The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

How to improve your photography and get off the GAS cycle

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
One word, PRINT

I've recently been revisiting a lot of my images and printing again and you know what, 16mp is awesome even at 17x22in (albeit square or 4:3 vs 3:2), and that pretty much covers all of my gear with the exception of my MF gear.

Do I see the difference at 24in wide off my Z3200 when shooting 60mp or 36mp - sure I do. Do I see it at 17x22? In reality I can't say that I do when the images are all well prepared from 16mp.

Thoughts? Am I smoking crack or just have low standards? I don't think so but I'm intrigued by the the thoughts of others here.

Ps. Not selling off the big gear anytime soon, if ever.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I think you're right. My favorite shot with a 60MP back has a road sign in the distance. On the screen, you can read that the sign says Pavement Ends. In a 20x24 print, that sign is a yellow dot.

At the other extreme, I have a 4MP (foveon) shot from a little Sigma that prints sharp at 17x22. It's a city scape with distant construction cranes, and you can see their cables as delicate lines.

I just need more wall space!

Best,

Matt
 

jlm

Workshop Member
matt nailed it; wall space is the limiting factor, maybe we need a mpx/room factor, or more correctly, dots/room
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
My conclusion mostly is the bigger the sensor the better the tonality of the image. Or we can say it this way too, looks a little less digital. One big problem is people look at 100 percent which is really not reality in print more like 50 or 66 percent is a much better viewing percentage to print. The biggest user issue is in there head "I spent thousands of dollars on this lens and it better resolve to the ultimate"

Get that out of your head and you won't be a lens slut like me. Lol
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Guy,

Yes, I absolutely agree about the tonality transition improvement with higher resolution. Again though this depends a lot on the final output size of your prints too. It's very subtle at 8.5 x 11in I find, but it's really only as you scale up it does it become less so.

It's somewhat humbling working some images taken in 2002 with my Kodak 645M 16mp digital back and appreciating just how well they'll print today. I think part of this also is the improvement in raw converters and image processing but it's still great being able to go back to your old captures and have them re-render as if the cameras had been upgraded to 2014. (This is particularly true of my older Nikon files too).
 
Top