8 replies to this topic

[Serge]

Hello!

 

I'm posting this to show you that one of the popular urban legends with regards to number of Megapixels and large format prints is...well...not entirely true.

Sales guys who are selling cameras are telling customers that 24 Mpix is the minimum to print something big. 36Mpix is just enough.

Because I work in print industry and I also have my own little studio with large format printer I've decided to prove that they are wrong.

 

OK then. Here is the original picture which I took not so long time ago using D300s (12Mpix) - jpeg straight from the camera:

 

 

Here is picture of A1 poster (sorry for WB and light ) printed from the same jpeg:

 

 

And now the best part. Here is another picture of this poster. You can read VIN number of this Toyota without any problems. It is 8 cm long. Bear in mind that focus point was not on this number:

 

 

Conclusion? You don't need megapixels to print large prints. In fact I've been printing A0 posters or really big canvases from 8-10Mpix cameras and they were just fine.

One thing worth to remember: people don't look at large prints from 5 cm. Usually they are hanging on the walls and mostly are being viewed from 2-3 meters - not a chance that someone will spot the difference between 12 and 24 Mpix camera. Even though if you get closer like I did taking picture of VIN number you can clearly see enough detail.

 

I hope this will be helpful to some of you

[chuckt]

U R so wrong. Viewers will get as close as possible to a picture they like. If the pix doesn't appeal nothing will them stop to look. What expertise do I have to say this? 1966 to present day as a lab rat.

Cvt

[Serge]

Let me put it this way: 5 years ago you could dream about budget 20 Mpix and still people were printing large format prints for exhibitions. I know the photographer who was using Canon 30d (8.2 Mpix) and was printing really big framed posters from his shots for really big exhibitions. The secret is you need to know how to prepare such a file for large format print (but without rescaling).

 

Recently I've printed for my friend 20x30" canvas from 3.2 Mpix photo as it was the only one available and it looked great. So I think I have the right to say that as I'm doing this every day.

 

Cheers,

Serge

[Merco_61]

I think that you both are right, but with one big difference. Chuckt I think has his experience from the commercial lab where the audience is photographers who are used to evaluating technical merit rather than the whole. Serge has his from the print industry, where the audience is used to rasterized images and art prints where the viewing distance is set by seeing the whole picture. Or in other words. –Pixelpeeping photographers aren't normal people.

[Nesster]

Excellent post, on a point that needs to be repeated. There are so many (marketing) things about photography that get repeated as absolute truth with very few people actually bothering to check for themselves.

 

I really feel bad for humanity before 24/36 MP digital, especially when we were dealing with mere film. We must have been visually impaired and/or culturally deprived

[iNYONi]

I would love to see an exact match between a budget 10mp camera and a D800E, using same lens and taken at the exact same time....blown up in large format...lets see what the difference is..

[Nesster]

I would love to see an exact match between a budget 10mp camera and a D800E, using same lens and taken at the exact same time....blown up in large format...lets see what the difference is..

 

I might be able to do something --- a 6 MP K100D Pentax, and a D600 --- the same lens would have to be a Tamron Adaptall 90mm macro. My printer does 13 inches, so I could print them that way, or else print a smaller section at that size. And I could shoot with a film camera and the same lens as well, and see how well a mini lab scan prints (given what's being said generally, you'd think a 1500 pix wide film scan would not look good at 11 inches wide, but I've done this many times and the results look fine)

[iNYONi]

I might be able to do something --- a 6 MP K100D Pentax, and a D600 --- the same lens would have to be a Tamron Adaptall 90mm macro. My printer does 13 inches, so I could print them that way, or else print a smaller section at that size. And I could shoot with a film camera and the same lens as well, and see how well a mini lab scan prints (given what's being said generally, you'd think a 1500 pix wide film scan would not look good at 11 inches wide, but I've done this many times and the results look fine)

That would be a great test. I remember a few years back a Uk tv shaw called The Gadget Show did a test with a massive print taken on different cameras, they basically covered the side of a small building with a picture, they tested it with a camera with very small pixel count and i think the top end back then was 10 megapixel......well it was a better picture on the 10mp but not that different....

[Long Exposure]

It is hard to understand the "arguing" on this thread.  It is a matter of mathematics, gents.

 

What is dpi of any given printer, 120, 360, 720 (maybe)?  Choose your number and do the math.

 

The D800 has a pixel width of 7360 pixels.