already purchased new p&s, some questions

[bslax28]

hey - i did a search and came up with nothing, so here goes -

ive had a canon s200 for years, and it served my needs. but i'm going to italy to study abroad for the next 4+ months so i thought it was time to get a new camera. i got the canon sd1000, which i read some solid reviews of and was within my price range. now that i've got it, i just have a few questions. i am interested in photography and, in an ideal world, will devote some free time in the future toward learning how to use a dslr. but for the time being, iw as hoping ot make the most of this camera.

i read some of the sites commonly linked on this forum about various aspects of the camera, and couldn't quite answer my question. basically, im curious in what circumstances it woudl benefit me to use the highest resolution (what my camera calls "superfine") and the largest image size (3072 x 2304). i've read that for the average user like myself memory card space is a priority over image quality, but card space is not really a concern for me. so, what are the real benefits of these huge and denser images? if they are only going to be viewed and sometimes edited on my computer, is there any reason to make the images larger or denser? i may have answered my own question here, but i remain confused. thanks for your help.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Even though you think you'll only view them on a computer you may very well find one stellar image that you want to print. You always want to shoot the highest res possible so that you can always have a workable file to possibly print from.

 

[147798]

Another important aspect to higher def pics is cropping. If you take a great pic while traveling in Italy and you want to blow it up, more pixels mean better looking cropped blow ups.

For example, your Elph 1000 has, what, 3X optical zoom? (avoid the digital zoom! shut it off now!) Let's say you're in the Roman Forum and you take a great picture of a statue. BUT you are 100' away because of the crowds and restrictions to where you can go. So, the statue you want to take a picture of only fills up about 1/4 of your field of view (that is, the picture you are taking). When you get home, you might want to blow that picture up to see the statue better.

To use extreme examples, let's say you have low res shot at 640X480. This means you have 640X480=307K pixels in the image. Now, if you took a picture in your highest format of 3072 x 2304, you'd have 7.1M pixels in that same image. The picture will look MUCH bigger on your computer and, you could zoom in on that picture in photoshop up to almost 4X (3072/640) before you'd be down to the same 640X480 resolution as the low-res picture.

So, in sum, If you use a low setting, to save space, you have less flexibility to rework your photos later (another example is the editing feature to straighten a photo, which relies on zooming to do it's job).

A simple real-world test is to take your new camera, and take two identical shots, but one with a high res setting, the other with a low res. Bring them into iPhoto and zoom into both at 3X. You'll see a big difference!

 

[bslax28]

thats a good point. thank you very much for the help.

 

[ChrisA]

.... in what circumstances it woudl benefit me to use the highest resolution (what my camera calls "superfine") and the largest image size (3072 x 2304).

More pixels means you can crop if you want and still have "enough" pixels.
All image processing works best one the larger sized image. THe "staighten" opeation likes big images and even color adjustment works better. Then when yo are all done export the image at the size that is right for viewing. If yo shoot in the high res mode you are preserving your options for post processing
What is "enough" depends on your output device. Screens don't need many pixels but printers do.

I would not worry so much about filling up a memory card. They are now so large and so cheap you can carry many GB aboud with you.

 

[Shacklebolt]

As one who has taken wayyyyy too many shots at 3 megapixels, I can tell you that it really, reallllly behooves you to shoot at the highest resolution possible. Should you ever, ever feel the need to print out a photo, higher resolutions really can make quite a bit of difference.

Enjoy the new camera.