«

A guy called Michael, recently replied to a post of mine and said 'How many
megapixels do we need?'. I thought this was a very good point, and made me
think a bit. (Bear with me on this.)

Resolution is something which will constantly increase, just like RAM and
Processor Speed of computers. If I remember correctly, Bill Gates once said
something along the lines of '512k RAM is enough for anybody'.

So, when is enough, enough when it comes to megapixels?

Bigger resolution does generally create sharper images because there is more
information to start with, and is why some people shoot Medium and Large
Format. The biggest advantage, apart from this, is the fact it gives you
more power to crop in Photoshop, etc.

Before you start typing your replies, I know there are photographers in here
who are thinking 'why crop?', why not get the picture you want in the first
place? Well, picture this. You are a sports photographer and are sitting
at the boundaries. You have only one lens, which is a wide angle lens.

You ask, 'Why no telephoto lens? The answer is, 'Because you don't need
it!'

The reason why you don't need it is because you just shoot away covering the
whole scene you want to shoot, and crop the part of the photo you want
because you have a gigapixel, or terapixel body.

Then, because the rest of the camera is just as good, you can sit there for
90 minutes, let the camera continuously shoot for the length of the game at
120fps and just take the crop of the frame you want.

Of course, this not just limited to sports photography, you could sit
anywhere you want to get the photo you want.

Scary isn't it! Not because of the fact that this future technology is a
possibility, but because photography will no longer be fun!

Last year i bought a medium format mamiya on the grounds of image quality,
true it is good, but what i have found most is that when i use the waist
level finder instead of the prisum the image clatity in the view finder far
outstrips anything i have had before and helps me see and frame the photos i
take. I love the camera so much i will always reach for it before my 35mm
canon.

Thanks

Karl

"Matt" <> wrote in message
news:cne22e$rtf$...
>A guy called Michael, recently replied to a post of mine and said 'How many
> megapixels do we need?'. I thought this was a very good point, and made
> me
> think a bit. (Bear with me on this.)
>
> Resolution is something which will constantly increase, just like RAM and
> Processor Speed of computers. If I remember correctly, Bill Gates once
> said
> something along the lines of '512k RAM is enough for anybody'.
>
> So, when is enough, enough when it comes to megapixels?
>
> Bigger resolution does generally create sharper images because there is
> more
> information to start with, and is why some people shoot Medium and Large
> Format. The biggest advantage, apart from this, is the fact it gives you
> more power to crop in Photoshop, etc.
>
> Before you start typing your replies, I know there are photographers in
> here
> who are thinking 'why crop?', why not get the picture you want in the
> first
> place? Well, picture this. You are a sports photographer and are sitting
> at the boundaries. You have only one lens, which is a wide angle lens.
>
> You ask, 'Why no telephoto lens? The answer is, 'Because you don't need
> it!'
>
> The reason why you don't need it is because you just shoot away covering
> the
> whole scene you want to shoot, and crop the part of the photo you want
> because you have a gigapixel, or terapixel body.
>
> Then, because the rest of the camera is just as good, you can sit there
> for
> 90 minutes, let the camera continuously shoot for the length of the game
> at
> 120fps and just take the crop of the frame you want.
>
> Of course, this not just limited to sports photography, you could sit
> anywhere you want to get the photo you want.
>
> Scary isn't it! Not because of the fact that this future technology is a
> possibility, but because photography will no longer be fun!
>
>
>

Well, Karl, don't get me started on medium/large format of the future.

The digital equivalent will be on satellites. This means that it will be
possible to take photos of the world, and crop to the part you want!

Just a thought, but is there any reason why this technology doesn't already
exist, and is already being used by the government?



"Karl" <> wrote in message
news3wmd.190$...
> Last year i bought a medium format mamiya on the grounds of image quality,
> true it is good, but what i have found most is that when i use the waist
> level finder instead of the prisum the image clatity in the view finder
far
> outstrips anything i have had before and helps me see and frame the photos
i
> take. I love the camera so much i will always reach for it before my 35mm
> canon.
>
> Thanks
>
> Karl
>

yeah, perspective. Not much call for photos of the wedding from above.
"Matt" <> wrote in message
news:cne553$lvg$...
> Well, Karl, don't get me started on medium/large format of the future.
>
> The digital equivalent will be on satellites. This means that it will be
> possible to take photos of the world, and crop to the part you want!
>
> Just a thought, but is there any reason why this technology doesn't
already
> exist, and is already being used by the government?
>
>
>
> "Karl" <> wrote in message
> news3wmd.190$...
> > Last year i bought a medium format mamiya on the grounds of image
quality,
> > true it is good, but what i have found most is that when i use the waist
> > level finder instead of the prisum the image clatity in the view finder
> far
> > outstrips anything i have had before and helps me see and frame the
photos
> i
> > take. I love the camera so much i will always reach for it before my
35mm
> > canon.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Karl
> >
>
>

"Matt" <> wrote in message
news:cne553$lvg$...
> Well, Karl, don't get me started on medium/large format of the future.
>
> The digital equivalent will be on satellites. This means that it will be
> possible to take photos of the world, and crop to the part you want!
>
> Just a thought, but is there any reason why this technology doesn't
already
> exist, and is already being used by the government?

Isn't there an optic limit to what you can achieve this way? Just the same
way that you can't simply use ever more powerful multiplying lenses to boost
the magnification of a given size telescsope (though this is the fraudulent
basis of most consumer telescope power claims). The image loses clarity once
you get past a mathematically determined limit.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:18:24 -0000, "Matt" <> wrote:

>Well, Karl, don't get me started on medium/large format of the future.
>
>The digital equivalent will be on satellites. This means that it will be
>possible to take photos of the world, and crop to the part you want!
>
>Just a thought, but is there any reason why this technology doesn't already
>exist, and is already being used by the government?
>
>
>
>"Karl" <> wrote in message
>news3wmd.190$...
>> Last year i bought a medium format mamiya on the grounds of image quality,
>> true it is good, but what i have found most is that when i use the waist
>> level finder instead of the prisum the image clatity in the view finder
>far
>> outstrips anything i have had before and helps me see and frame the photos
>i
>> take. I love the camera so much i will always reach for it before my 35mm
>> canon.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Karl
>>
>

You going to use a lens in front of this magic camera of yours? One
with infinite resolution, no aberrations, perfect MTF? do you have a
catalog number for it?


--

- Charles
-
-does not play well with others

"Charles" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:18:24 -0000, "Matt" <> wrote:
>
> ...
> You going to use a lens in front of this magic camera of yours? One
> with infinite resolution, no aberrations, perfect MTF? do you have a
> catalog number for it?
> ...

Of course any lens will resolve an image for an infinite
number of pixels. All you need is an infinite amount of
exposure time

Alan

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 19:45:09 -0500, "Alan Meyer" <>
wrote:

>"Charles" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:18:24 -0000, "Matt" <> wrote:
>>
>> ...
>> You going to use a lens in front of this magic camera of yours? One
>> with infinite resolution, no aberrations, perfect MTF? do you have a
>> catalog number for it?
>> ...
>
>Of course any lens will resolve an image for an infinite
>number of pixels. All you need is an infinite amount of
>exposure time
>
> Alan
>
Maybe an infinitely small pinhole lens?


--

- Charles
-
-does not play well with others

"Matt" <> wrote in message
news:cne22e$rtf$...
> ...
> So, when is enough, enough when it comes to megapixels?

The answer is, as it always is to questions like this, it
depends on the application. There are certain scientific
imaging applications where the more pixels the better.
I suspect that astronomical observation may fall into this
category. Maybe crime investigation could benefit from
huge numbers of pixels in photos of crime scenes.

For ordinary snapshots, we probably have all the pixels
we need.

> ...
> Then, because the rest of the camera is just as good, you can sit there
for
> 90 minutes, let the camera continuously shoot for the length of the game
at
> 120fps and just take the crop of the frame you want.
>
> Of course, this not just limited to sports photography, you could sit
> anywhere you want to get the photo you want.
>
> Scary isn't it! Not because of the fact that this future technology is a
> possibility, but because photography will no longer be fun!

I'm not afraid of this at all. The great photographers don't
win their photographs in a lottery - they visualize a scene and
move themselves into a position to capture it. Great portrait
photographers don't just wait for a great expression on their
subject, they elicit what they want. Great landscape artists
don't just go outside and start shooting - they think about
light, perspective, color framing, and everything else.

You may think that sports photos are pretty cut and dried.
After all, a football field or basketball court is a fixed size.
But the great sports photographers get photos that random
camera snaps might never get, or get only in a million photos,
taking more time to view to find them than it takes to learn
to be a good photographer.

The analogy isn't perfect by any means, but I think we
won't get great photography from random snapshooting
for the same reason we get don't great literature from monkeys
on typewriters or great music from cats jumping on piano keys.

In other words, improvements in mechanics make things
easier to do but, by themselves, do not make great
photographs.

Alan

Matt escribio:

> Before you start typing your replies, I know there are photographers in here
> who are thinking 'why crop?', why not get the picture you want in the first
> place? Well, picture this. You are a sports photographer and are sitting
> at the boundaries. You have only one lens, which is a wide angle lens.
>
> You ask, 'Why no telephoto lens? The answer is, 'Because you don't need
> it!'
>
> The reason why you don't need it is because you just shoot away covering the
> whole scene you want to shoot, and crop the part of the photo you want
> because you have a gigapixel, or terapixel body.
>

In sports photography, you need the telephoto lens in order to isolate
the subject from the background (blured background). You can't do that
with a wide-angle lens: even at f:2.8 the DOF is too much.

--
chidalgo