Poll: Megapixels vs. Noise
Written by Eric on March 16th, 2008 | 5 CommentsA commenter on the Sony A350 sample images got me thinking about who needs what. So I’m putting it to you. Do you really need all those megapixels or could we do without a few of them? Have your say by voting in the poll below. If you’ve got additional thoughts on the topic, sound off in the comments at the bottom of the post.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I use a 6MP Nikon D50. Noise isn’t too bad as near as I can tell. I’m probably a poor judge though… I don’t to many long exposures.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Who are the people who want more megapixels with more noise? Inquiring photographers want to know.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Lower megapixels/noise was leading by like 200 votes less than 10 hours ago…. I think this poll has be compromised.
The poll was up for like 2 days and then in less than 10 hours 200 people voted in one direction…
March 17th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Probably what happened was the people who normally read this site, aka photographers, voted first, and then it was linked to some other site where the mouth-breathers came in and voted their stupidity. It’s the Wal-mart effect, and it’s why even good manufacturers these days are cramming in more megapixels despite lowering image quality.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Here is a comment I posted yesterday:
“There are times when lots of Mega Pixels (MP)are useful to allow extensive cropping (digital zoom). There are times when low noise is useful to allow photos in dimly lit places or for fast shutter speed action photos. If you have lots of MP, you can mitigate the inevitable noise by post processing with noise reduction SW. However, if the MP are not there you can not digitally zoom. I wonder if the noise issue is not over emphasized on by chronic “pixel peepers”. Has anyone ever really looked at an 8×10 print of a subject photographed by both a 6MP DSLR and a 12MP DSLR at ISO 1600. Can you really see any difference? Say 4000 noisy pixels printing along 10 inch dimension means 400 noisy pixels per inch. I’ll bet the noise is pretty much averaged out in the printing process. I view/show my pictures on a 2 MP screen but my next camera will be a 12 MP DSLR.”
I agree that the voting is compromised as Poagao says. Also agree that the P&S MP race is insane. On a DSLR one would hope to match the LENS quality with the MP count. If you look into the details, an APS-C sensor and 12 MP makes sense if you have an excellent lens to match. The FF sensors are heading for 24 MP.