should sway your opinion one way or another. But, for me, the differences felt real and were having an actual effect on my ability to achieve results I was happy with.

I wanted to dig deeper and see if I could apply some more objective logic to which camera I was using and when, so I could make better investment decisions in the future. Like every good education, there was a lot of math involved. I am an advertising photographer by trade. So, my choice of camera is not based solely on my personal enjoyment. My clients need image files that can be cropped multiple ways, blown up large from all the various crops, be viewed up close, and still retain their sharpness.

So, there is a practical reason why I tend to invest in higher-megapixel cameras and medium format systems. In fact, part of almost every bid I submit for major ad campaigns is a line item for rental of a medium format system. Generally this is the Hasselblad or Phase One system. The purchase of the GFX , in fact, was partly driven by a desire to retain some of that rental income myself by renting the system to my own productions.

While delving deep into my re-education, I decided to do a bit of research to find out exactly how many megapixels were required to make various sizes of prints. This led me to various online calculators that allowed me to put in the megapixels associated with each of my cameras and find out what the largest print was that I could make from that camera using dpi as a baseline.

Of course, you can lower your dpi to make larger prints, but I wanted to base my analysis on the highest quality possible. What I found was this: A MP image in the 4x3 aspect ratio of a medium format sensor could print natively at dpi an image of My And my That, of course, assumes no cropping is involved. So clearly, as expected, the more megapixels you have, the larger you can print before you have to start decreasing the dpi.

That is what you are paying for when you opt for a high-megapixel camera. And that is why one might want to invest in a camera with more megapixels if they have clients who require their images to be printed large. Or, as is often overlooked in the discussion, if one has clients who want to crop heavily into that image and still be able to print large. Like I said, the majority of my income is derived through commercial photography aimed at advertisers.

A large percentage of it will also end up in the digital world, in the editorial world in a magazine, in a print for a fine art exhibition, or simply printed for my portfolio. So, I wanted to go back through my work over the last several years and do an analysis of where the vast majority of my images actually did end up being printed, if they were being printed at all. And how did that jive with the amount of money I had invested in increased megapixels? What I found was that for the bulk of jobs that did require higher-megapixel counts to suit advertisers needs, I was renting medium format Hasselblads or Phase One cameras with higher megapixel counts.

They just feel more stable when big money is on the line to me personally. And because the type of clients that actually need that level of quality usually accept the fact that they will have to pay for it, it is a financially neutral situation from a business standpoint.