I hate megapixel whores

[randomlinh]

you know, my old school s10 was awesome. took great pictures. 2MP FTW! ok, FTW in light.. heh.

but yes, not being able to crop is an issue... but if you frame your picture right the first time, you wouldn't have that problem

My peeve related to this.. those who buy the 8MP camera, and post the full sized picture online when sharing... i don't want to wait to download the whole damn thing, I'm not printing it out!

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
on the other hand theres a lower limit. not being able to crop sucks, not having much detail also sucks, and its not likely a 3mp sensor camera is going to be slr quality type sensor stuff, more like obsolete old product with lousy small sensor

No point and shoots will have SLR quality because they don't have SLR-sized sensors. This doesn't matter for the vast majority of the population, for which a midrange P&S of 3-5MP will have enough quality for all of their photographic needs.

 

[NaOH]

7 mp Vivitar >>>>> 4 mp canon

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
on the other hand theres a lower limit. not being able to crop sucks, not having much detail also sucks, and its not likely a 3mp sensor camera is going to be slr quality type sensor stuff, more like obsolete old product with lousy small sensor

No point and shoots will have SLR quality because they don't have SLR-sized sensors. This doesn't matter for the vast majority of the population, for which a midrange P&S of 3-5MP will have enough quality for all of their photographic needs.

thats my point. a 3mp camera is going to be priced as a 3mp camera...a cheap cheap cheap camera, and will be built as a cheapcheap camera. minimum of 5mp i say for decent point and shoot, assuming its not a sh*t 5mp of course.

 

[Night201]

I had a situation like this, but with my video camera. Some person came up to me saying that their little consumer camera was better than my Panasonic pro-sumer video camera. He's like, my camera has a 720x zoom on it and yours is only 10x. I'm like yeah, real people don't use digital zooms because they degrade the quality. I didn't argue long with him because zooming isn't usually an issue for me. I wanted to be like, listen bud, my $3000+ camera kicks the crap out of your little $500 one, so shut up!"

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: AMDUALY
7 mp Vivitar >>>>> 4 mp canon

lol

 

[DaShen]

Originally posted by: BW86
lol, you can only laugh at people like that.

QFT. they are morons.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
So this lady in the office is looking for a P&S digicam and looking to spend $150 and I was just giving her some knowledge when this other clown walks over and says "You're wasting your time looking at those cameras because anything less than 6 megapixels is a waste." I just ignored him and walked away. There's no point arguing with idiots.

So instead of just saying "less than 6 megapixels is fine, optical quality matters more" you just started walking away?

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: tfinch2
So this lady in the office is looking for a P&S digicam and looking to spend $150 and I was just giving her some knowledge when this other clown walks over and says "You're wasting your time looking at those cameras because anything less than 6 megapixels is a waste." I just ignored him and walked away. There's no point arguing with idiots.

So instead of just saying "less than 6 megapixels is fine, optical quality matters more" you just started walking away?

Basically. Have you ever gotten into an argument with an irrelevant spec freak? It's like arguing about CPU/GPU speed in terms of mega or gigahertz.

 

[Bassyhead]

I still use a Canon A60 2MP, it takes great pics.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: GrammatonJP
I got a 7 from my wife for xmas.. but i usually toggle it lower.. dislike huge pictures size.. the only reason I get newer camera because of features.. not megapixels..

That's pretty silly too. Why not just reduce the size post-processing?

Maybe he doesn't want to buy a bigger memory card and has no plans to print higher than 8x10?

Why throw away information which can become useful in situations other than just printing size? You might realize that a different crop turns a dull picture into a winner. If you are outputting a 3mp file, you've got little/no ability to crop. Would film users be happy if all they got were 4x6 prints and no negatives? That's essentially what you are committing to by using a lower resolution setting on your camera.

Memory cards are dirt cheap. $30 buys you a card which can hold more jpgs on a 7mp p&s than one battery charge handles under normal usage.

I just don't see much advantage to shooting at a lower quality than your camera supports. Why kick yourself later when you realize you can't do what you wanted with a picture b/c you dislike huge picture files (which is relative anyway)?

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: GrammatonJP
I got a 7 from my wife for xmas.. but i usually toggle it lower.. dislike huge pictures size.. the only reason I get newer camera because of features.. not megapixels..

That's pretty silly too. Why not just reduce the size post-processing?

Maybe he doesn't want to buy a bigger memory card and has no plans to print higher than 8x10?

Why throw away information which can become useful in situations other than just printing size? You might realize that a different crop turns a dull picture into a winner. If you are outputting a 3mp file, you've got little/no ability to crop. Would film users be happy if all they got were 4x6 prints and no negatives? That's essentially what you are committing to by using a lower resolution setting on your camera.

Memory cards are dirt cheap. $30 buys you a card which can hold more jpgs on a 7mp p&s than one battery charge handles under normal usage.

I just don't see much advantage to shooting at a lower quality than your camera supports. Why kick yourself later when you realize you can't do what you wanted with a picture b/c you dislike huge picture files (which is relative anyway)?

I pretty much agree. I always shoot mine at the highest res for my G5. Not only can you resize it (looks better if you shoot at higher res) but you can keep it to archive (kind of like a negative I guess) and modify into more than one way later without sacrificing quality. But, other people have diff uses so to each his own.

Also, I only have 256mb cf card and it holds plenty.

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: DougK62
I agree. My Canon is only about 3 megapixel and it takes gorgeous pictures. Megapixels sells cameras, though - just like gigahertz sells computers. Everyone wants to attach an easy number to things.

My A75 with a photographer behind it > 7MP camera with a novice

Not that I'm claiming to be a photographer.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: DougK62
I agree. My Canon is only about 3 megapixel and it takes gorgeous pictures. Megapixels sells cameras, though - just like gigahertz sells computers. Everyone wants to attach an easy number to things.

Yep. Its part of the "everyone wants to have the best" culture we have. Nevermind the fact most people would be content with way less. The trouble is, most people are usually to ignorant about the things they buy to know what the best actually is. So when marketing offers them an oversimplified way to determine that they have the best, and easily brag about it they glom onto it without question.

Of course, anyone with deductive reasoning abilities knows marketing exists to lie to you and therefore there statements are irrelevant.

Agreed. I had a discussion in a business class about products becoming obsolete. By the end of the class, I had finally convinced everyone that a 5 year old computer isn't "obsolete" - a 5 year old computer is capable of doing *everything* that 90% of people use their computer for, and a new computer will have virtually no noticeable improvement in speed in completing those tasks (email, surfing the web, word processing.)

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: GrammatonJP
I got a 7 from my wife for xmas.. but i usually toggle it lower.. dislike huge pictures size.. the only reason I get newer camera because of features.. not megapixels..

That's pretty silly too. Why not just reduce the size post-processing?

Maybe he doesn't want to buy a bigger memory card and has no plans to print higher than 8x10?

Why throw away information which can become useful in situations other than just printing size? You might realize that a different crop turns a dull picture into a winner. If you are outputting a 3mp file, you've got little/no ability to crop. Would film users be happy if all they got were 4x6 prints and no negatives? That's essentially what you are committing to by using a lower resolution setting on your camera.

Memory cards are dirt cheap. $30 buys you a card which can hold more jpgs on a 7mp p&s than one battery charge handles under normal usage.

I just don't see much advantage to shooting at a lower quality than your camera supports. Why kick yourself later when you realize you can't do what you wanted with a picture b/c you dislike huge picture files (which is relative anyway)?

That's cool, whatever. I was just giving perfectly valid reasons why he might not want to use full-res all the time. What about you, I assume you shoot in RAW mode?

 

[nole1fan]

Yea, but we forget here that there are some people who will buy nothing but the best even if not needed. How many people here overbuild their PC or home theater system or Digital Camera with SLR feature set?

 

[wetcat007]

Ah yes please buy that high megapixel camera with the cheap lens it'll take good pictures because it has all the megapixels lol.

 

[JDrake]

lol

 

[wheresmybacon]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
So this lady in the office is looking for a P&S digicam and looking to spend $150 and I was just giving her some knowledge when this other clown walks over and says "You're wasting your time looking at those cameras because anything less than 6 megapixels is a waste." I just ignored him and walked away. There's no point arguing with idiots.

It was probably the same guy that has his 21" flatscreen LCD running at 640x480.

 

[couppi]

I am a professional photographer. I do a sizable chunk of catalogs like J.C. Penny, Tuesday Morning etc.
I own two 22 mp $25k monsters.
For point and shoot, though, I use a cheap supermarket camera. It takes great pictures and I'm not afraid of losing it. Amazing.

DSLR and all that is worthless for what most people use it for.

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: couppi
I am a professional photographer. I do a sizable chunk of catalogs like J.C. Penny, Tuesday Morning etc.
I own two 22 mp $25k monsters.
For point and shoot, though, I use a cheap supermarket camera. It takes great pictures and I'm not afraid of losing it. Amazing.

DSLR and all that is worthless for what most people use it for.

And yet, even you still would never use all 22 Megapixels unless you were blowing the JC Penny catalog up to billboard size

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: AMDZen

Originally posted by: couppi
I am a professional photographer. I do a sizable chunk of catalogs like J.C. Penny, Tuesday Morning etc.
I own two 22 mp $25k monsters.
For point and shoot, though, I use a cheap supermarket camera. It takes great pictures and I'm not afraid of losing it. Amazing.

DSLR and all that is worthless for what most people use it for.

And yet, even you still would never use all 22 Megapixels unless you were blowing the JC Penny catalog up to billboard size

There are other reasons to want a 48x36mm sensor besides megapixels... If you weren't just trolling for flames and would actually like to know, I'm sure several of us would be more than willing to explain.

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
So this lady in the office is looking for a P&S digicam and looking to spend $150 and I was just giving her some knowledge when this other clown walks over and says "You're wasting your time looking at those cameras because anything less than 6 megapixels is a waste." I just ignored him and walked away. There's no point arguing with idiots.

Very true. But, you proabably should have spent more time ascertaining what she wanted to use the camera for and what she wanted to get out of it. There is a benefit to the higher res shots for sure.

And you tell that idiot that I can show him some 5MP shots that will knock his socks off. I just got one back from Mpix that printed out at 10X15 @200 dpi and I am ok with it. It's not fantastic at that size, but it's acceptable.

I'd prob need to break out the 30D at 8MP if I were wanting to reshoot and sell that picture.

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan

Originally posted by: AMDZen

Originally posted by: couppi
I am a professional photographer. I do a sizable chunk of catalogs like J.C. Penny, Tuesday Morning etc.
I own two 22 mp $25k monsters.
For point and shoot, though, I use a cheap supermarket camera. It takes great pictures and I'm not afraid of losing it. Amazing.

DSLR and all that is worthless for what most people use it for.

And yet, even you still would never use all 22 Megapixels unless you were blowing the JC Penny catalog up to billboard size

There are other reasons to want a 48x36mm sensor besides megapixels... If you weren't just trolling for flames and would actually like to know, I'm sure several of us would be more than willing to explain.

First of all it wouldn't make it to billboard size with any kind of quality. Second there are many valid reasons to shoot a full 22MP for a 10 X 15 or 20 X 30. What do you know about this stuff?

 

[Smartazz]

I used a 16 megapixel Canon once, it was so nice, but not worth $8000.