![]() We asked whether megapixels is like money, where more is always better. In the real world, many people are ONLY seeing downsized images. So most of the time, people are viewing downsized images. Looking at resolution history, we can see that early dSLRs could struggle with high quality 8X10 prints but today, most smart phones would have sufficient resolution.įor many people who only view their photos on facebook, instagram, and small/medium prints, they may never actually be using more than about 8 megapixels. So if you print 8X10, you are printing a 7.2 megapixel image. A HD television displays only a 2mp image.Ī very high quality print will generally be 300 dpi (dots or pixels per inch). A 4K television displays the same number of pixels whether it is a 40 inch tv or 60 inch tv: about 8mp. When viewing on a computer, we cannot view more resolution than supported by the computer screen. Something to understand right away, we rarely are viewing the full resolution of any modern camera photograph. In this post, for demonstration purposes, we will compare the 24mp of the Sony A9/A7iii with the 42mp of the Sony A7riii, and we will analyze the numbers for the A7riv… Viewing Full REsolution versus Downsizing So what does all of this resolution mean in the real world. As we will see below though, this does not make it a 50% better camera… Nearly a 50% increase in resolution from the Sony A7riii. Now, for about $3500, Sony brings a massive 61 megapixels of resolution. While the price gap has narrowed with the introduction of the Sony A7riv, the launch price of the Sony A7riii was more than a thousand dollars higher than the Sony A7iii, despite only a few differences apart from the sensor resolution. While mostly the same camera apart from the resolution, the Nikon Z7 is over $1000 more than the Z6. The extra resolution comes at significant cost. (And the Canon 5Dsr pushed it to 50 megapixels). While the 24mp cameras stayed at 24mp as models were iterated, 36mp became 42mp in the Sony A7rii/A7riii and became 45mp in the Nikon D850/Z7. Sony and Nikon both offered full frame camera variants in 24mp and 36mp varieties. The camera makers continued to develop increasing resolution sensors, but kept most of their full frame cameras in the 20-30 megapixel range. APS-C camera resolution stabilized at about 24 megapixels: Today, almost every aps-c camera from Canon, Nikon or Sony have between 20 and 24 megapixels. Something changed around 2012 and ever since: There was a split in the resolution wars. For Sony, their aps-c Sony A77 hit 24 megapixels in 2011 and the full frame Sony A99 hit 24 megapixels in 2008. Digital cameras steadily progressed into this territory, and then something happened: For the most part, there was a division when cameras hit the 20 to 30 megapixel range in the 2008 to 2012 era. Still, the consensus is that 35mm is about equivalent to 12-20 megapixel digital images. Depends on many factors and it’s not easy to compare analog film with digital megapixels. If you research film equivalent resolution, you won’t get a universal answer. Film superiority remained but the gap was narrowing. 10 megapixels proved sufficient for decent “normal” size prints but you could forget about detailed large prints or significant cropping. In those early days, each iteration brought a significant useful upgrade in sensor resolution, from 2 megapixels to 6 megapixels… My first dSLR was the Sony A100 at 10 megapixels in 2006. I recall stupidly proclaiming in the early 2000’s, that digital would never catch up to the quality and resolution of film. In the early days of dSLRs and digital cameras, digital sensors resolved less detail than film. Whether it is useful for many photographers or an over-glorified spec. But is resolution like money, where more is always better? In this article, we will address the benefits and costs of 61 megapixels. The first generation started at 36 megapixels with the newest model at 61 megapixels, the highest resolution full frame camera on the market, by a fair margin. Sony has announced the Sony A7Riv, the fourth iteration of their high resolution (R) model. Tweet High Resolution Full Frame Cameras: Do we need the 61mp of the Sony A7riv?ĭo Photographers Really Need More Resolution? Who needs the 61mp of the Sony A7riv?
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