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Are all those megapixels worth it? 10mp Vs 3.3mp pic comparisons |
Sammy_boy
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Staffordshire, United Kingdom
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I don't understand why people think that more megapixels equals better pictures. With SE, Samsung and others bringing out 8 megapixel cameraphones, some of which have quite advanced features like face recognition but do you really need all those megapixels? You only need a 3-4mp sensor to print up to A4 kinds of sizes, and most of us don't print pictures out at that size! Some are saying that cameraphones will lead to the demise of the compact digital camera, but I doubt that - many of us know that more megapixels doesn't necessarily mean better pictures.
I have an 8-year old Nikon Coolpix 880 camera that I got for the grand total of £6.27 including postage and has a faulty power button that I need to turn the camera on using a hair grap - but it takes brilliant pictures! A couple of examples from this camera below:
Lichfield Cathedral:
Neighbour's cat:
It would be interesting to see a comparison between this new generation of cameraphones and an older but quality digital cameras and see which produces better pictures - I suspect the camera will still win out. Cramming lots of pixels onto a small sensor degrades picture quality, and wish phone manufacturers would concentrate on developing or improving other features like optical zoom, better dynamic range or something rather than ramping up the megapixel count!
What does everyone else think?
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"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke
[ This Message was edited by: Sammy_boy on 2008-11-21 11:14 ] | |
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KingBooker5
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: London, England
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Nope they aint needed. It looks good on paper, therefore people will buy it. Thats their marketing ploy, no matter if it reduces picture quality. To be honest 5 is a bit too much.
To be honest, the pictures the k800 come out with are the best I have seen with a phone. They are more crisp and sharp than the 850's. |
arien617
Joined: Feb 01, 2006
Posts: > 500
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No you don't need all those megapixels, but to be fair, knowing you would be able to blow special photos up onto large canvas and zoom in to pick out every detail will appeal to many... and it certainly does for me.
But, many don't understand what a sensor even bloody does! So I can see these inflated megapixel counts working in the manufacturers' favour. General knowledge about this is pretty low - most think the more megapixels, the better the result.
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fatreg
Joined: Jul 26, 2003
Posts: > 500
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To be even more fair, an C905 doesn't even come close to my old fuji f455 and that's only 5mp, but as Arien as said, it's satisfying to know I can have any one of my pics from my cam scaled up to A1 without any fear of loosing any detail, also conversely, I can zoom into a specific part of my pictures and cut out all sorts of stuff that is superfluous, no your human eye can't comprehend anything over 5mp but it can see big pictures...
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number1
Joined: Sep 12, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: UK,kent,Sittingbourne
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Indeed higher megapixel counts degrade the quality, Chromatic aberration , noise & strong noise reduction are all you get with higher pixel counts.
Useful links
http://6mpixel.org/en/?page_id=8
http://6mpixel.org/en/?page_id=21
http://6mpixel.org/en/?page_id=13
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Sammy_boy
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Staffordshire, United Kingdom
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Interesting link that, Number1! I knew that the number of megapixels was unimportant and might slightly degrade image quality (due to pixel size being reduced due to sensor sizes) regarding picture quality, didn't realise to what extent! I had been wondering why my tatty old Coolpix 880 and my ageing Coolpix 4500 (4 megapixels) seemed to take better pictures than my new Coolpix S510 and Sony DSC-W170 compact cameras! As you can probably guess, I've had a few cameras and haven't quite been happy with any of them - maybe I should just sell them and stick to my dSLR and the old Nikon!
I might do a photo comparison tomorrow between the 880 and the newer cameras - I'd include a camera phone pic too but don't have any phones with 'decent' cameras currently - haven't bothered so much lately as I tend to carry a digicam with me most places instead.
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke
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Sammy_boy
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Staffordshire, United Kingdom
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Here's a quick comparison, a crop of the same area of a picture I took of the Esato homepage on my laptop screen. Not sure if this has worked OK but here goes:
Sony W170, 10mp, program auto mode:
Nikon Coolpix 880, 3.4mp, program auto mode:
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke
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streetgang
Joined: Aug 02, 2005
Posts: 160
From: England
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Do you buy the latest "camera" phone for the camera or the phone? you still only making calls on it after all. Its consumer led, how many members on these forums have got a 5MP + cam phone? the cost alone when new is often more than a dedicated digital compact which when used properly produces superior results as there are no compromises in the construction and design, its going to be a camera from the start.
The mega pixel myth is often put about by people who need to justify the purchase of the latest "gear", how many people print out poster size anyway? Before i purchased a digi compact i used a 15+ year old Olympus 35mm XA3, theres a sample pic below but would you have been able to tell the equipment used without me telling you............no, because most if not all digi camera users view the image on a standard pc monitor so comparisons are difficult, large high quality printing is what shows up quality images.
If you like the image that YOU have taken then thats whats important
http://pbrstreetgangsrandomstuff.blogspot.com/
streetgang (+24, -0) |
Sammy_boy
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Staffordshire, United Kingdom
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Nice picture streetgang, sharp and shows a good dynamic range.
Here's a couple more comparison pictures, see what you think and which camera is better, I'd like to hear any comments! 
Pictures are crops - 100% crop of the Sony picture, and the equivalent crop from the Nikon - as it's got a smaller megapixel count it's probably more than a 100% crop - am I doing this fairly? Let me know if there's a better/fairer way of doing the comparison.
Outdoor picture, ISO100, program auto mode on both cameras:
Sony W170:
Coolpix 880:
Indoor picture, ISO 400, program auto mode on both cameras:
Sony W170:
Coolpix 880:
The Sony appears to have captured more detail but the indoor picture from the Cyber-Shot has more aggressive noise reduction therefore blurring of detail - still more detail than the Coolpix though. What do you think?
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"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke
[ This Message was edited by: Sammy_boy on 2008-11-21 11:12 ] | |
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Access the forum with a mobile phone via esato.mobi
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Posted: 2008-11-20 20:04
