4 ms·

On the one hand, this is all true. On the other hand, if you're shooting in good lighting conditions, a stupid megapixel count lets you do awesome crops.

mustpax 17y ago
While I agree with that, it's not just the megapixels that allow you to do that. In my experience the lens matters more if you want to magnify the detail in the picture, or crop it really tight. The sensor just gives you an upper bound, it cannot create optical information that is not there. As someone who has done old-school film photography, I've often seen the stark difference in detail within a single roll of film based on the lens quality. Chances are you have a decent enough lens that most of your megapixels are not going to waste, but most >10MP cameras I've seen in the market don't sport the kind of lenses that justify the additional MP. It's really a marketing gimmick.
- DannoHung 17y ago
  I guess that's true... I have bought some budget priced glass.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  I've recently thought about getting a digital SLR to take my photography up a notch (or several). My brother is a semi-pro nature photography, so I naturally asked him to give me some pointers. The biggest, most salient point he made was: screw the body, spend all your money on lens. The body is cheap, and even low-end stuff produces pretty great results in combination with a good lens. If you run out of headroom with the body, it is also likely the cheapest component to replace.
- nimrody 17y ago
  Making a good lens for these small sensor cameras is much easier compared to film or even APSC sized sensors (most DSLRs)
Tamerlin 17y ago
1) sensors that small are very noise prone. 2) 2 megapixels doesn't translate to a significant difference in the size of the final image -- remember it's an area, therefore to double the size of the image, you need 4x the megapixels -- so this probably only amounts to a difference of a couple of hundred pixels in each dimension, not enough to make a significant difference in how much cropping you can do 3) larger photosites lead to lower noise So odds are the lower resolution sensor will lead to better image quality at any chosen ISO, even if every other factor remains unchanged, including the quality of the lens. While it's true that a good lens matters more than a few megapixels, it's also true that cameras with tiny sensors don't make images that print well due to noise.

mustpax 17y ago

While I agree with that, it's not just the megapixels that allow you to do that. In my experience the lens matters more if you want to magnify the detail in the picture, or crop it really tight. The sensor just gives you an upper bound, it cannot create optical information that is not there. As someone who has done old-school film photography, I've often seen the stark difference in detail within a single roll of film based on the lens quality. Chances are you have a decent enough lens that most of your megapixels are not going to waste, but most >10MP cameras I've seen in the market don't sport the kind of lenses that justify the additional MP. It's really a marketing gimmick.

DannoHung 17y ago
I guess that's true... I have bought some budget priced glass.
potatolicious 17y ago
I've recently thought about getting a digital SLR to take my photography up a notch (or several). My brother is a semi-pro nature photography, so I naturally asked him to give me some pointers. The biggest, most salient point he made was: screw the body, spend all your money on lens. The body is cheap, and even low-end stuff produces pretty great results in combination with a good lens. If you run out of headroom with the body, it is also likely the cheapest component to replace.
nimrody 17y ago
Making a good lens for these small sensor cameras is much easier compared to film or even APSC sized sensors (most DSLRs)

Tamerlin 17y ago

1) sensors that small are very noise prone. 2) 2 megapixels doesn't translate to a significant difference in the size of the final image -- remember it's an area, therefore to double the size of the image, you need 4x the megapixels -- so this probably only amounts to a difference of a couple of hundred pixels in each dimension, not enough to make a significant difference in how much cropping you can do 3) larger photosites lead to lower noise So odds are the lower resolution sensor will lead to better image quality at any chosen ISO, even if every other factor remains unchanged, including the quality of the lens. While it's true that a good lens matters more than a few megapixels, it's also true that cameras with tiny sensors don't make images that print well due to noise.