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There's another essential factor that people just don't seem to be talking about - the decline of print. You don't need 40 megapixels of useful resolution if yo

There's another essential factor that people just don't seem to be talking about - the decline of print. You don't need 40 megapixels of useful resolution if your photos will be viewed on a 2mp iPhone screen. You don't need a sensor with 14 stops of dynamic range if your images will be displayed on a screen with 6 stops of dynamic range. Sensor quality matters much less than it did at the beginning of the DSLR revolution, because the bottleneck in the image chain lies elsewhere. The vast majority of photographers rarely if ever print their images, so most of the advantages of a large sensor are rendered moot.

deleted 8y ago
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crazygringo 8y ago
Actually, it's the opposite. A 4x6 print didn't have crazy high resolution. They usually use 1800x1200px as input resolution (~2.2MP). Your iPhone X is actually slightly more detailed (2436x1125=2.7MP). And if you're talking about stops of dynamic range, print has always been less than a screen. But if you want a photo to look crystal-clear on your iMac's slide show screen saver? That's 5120x2800px=14.3MP. It allows for stunning detail which consumers just never had access to before. (Even the iPad Pro is 5.6MP, more than double a traditional photo.) But the real advantage, of course, in both megapixels and dynamic range is in post-processing: you can crop to the quarter of the photo that's interesting and bring out the detail in the shadows and it's still high-quality enough to use as an eye-catching retina-resolution header for your Medium post. Remember, phones don't have deep optical zoom lenses, so megapixels have to do that job instead.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  >A 4x6 print didn't have crazy high resolution. Which is why most consumers used fairly crummy fixed-lens cameras with fast film and were perfectly happy with digital cameras with ~4MP effective resolution. You do need a whole bunch of resolution if you're printing to double-page magazine spreads, large-format fine art prints or billboards, which is why professional photographers (other than photojournalists) were relatively late adopters of digital cameras. >And if you're talking about stops of dynamic range, print has always been less than a screen. At your local photomat, yes. A good giclée print has about 11 stops of dynamic range. A normal 8-bit LCD has about six stops of dynamic range and a really good OLED has about ten stops under ideal viewing conditions. My broader point is that pretty much all modern cameras are more than good enough for 99% of users. It's a tiny minority who will actually see the benefit of better cameras in the images they produce. Most people will only ever notice an improvement in resolution if they're pixel-peeping in Lightroom and will only notice an extra stop of dynamic range on the histogram. If you go out and buy an entry-level DSLR with a kit lens, you probably won't get noticeably better results than just using your iPhone. That's a good thing for consumers, but a bad thing for camera manufacturers.
non-nil 8y ago
This is not entirely accurate. While many people do view their photos at small sizes on pretty poor screens, the dynamic range of the entire analog processing chain was typically much less than what even entry-level digital cameras offer today. See for example: http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/dynamicrange2/ http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/dynamicrange2/ Also, for any print that is intended to fit in an album or a frame, there is little benefit over 3 MP. For really, really big prints? Maybe 8, to err on the safe side. Like most analog reproduction media, prints tend to be very forgiving. Someone viewing their 12 MP photos on a 500 ppi HDR mobile screen is pretty much getting the best comparable experience since the dawn of image capture. Which of course doesn't mean that the tiny, faded black and white print from a hundred years ago you find in your grandpa's old wallet doesn't convey much more emotion. Edit: Too slow, crazygringo beat me to it.

deleted 8y ago

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crazygringo 8y ago

Actually, it's the opposite. A 4x6 print didn't have crazy high resolution. They usually use 1800x1200px as input resolution (~2.2MP). Your iPhone X is actually slightly more detailed (2436x1125=2.7MP). And if you're talking about stops of dynamic range, print has always been less than a screen. But if you want a photo to look crystal-clear on your iMac's slide show screen saver? That's 5120x2800px=14.3MP. It allows for stunning detail which consumers just never had access to before. (Even the iPad Pro is 5.6MP, more than double a traditional photo.) But the real advantage, of course, in both megapixels and dynamic range is in post-processing: you can crop to the quarter of the photo that's interesting and bring out the detail in the shadows and it's still high-quality enough to use as an eye-catching retina-resolution header for your Medium post. Remember, phones don't have deep optical zoom lenses, so megapixels have to do that job instead.

jdietrich 8y ago
>A 4x6 print didn't have crazy high resolution. Which is why most consumers used fairly crummy fixed-lens cameras with fast film and were perfectly happy with digital cameras with ~4MP effective resolution. You do need a whole bunch of resolution if you're printing to double-page magazine spreads, large-format fine art prints or billboards, which is why professional photographers (other than photojournalists) were relatively late adopters of digital cameras. >And if you're talking about stops of dynamic range, print has always been less than a screen. At your local photomat, yes. A good giclée print has about 11 stops of dynamic range. A normal 8-bit LCD has about six stops of dynamic range and a really good OLED has about ten stops under ideal viewing conditions. My broader point is that pretty much all modern cameras are more than good enough for 99% of users. It's a tiny minority who will actually see the benefit of better cameras in the images they produce. Most people will only ever notice an improvement in resolution if they're pixel-peeping in Lightroom and will only notice an extra stop of dynamic range on the histogram. If you go out and buy an entry-level DSLR with a kit lens, you probably won't get noticeably better results than just using your iPhone. That's a good thing for consumers, but a bad thing for camera manufacturers.

non-nil 8y ago

This is not entirely accurate. While many people do view their photos at small sizes on pretty poor screens, the dynamic range of the entire analog processing chain was typically much less than what even entry-level digital cameras offer today. See for example: http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/dynamicrange2/ http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/dynamicrange2/ Also, for any print that is intended to fit in an album or a frame, there is little benefit over 3 MP. For really, really big prints? Maybe 8, to err on the safe side. Like most analog reproduction media, prints tend to be very forgiving. Someone viewing their 12 MP photos on a 500 ppi HDR mobile screen is pretty much getting the best comparable experience since the dawn of image capture. Which of course doesn't mean that the tiny, faded black and white print from a hundred years ago you find in your grandpa's old wallet doesn't convey much more emotion. Edit: Too slow, crazygringo beat me to it.