You don’t need a high-resolution camera… trust me.

12 megapixel is all you need unless printing roadside billboards.

very informative

uh.
eventually do you consider printing or even editing any of these photos? which is the point of definition, not resolution.
it's not the same, resolution makes use of the pixels, i would rather have my shitty cyber-shot in my pocket with its screaming 14 megapixels when needing to shoot a scene instead of a 40 megapixels with barely 3 or 4 exploitable lost in blur from your shitty iphone.
also, when things are required i have a 77 with 24mega which can deliver ...quite LARGE prints.

The sales gimmick thrown at photographers is "Are you ready for the next level in photography?" implying your camera is restricting you. My Canon S95 10MP, released in 2010, offers A4 prints at 300 dpi. Gimmickry aside, a camera is a light-tight box, and no amount of technology will improve your composition skills.

I got my 1st digicam in 96, and always check the the resolution and quality at 1:1 px resolution, one px from
the camera is one px on the monitor. No interpolation or scaling. I made my own DIY software to check out the files, and quickly found out that numbers alone is not that important. My back in the days Nokia phone was 40mpx, of shadows and blur, my Foveon Sigma is 4.8 mpix is pin sharp details down to each pixel. CCD sensors are close, CMOS is noise.

But we must admit in old time we don't have today's technology mobile phone to enlarge the picture to look for every single details. I know a nice photo is the overall looking on the whole picture but people live in today don't just satisfy with that. Everybody want to enlarge to see how clear is the eye ball etc. And also, not only photo, generally people want photo and video.... Not everyone likes to get close to the objects he want to shoot.

brooooo this video is incredible and so motivating for me to shoot more with what i have instead of always trying to upgrade my gear. THANK YOU!!

Christ! You could have told me this BEFORE I got my Q3... 🙂

high-resolution doesn't mater ? So why this video made in 3840x2160 4K :)

I think it's way too easy to get obsessed with gear reviews and upgrades and forget the ultimate truth of photography: The most compelling, evocative, and memorable images are rarely (if ever) the technically perfect ones- and a photo made by a person with a well-trained artistic eye and solid creative vision will trump one made by someone on a 100mp camera 10 times out of 10. Further, if you apply the same principle to cameras of the same generation from several years ago, there's still a difference. For example, my 2010 Nikon D3100 with a 14.2 mp crop sensor got better shadows, better low light, and far less ISO noise than my 18 mp crop sensor 2013 Canon EOS Rebel SL1.

But most importantly, I've used both of those cameras almost daily for a decade and still sell professional fine art quality images from them. Now I shoot mostly with the EOS 70D at 20 mp. There is no discernible difference in image quality- I upgraded the body for certain other features like the tilting screen.

The photographer is always going to be more important than the gear. Please keep encouraging people away from their gear obsessions and redirect them to just go and make more photos. That's the only way to become a great photographer.

Channels I highly recommend for exploring the true philosophy and artistry of photography (and get people over their fixation on the latest and greatest gear) are Sean Tucker and The Photographic Eye. Also, just look at the work of photographers like Saul Leiter, Sergio Larrain, Tina Modotti, and Dianne Arbus. They weren't shooting on a Sony A7 and yet their images remain iconic decades later. Technical perfection is overrated.

If you MUST spend money on something, buy great lenses. I can't recommend the Sigma Art and Tokina Opera series lenses enough... and if you're down for manual focusing, Samyang makes beautiful, fast manual lenses at lower prices than everything else in their class. The 85mm f/1.4 is absolutely gorgeous.

, 100% agree. I realized the same thing about megapixels a while back,.Our monitors and daily screens are not even close to using what our cameras can produce, nowhere near. I looked up IG resolution and it was 600x600 at the time. I think they have increased it but only by a small amount. But ever since then I started caring less about MPs and more about composition. And my $20 or less old point and shoot collection grew from there, no need to raise my shutter counts on my DSLRs for daily shooting. Anything above 5 MP is enough for 4x6 prints and enough for even a 4k monitor. Obviously if the screen is bigger the more flaws you notice, but even then its not a big deal, just move onto the next image. What really made me stop caring so much is knowing that the majority of people will view my images on a phone. That also why IG doesn't care to make higher MP images the standard, view time, screen size and viewing distance doesn't justify going bigger. For online sharing I make my images 1600 or 1200 at max with 240 dpi, dpi goes a lomg way in preserving image quality. Files come out to 800kb -1mb and still look good on all my screens. Less MP on a camera does limit cropping though, thats about it, so just don't crop, problem solved lol.

Some of my best shots have been with the old Reflex Canon D30 with 3Mp !! Paired with a extrangely lovely 35-70mm I have nice memories of my daugthers childhood that need no more pixels. It must be said that the awful dynamic range and low light capabilities prevent me from taking every scene picture, but when lighting was favourable, the pictures produced were as beautiful as they can be. I've upgraded, of course, but I still have two of those and still love their output. And when I have some photograph work to do (not as professional), and I expect good lightning and easy situations, I mostly take my 20D (8mp) or my pentax K20D (15Mp) which are wonderful, effective machines.
Besides, It's not you nor the camera who takes a picture, It's the lens!

Apparently, you don't shoot wildlife. Most of the times, one cannot get closer to wildlife, and 50 Mp or so do come very handy. Also, pixel size is not important for noise performance. With 48 Mp sensor, you can just reduce the resolution in post to 12 Mp by combining 4 pixels into one, and get the same performance as if you were using 12 Mp sensor to start with. It's the whole sensor size, not the pixel size, that matters.

That's why I also shoot with my phone when I don't have a camera. Yeah when I zoom in I see it sucks, but the actual image, if edited, can look great

Cameras don't take photos, People do. Many folks still don't get the concept of photography. You don't simply replicate great image just by getting that particular camera without having an eye of that particular photographer who took it. Learn composition, color theory, light, etc which actually helps to take great photos despite the camera being used

Fantastic photos were produced in the early 2000s with 3 - 6 mp cameras and 6mp was considered a game changer in that its as much as you need for an A4 page at 300dpi. Fuji S2 pro anyone? This was high resolution. The capability of these cameras to produce high quality photos didn't just stop once their specs were surpassed.

Ok, yeah that's a good point, but what about printing?

i need the megapixel mainly for keying tbh ... more megapixel work so much better in that case. I do not bother fro most other cases. I bought the combination of a7s and a7r and fro weddings i used the a7s for photos as my second cam. everything went fine except basically all keying and retouching jobs

many years ago he had a 30mp camera....i still have a 20 mp canon....never had a 30mp camera...nor do I need it.

I find that 12mp is perfect ( like a nikon d3/d300 ), as long as the sensor is good.

I recently discovered you, some good videos with relevant comments George! I have a quick question, have you tested the Olylmpus Stylus? It's a device that I've loved since its release and that I have difficulty changing due to its compactness and these possibilities, but it's a bridge with a small 1/1.7" sensor...

je vous ai decouvert recement, de bonnes videos avec des remarques pertinantes George ! j'ai une petite question, avez vous testé le Stylus d'Olylmpus ? C'est un appareil que j'affectionne depuis sa sortie et que j'ai du mal à changer de part sa compacité et ces possibilités, mais c'est un bridge a petit capteur 1/1,7"...

The resolution of the lens is less than the resolution of the sensor.

I have a Lumix lx7 with 10.1 MP - looking for a body that I can use with my R-Lenses. The Lumix LX7 has a 1/1.7" sensor, what MP resolution should a full frame digital camera have to have a similar resolution as the Lumix? All what you said is correct for screen resolution, but when it comes to printing photos, at 300dpi, it's a whole different story, isn't it?

Resolution is measured in dpi, while MP (megapixels) refer to size: 16MP is the result of multiplying the number of pixels contained on the larger side of the image, by those on the smaller side. Example, If you have a picture with 1,200 pixels on one side and 800 on the other side, it will be 960,000, roughly 1MP. But you can have two copies of the same 15x10 cm image, one at resolution low-res 72 dpi, and the other at higher resolution with 300 dpi.
Again: Megapixels MP = size. Resolution dpi = quality of image.

Right! I'm use the Canon 1Ds "First" and very happy. I dont need 20 and more megapixels, Fat pixel is my Love.))) I own so Canon 5D and 60D. I not professional, photo is my hobby.

Hey.. I'm sorry if the question sounds silly but, what does "EZ Pancake" means? I'm not an English native speaker but I've already heard that Pancake thing in other YT videos so I'd really apreciate if somebody could enlighten me 😉

I sub bro. Tasmania Australia

Great observation!. Not only that, I can get cinematic photographs on my old Canon G9 vs my Leica Q. If your a lens-based artist like me, what matters most is the art within the shot taken…and where it’s displayed. Thanks from Newfoundland.

я снимаю на 24 мегапикселя но иногда делаю кроп, отдаю клиентам 10 мегапикселей, этого достаточно и правда😊

love the content, love the graphical explanations, love the bits, subscribe! xD

This varies by genre though. Megapixels are essential when you are photographing small birds, for example; they won't let you get close, and in order to get appreciable detail you almost always must crop. Bird photographers generally find even 24 MP to be too little (which is why the Canon R3 never made it as a competitor for the Sony A1 or the Nikon X8 and X9 as a bird photography camera; the Canon gold standard for bird photography still is the R5, precisely because of its higher resolution). In addition, seeing pictures on a screen is one thing; printing them out is another game altogether, and megapixels make a huge difference.

A 35mm film is about 6MP. I remember when Nikon D100 came out, the pro photographers were so happy that the new DSLR from Nikon finally had the resolution that can match or surpass film. I have seen so many stunning photos from Nikon D2Hs which was a 4.1MP camera...the 12x18 prints looked at least as good as then ones shot on film. Yes, the images were a bit grainy compared to later generation cameras, but it looked as good as prints from slides. Those days were exciting!

Regardless of whether the resolution of camera photos is 33 million pixels or 24 million pixels, they cannot fill an 8k screen. When viewed on a 4K monitor, the image will be displayed as a thumbnail because the image is too large, causing visual image details to be distorted and blurred. It's all useless crap resolution. The best and clearest photo specification is a 3840*2160 photo taken directly from a Panasoic camera or OP3. The clearest image is displayed point-to-point full screen on a large 4K TV. What you really need is a camera that can directly take 3840*2160 photos.

The early 2000's Nat Geo covers were shot on 3 megapixel Nikon D1 and D1X cameras. I printed many 17x22 prints from a 4 mp Olympus in the same period. They were beautiful. It's nice to have megapixels to waster these days, but no essential.

me who uses a 6mp camera. can't even crop lol. cropping should be close to minimal

Not strictly great guidance, you're comparing 10+ year old camera tech to more up to date camera sensors, you're a modern sensor will have a greater full well depth and cleaner output, also there's no mention of the advantage of higher resolution for prints and the ability to crop even further in if you can't afford or carry a 600mm lens for wildlife etc.

Do cameras with sensors around 12 MP or so provide high enough quality for physical prints?

I Inherited this camera from my Father in Law when he passed away. I must give it a shot!

If it was just about resolution sure. But small sensors have deep depth of field. Of course all bets are off with Ai in post.

Heres a question for you: I currently have a Sony a7iv that I use mainly for video. I wanted a new camera for photography mainly and I love the aesthetic of the film simulations. which cam should I be looking at any recs?

I have an A3 print on my wall, I took it using my 1500mm fl F5 telescope, of the moon. it's RAZOR sharp, hence I was so happy with it.. and it wasn't full moon, it was just past the 1st quarter so craters were obliquely lit giving lovely long shadows.. anyway.. the camera?... Canon 30D.. 8MP.. more than enough for A3... many other images from that camera at A3 knocking about the house.. rarely is the sharpness something that draws you in to "see how much you can see".. because you don't do that with portraits, but the moon shot does that.. and pulls it off.

can you make a video, on how now we have Gigapixel to upscale if you need to

I have landed at about 20 MP. Both at FF and crop...the cameras are cheap, and the resolution is good enough for medium large prints. :)

I think we are in a world where cameras are replaced in most situations by telephone cameras.

Yep dead right. My favourite camera for landscape, Sony DSCR1 , 2005 model, 10mp, Zeiss lens APSC. Stunning 20x30 prints.

I worked many years in advertising and in 3d graphic and established for myself that it's enough to have a picture about 3500 x 2500 pixels and it will be enough for printing the picture of any size starting from a piece of paper and up to the big banner. You can have a little more pixels for cropping and that's it.

Very informative. Thanks!