Quote:
Originally Posted by Redlemon
So, I upgraded my camera again. I'm a basic point-and-shooter, and I'm not printing anything above a 5x7, although I sometimes crop 2/3rds of the photo to get it down to what I want.
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So, if you stay at 5x7 but crop up to 2/3rds, we can say that your heavily cropped prints are on average equivalent to something around an uncropped 8x10.
Quote:
This new camera has a stupid amount of resolution to it; 12 MP. I understand that the sizes of the CCD that actually detect the light aren't getting any bigger in these little cameras. Which leads to my question:
Will I get better accuracy if I choose the lower 6 MP photo setting?
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Generally, you want to have 300dpi for printing. So printing 8x10, you should aim for a total resolution of 2400x3000, or just over 7 megapixels (7.2mp). That said, I don't know about better or worse accuracy between settings, but shooting at 6 megapixels would allow you to print uncropped 5x7s no problem. It's only when you crop more than, say, 50% of the original image that you might run into trouble. If anything, shooting at 6 megapixels will save you a bunch of storage space and processing/transfer time.
Some say that 12 megapixels is close to traditional 35mm film (some say higher). Few have complained about printing cropped 5x7s (or uncropped 8x10s) from 35mm. Again, it's only with major cropping do you start to run into trouble.