A technology writer for the NY Times has a fairly interesting editorial posted today on why megapixels donÂ’t matter. Definitely something for people to keep in mind this holiday season when you are camera shopping.
We blew up a photograph to 16 x 24 inches at a professional photo lab. One print had 13-megapixel resolution; one had 8; the third had 5. Same exact photo, down-rezzed twice, all three printed at the same poster size. I wanted to hang them all on a wall in Times Square and challenge passersby to see if they could tell the difference.
While some people might be skeptical, I have to agree with this guyÂ…after a certain point, you canÂ’t really tell the difference. Obviously there will be a visible difference between 1.3 megapixels and 5 megapixels, but I think anything above that will be just as the author says, very hard to tell any difference.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/21pogues-posts-2/
We blew up a photograph to 16 x 24 inches at a professional photo lab. One print had 13-megapixel resolution; one had 8; the third had 5. Same exact photo, down-rezzed twice, all three printed at the same poster size. I wanted to hang them all on a wall in Times Square and challenge passersby to see if they could tell the difference.
While some people might be skeptical, I have to agree with this guyÂ…after a certain point, you canÂ’t really tell the difference. Obviously there will be a visible difference between 1.3 megapixels and 5 megapixels, but I think anything above that will be just as the author says, very hard to tell any difference.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/21pogues-posts-2/