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by DChan on Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:34 am
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We're talking about wildlife and nature photography here, right?  You know you need one  :lol: :


Why the hell do we need 400 megapixels?
 

by E.J. Peiker on Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:08 am
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Remember when we were saying that nobody ever needs more than 16mp? that was about 12 years ago ;)
 

by Royce Howland on Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:05 pm
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Ah yes, the Hasselblad H6D-400C. I could use one. :)

The author of that article has a true point. Boiled down, it's that many [most?] photographers own more camera than they can effectively use in terms of output. Nevertheless he does miss some key points of the new 'Blad, and therefore is far from "proving" his thesis. "Why the hell do we need 400 megapixels? We don’t even need 100 megapixels, and I’ll prove it." ??? Not proven at all.

1)a The new 'Blad is not intended for everyone, or even a fractional percentage of everyone. Just because the author doesn't need it for shooting his iPhone wallpapers, doesn't mean nobody needs it for anything.

1)b Every technical innovation in digital imaging is first met with resounding cries of both "cool!" from people who don't understand or need it, and "what a waste!" from other people who also don't understand or need it. :) But there are categories of photographers & artists who will be able to use it, once it exists, to do some super cool stuff that wouldn't have been feasible or even possible before. So let them at it.

1)c It's an application of trickle-down technology, just like Live View was a trickle-down of CMOS sensors. Hasselblad has had pixel shift digital backs for years now, and so the R&D of solving that issue is largely a sunk cost for them, I imagine. It dates back to a time when the single-frame resolution was a lot lower, and therefore the benefits of over-sampling in this fashion was relatively much higher. But since solving the problem was already done, they just needed to drop a new higher res chip into the mix, and poof... here's a new offering for the high-end market. Not a big deal, no reason to write articles demanding companies stop doing such things by proving/not-proving that we don't need them.

2) Pixel shift technology, which is employed by a number of vendors including Sony and Pentax on the more consumer-friendly end of the spectrum, is not just about getting more pixels. It's also about getting better dynamic range, better colour fidelity, reducing moire artifacts, and so on. In other words, it's about the very thing the author asked for at the end of his article -- "Let’s focus on making our cameras better, not bigger."

As a person who makes prints for a living, I recently made my first prints for a client who shoots the Phase One IQ3100. Those files looked absolutely stunning, and we delivered prints that made every bit of use of those 100 MP. I can't wait to dig into printing some Hasselblad 400 MP files. :)
Royce Howland
 

by Tim Zurowski on Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:47 pm
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E.J. Peiker wrote:Remember when we were saying that nobody ever needs more than 16mp?  that was about 12 years ago ;)
Remember when it was said (Bill Gates I think?) that no one would ever need more than 64MB of space in a computer. 
 

by Anthony Medici on Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:06 pm
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Tim Zurowski wrote: Remember when it was said (Bill Gates I think?) that no one would ever need more than 64MB of space in a computer. 
It was not 64MB. It was 640Kb. Though the quote was attributed to Bill Gates, it is unsure that he ever actually stated it.
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by DavidSutton on Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:04 pm
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I am still working on a series from two years ago shot with a 16mp Fuji X-T1, printing on both 17 and 24 inch wide paper. The detail is just fine.
16 mp is quite enough for this size printing if your technique and lenses are good, and you don't want to severely crop.
I don't want to believe it, but I have to trust my eyes. Perhaps not wanting to believe it has also sharpened my technique.
I don't see any improvement in content for friends using high megapixel gear. It's true they sometimes have more detail, on close examination, in the places where you don't want the eye drawn.
On the other hand, switching from Canon to a (initially) lower megapixel camera has made me a better photographer. In that the gear is lighter and I don't get so tired and am able to keep working a scene compared to the past when my arms would have crapped out. That's a technical term by the way.
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by DChan on Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:52 am
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To be fair to the author, he did mention that some photographers could use a super-high megapixel camera, and he realized and appreciated the image quality that came with it (he described the print of his photograph as stunning). At the end of the day, I think he's simply arguing that most people don't need that number of megapixels (if not simply for the reason that most don't print large).

In the case of computer, our demand for more and more from the software keeps pushing the demand for better and faster hardware to process it. In the case of photography, higher megapixel cameras don't necessarily lead to people printing larger and larger prints hence the argument that most people don't need those cameras. This certainly does not mean that there's no benefits coming from researching and developing higher megapixel sensors.

Then again, simply because we don't need it does not mean that we don't want it. So, sure, keep it coming :D
 

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