I am not printing photos for my wall from a iPhone but rather from Mr. Powershot. I just printed an 8x10 image and it looks brilliant, but I have to wonder if I printed a larger size would it look brilliant at 10MP or do I need to adjust my res for such an occasion? 10MP is my default shooting res, but I can adjust my res if I need to.
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8x10 Prints or larger
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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Print a larger one and see if you like it. It really depends on the image and the kind of detail you want to show as well as the viewing distance. There are plenty of "rules" you can find on Mr. Google, but here's the top hit on a search I just did:
There are others, some that may be different. But again, just guidelines.
How Big Can You Print with Your Camera's Megapixels? - Improve Photography
How Big Can You Print with Your Camera's Megapixels?. I'm frequently asked how big of a print a photographer can make given their camera's 24, 16, 12, 18, 8
improvephotography.com
There are others, some that may be different. But again, just guidelines.
The limit is not your resolution. It is the tiny size of your camera sensor. The sensor is about 4.8x6.4mm or possibly 4.8x7.2mm. Despite the 20MP claim your camera is not really capturing 20MP of detail. It is closer to 3 or 4MP. I doubt that you would be able to see any difference between a 10 MP image interpolated up to 20 MP and the same image shot at 20MP. If your sensor was really capable of capturing 20 MP of data, then full frame cameras would have 500 MP sensors rather than the typical 50MP.
With a small sensor, to get to 8x10 inches each dimension is being enlarged at least 42 times. Even so most small sensor cameras will deliver good 8x10 images. Going bigger introduces a lot of variables, how much sky? How many fine details especially in the greens and blues? What ISO did your camera pick? You may not see the difference between an ISO of 200 and 1600 on a 13 inch laptop, but the bigger you print the more brutally obvious that difference will become. Given that your bar seems fairly low you may be able to take some images to 11x14 or even bigger, but not if there is a lot of fine detail or if the camera selected a high ISO. I've said it repeatedly, if you want to be able to count on prints larger than 8x10, you need a bigger sensor. Especially as you seem to expect the camera to do all of the work for you. Keep in mind that I have owned 6 small sensor cameras, one of which is still alive. I know their limits and love working with them. There is much to be said for a camera that can be tucked into pocket or carried in a purse or on a belt. They are fine for many photographers as long the photographer understands the cameras limits.
The next size up in sensors is the 1" sensor which is 8.8x13.2mm. These should easily produce excellent 16x24 prints as long as cropping is minimal. There are a handful of pocket sized cameras in this category, but they are more expensive than their small sensor counterparts.
With a small sensor, to get to 8x10 inches each dimension is being enlarged at least 42 times. Even so most small sensor cameras will deliver good 8x10 images. Going bigger introduces a lot of variables, how much sky? How many fine details especially in the greens and blues? What ISO did your camera pick? You may not see the difference between an ISO of 200 and 1600 on a 13 inch laptop, but the bigger you print the more brutally obvious that difference will become. Given that your bar seems fairly low you may be able to take some images to 11x14 or even bigger, but not if there is a lot of fine detail or if the camera selected a high ISO. I've said it repeatedly, if you want to be able to count on prints larger than 8x10, you need a bigger sensor. Especially as you seem to expect the camera to do all of the work for you. Keep in mind that I have owned 6 small sensor cameras, one of which is still alive. I know their limits and love working with them. There is much to be said for a camera that can be tucked into pocket or carried in a purse or on a belt. They are fine for many photographers as long the photographer understands the cameras limits.
The next size up in sensors is the 1" sensor which is 8.8x13.2mm. These should easily produce excellent 16x24 prints as long as cropping is minimal. There are a handful of pocket sized cameras in this category, but they are more expensive than their small sensor counterparts.
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Well at least Mr. Powershot is better than my iPhone 12 at capturing photos and video.
You've said this before and I've asked you for a citation that it's not actually capturing 20mp of data. Since you're still continuing to claim it, I'd really like to see it.
There are good reasons why big sensors(DX or FX sized) don't have the pixel size/density of smaller sensors and probably won't ever and (absent some ways to "bend" the laws of physics) no one would actually enjoy using a sensor that dense.
With every one of my six small sensor cameras (4 different makers), I could put them on a tripod, shoot the same image at low, medium and high resolution. Then interpolate the lower resolutions up to the same pixel count as the high. Then view at 100%. Guess what the medium and high resolution showed no difference and the small res was only marginally weaker. IOW My Kodak captured no more detail at 10MP than it did at 5MP, and my Fuji captures no more detail at 12MP than it does at 8MP.
With the new Panasonic and its 1-inch sensor when doing the same comparison test between 10 and 20MP there is a very clear difference. Using the same focal length equivalent, with the Fuji small sensor at 12MP and the Lumix 1 inch sensor at 10MP. The Lumix captures significantly more detail despite the slightly lower resolution.
It really does not matter why with small sensor cameras, full resolution captures no more detail than medium resolution. I have proven to my own satisfaction that this is indeed so. If you want to argue that the lenses simply cannot take advantage of that degree of sensor density, that's fine. The result is the same.
Since my normal routine is to set ISO at 100 or 200 depending on the camera, I never did bother to test to see if there was a difference in noise levels at higher ISOs, when using different resolutions. I would suggest there would not be with older CCD sensors as they were already a bit noisy at 200 ISO even with full resolution. Possibly there would be some slight difference with the newer CMOS sensors.
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It’s not when you limit the camera to 10MP.
The other factor is your eyes. Some people see better than others. I’ve personally never liked any printed image I’ve seen from my iPhone. But I have some huge images printed at work (biggest must be 6ft across) and they look great.
Glad you liked your print (and it’s good to hear people ARE printing!).
More importantly was it the frog or the lion?
I don’t shoot people. Well not very often. Enjoy your prints.
Taking a well executed head shot may bring a "bull's eye" scoring.
KGB
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Well I can think of a few people I’ve had the misfortune to meet that need shooting!
This is not really a scientific test. You haven't factored in whether the lenses can resolve the detail enough to make use of the native sensor resolution. The ones where you are seeing a difference have more modern lenses with better coatings and optics. At the end of the day if you place a Holga lens on a Nikon D300, a Sony A7RIV and on a Fuji GFX100s, the limit in detail is the plastic lens not the sensors.
Never claimed it was scientific. That would of course involve disassembling the camera. It does however show clearly whether there is anything gained by going maximum resolution with any particular camera and is super easy to do. Can even be repeated at different focal lengths and ISOs.
My new Lumix with it's still fairly small sensor shows a very clear difference between 10 and 20MP, shooting at an ISO of 125. Even at 10MP it captures much more detail than my little Fuji waterproof at its maximum 16MP. However the sensor area of this 20MP camera is roughly 4 times greater than that of my little Fuji and of the OPs super-duper PowerShot. Regardless with this one I will be shooting full resolution 100% of the time as there really is something to be gained.
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lol... you have had me trawling the hindernet looking for the information I missed on sensor detail.... ha ha ha... questioning my understanding of it all....
