31 Oct
2012
31 Oct
'12
7:12 p.m.
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 09:27:58PM -0400, Mouse wrote:
You're kidding, right? The Nikon D300s I use does 4288x2848 and it is an
older model DSLR (released in 2009). Nikons D800 (released 2012) does
7630x4912 pixels and is reported to have extremely low noise even at
very high (3200+) ISO speeds.
And if you happen to have a a really big pile of money burning a hole in
your pocket, there is always medium format: Hasselblads H4D-60 does 60
MPixels (6708x8956 pixels) for around 30K USD. Just the body, of course,
lenses are extra. Although that is firmly in "if you have to ask about the
price, you can't afford it" territory.
These days, commonly available digital cameras have outpaced commonly
available film by quite a wide margin. I scanned some old 35 mm film
of mine (shot with an SLR 10+ years or so ago) a while ago and was
appalled at the grain and noise - I'd never buy a DSLR with such bad
image quality ;-)
Mind, commonly available: compacts and (D)SLRs. Medium format and up
plays in a completely different group anyway, both film and digital.
And the image
isn't enough pixels.
Indeed.
Somewhere, I have a goregous B&W print of a picture someone else took,
showing me getting onto a city bus in the middle of winter. (The
reason this is an interesting picture is irrelevant here.)
I don't recall the exact size; in my memory it's something close to
6"x8". Lovely fine detail, obviously done by someone who knows how to
take high-depth-of-field shots and process them right. But I have
trouble imagining getting a print that good out of digital with
anything less than at least 500dpi resolution, probably better.
Digital cameras with 3000x4000 pixel resolution might exist, but they
probably are even rarer than whatever the guy who took the shot used, and surely far more expensive.
Well, current model DSLRs tend not be that cheap, true - I dropped around
3.5k USD for my current kit (D300s, two lenses, extended warranty, camera
bag) more than two years ago. But is was money well spent for me.
On the low end of the price scale, the Canon PowerShot A810 does 4608x2592
for around a hundred bucks. Yes, cheap compact, tiny sensor and probably
noisy as heck outside of bright light. You can also find 20 MPixel compacts
in the 200..300 USD price range. But compacts tend to suffer from having
tiny sensors -> which means low sensitivity -> lots of noise if you crank
the ISO speed up a bit.
And good luck finding a way to print
the result in that kind of detail; it's the rare printer that can print
greyscale without diterhing, and if that print is dithered it's got to
be in at least the low thousands of DPI for the print engine, and by
IIRC there where printing systems doing 2540 dpi ten years ago. Yes, big
commercial jobs, not cheap throw-away inkjets, but they existed.
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison