and the site receives a small commission
Beginner Does more pixels mean sharper images?
- Thread starter sparker
- Start date
Orangecroc
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 2,559
- Name
- Ben
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Sometimes.
- Messages
- 7,457
- Edit My Images
- No
Plus:
The photographer and/or camera using a fast enough shutter speed to avoid 'camera shake' and/or to freeze any movement in the subject
The ability of the camera to handle higher ISO without turning things to noise and mush
The ability of the photographer and/or the camera to focus correctly on the specific area the photographer actually wants to be sharp.
Edit: Damn, just read the last line of Phil's post and he had this covered... never mind, it's been a long day!
The photographer and/or camera using a fast enough shutter speed to avoid 'camera shake' and/or to freeze any movement in the subject
The ability of the camera to handle higher ISO without turning things to noise and mush
The ability of the photographer and/or the camera to focus correctly on the specific area the photographer actually wants to be sharp.
Edit: Damn, just read the last line of Phil's post and he had this covered... never mind, it's been a long day!
Last edited:
TimHughes
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 3,655
- Name
- Tim
- Edit My Images
- Yes
More pixels can help as “Sharpness” is resolution + acutance (perceived edge constrast). However cameras nowadays have so many pixels and more than can be displayed on even big screens, in practical terms I wouldn’t worry about number of pixels. My old canon 350D has 8MP for example and pictures still look sharp.
Last edited:
Teflon-Mike
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 1,076
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Sharpness... oh-no-here-we-go... word, especially in the beginner's realm, evokes trepidation & fear! It's a point of obsession for so many, who I don't think really appreciate it anywhere near as much as they debate it, less understand it! It's a feature of photography, I honestly believed was new and unique to digital, as it was never something mentioned, let alone debated to death in my formative photo years with film! Trying to find out hat people were taking about, I did a lot of research on the topic, to conclude... oh, they are mostly talking a load of!
It's a property that is a function of a lot of factors, starting with focus, going through the 'circles of confusion' of resolution, into contrast effects, to result in an effect or 'perception' of detail, as much as anything, which is as often effected by the subject and the lighting as anything.
Intriguing phenomenon, is how many, coming to DSLR from Camera-Phones, 'complain' that the better camera doesn't seem t be as 'sharp' as their smart-phone, despite the DSLR supposedly having so many more mega-pixies and a better lens and so more 'settings'. Reveal in that is that what so often is perceived as 'sharpness' isn't actually very much to do with the sensor size or pixie count, or the lenses ability to resolve detail, it's in our ability to interpret an image.
Look at a plowed field,should be a fair few of them about this time of the year, and conveniently Autumn sun is low in the sky, and slanting across the ridges and furrows of the field, creating light and shaddow in the texture, that helps reveal that texture when we look at it. At noon, with the sun more directly overhead, that angle of light tends to be a lot flatter, and create a lot less shadow, a lot less contrast and 'flatten' the furrows. Now, you could take the same scene with the same camera, at different times of day, and this shading effect just from the angle of lighting, will create an mage that viewers will insist looks 'sharper' in the low raking light picture compared to the overhead lighting picture,simply because there is more contrast in the texture, despite nothing else having been changed.
Oh-Kay, Camera-Phones tend to use micro-sensors; a Crop-Sensor in a typical DSLR is around 16x24mm, about half the area of a 'full-frame' camera, that should be 24x36mm. In a camera phone, the sensor may be as small as perhaps 3x4mm Now the 'normal' angle of view is obtained from a lens with a focal length 'approximately' the length of the diagonal of the sensor.... bit of Pythagoras... the squaw on the hippopotamus is the equal of the squaw on the other two hides, and err... normal angle of view for a Camera-Phone would be obtained with a lens maybe 5mm focal length; on a Crop Sensor DSLR it would be around 30-35mm, and on a Full Frame camera, around 50-60mm...
Now! There are two important Focus-Distances. The 'Closest' Focus Distance, and the 'Hyper-Focal' Distance. The Hyper focal distance is the range beyond which everything will be rendered by the lens in acceptably-sharp-focus. Closest Focus Distance, the range beneath which nothing will be rendered in acceptably sharp focus. Between the two, we have the range of critical focus, where we actually need to pick a subject to focus on, and twiddle the lens, or let some electronics do it for us!, to get that subject in 'sharp' focus.... and a Depth or Field of 'acceptable' focus in-front and behind that subject/range.
Oh-Kay... Depth-of-Field... risking yet another telling off for old fashioned simplification... within the rage of 'critical focus' the DoF is approximately 1/3 infront of the subject, 2/3 behind, and the DoF zone a proportion of the focus range set... so as you focus further from the camera, so the larger your DoF becomes,and drastically so as it doesn't follow a linear rule. BUT, the shorter the lens, so the smaller the range of critical focus, and the closer to the camera it tends to be.
RIGHT...upshot of all this is if you have a very short focal length lens, its range of critical focus will be very short, its closest focus distance very near, and the range of critical focus incredibly small. This is something micro-sensor cameras particularly camera phones actually rely on. using a very small sensor, begging a very short lens, to bring the closest focus distance, and the hyper-focal distance so close together, and so close to the camera, that the camera is is effect 'Focus Free' and need not have a complex focus system to adjust the lens focus in the critical focus range. Factory set to 'hyper-focal' effectively everything is always going to be in acceptably sharp focus.. or as ear as makes no odds.
I have a little action cam which has a 4.5mm focal length lens for this exact reason. Predominantly a video cam, saves it adding an expensive mechanical focus mechanism, more still, it saves any chance of that mechanism 'lagging' as the subject and possible subject distance changes; makes the camera simple and cheap, and with almost infinite DoF, seemingly very very 'sharp' pictures, because so little is in the rage of critical focus, that's so short ad close to the camera.
I have a 'full-frame' 35mm film camera, and its 'normal angle' lens is 50mm. Now the closest focus distance is around 25cm and the hyper-focal around 10m. The range of critical focus is quite large, and the DoF at any focus range quite short particularly at closer focus distances, where at under a meter it may be only a few mm, depending on the aperture set.
Now! as objects in the scene start to fall at the limits of the DoF zone, or outside them, the lens wont render them in 'Sharp' focus.... this allows you to effect 'selective-focus' and actually use this to your advantage, to get a subject in 'sharp' focus, but throw the back-ground or foreground out of focus, to emphasize your subject in a scene.... a technique that with a smaller sensor camera and very short lens, may be almost impossible to achieve.
It is a technique in 'hobby' photography, that when people discover it, they attribute almost entirely to large aperture settings, that see the start chasing fast aperture, often prime, lenses, and often longer focal lengths to get more of it.. and the grumbling that their photo's seem not to be very 'sharp'.... but still.
The potential is there, with a larger sensor/longer lens combination camera to achieve this selective focus effect focus fade effects, and even 'dreamy' soft focus effects.... whether you intend to or not!
Which leads towards a conclusion... that first of all, what is so often debated as 'Sharpness' is't really a property endowed by the equipment, at all. Its a question of perception, and 'effect', in which the subject and the lighting is as much of a factor as anything else.. it's not so significantly effected by the equipment, and what brand lens you are using what size sensor or the number of mega-pixies that may have.
A 'sharp' clearly defined subject, say a house, will appear 'sharper' in a photo than a rather more 'fuzzy' bush. Light which provides contrast in the form of that subject, like raking light over plough furrows, will seem 'sharper' than an over-head light that flattens it. An Arial photo of a desert, will similarly flatten the dunes, where a ground level shot will more likely reveal them. Then you get to the question of focus, and depth of field, and how with a longer focal length lens, focus will seem 'less' sharp as the DoF zone becomes shorter around your subject.
Now! Big danger with the suggestion of 'sharpness', and belief that so-much of it is in the hardware, can lead you down a path of obsessing over lab-tests, looking at test shots of diffraction grids and the like, counting 'lines' and contemplating digital 'sharpening' adjusting sampling limits so that remove the middle shades between black and white, to give harder 'sharper' boundaries, and things like that, rather than i the subject and the subject lighting, ad sinple focus!
MORE, loosing sight of the trees for the wood, and the real issue "Do I LIKE this photo?".. where clinical 'sharpness' is but one factor,and one which you may NOT actually want, as with selective focus effects, or may, all dependent on your intent.. and as so much else, so much is dependent on the scene to start with, not the kit in your mitt! And the your intent, and know-how to achieve it.
My advice? You want 'good' photo's, start there, and worry about that, starting with whats in-front of the camera, look through, not at, that!
As far as the Mega-Pixies go, it is but ONE factor in the equation,where there are so many more, and may have so much more influence.... the answer to all practical purpose and extents is NO, more pixies doesn't make more 'sharpness', certainly not on it's own....
It's a property that is a function of a lot of factors, starting with focus, going through the 'circles of confusion' of resolution, into contrast effects, to result in an effect or 'perception' of detail, as much as anything, which is as often effected by the subject and the lighting as anything.
Intriguing phenomenon, is how many, coming to DSLR from Camera-Phones, 'complain' that the better camera doesn't seem t be as 'sharp' as their smart-phone, despite the DSLR supposedly having so many more mega-pixies and a better lens and so more 'settings'. Reveal in that is that what so often is perceived as 'sharpness' isn't actually very much to do with the sensor size or pixie count, or the lenses ability to resolve detail, it's in our ability to interpret an image.
Look at a plowed field,should be a fair few of them about this time of the year, and conveniently Autumn sun is low in the sky, and slanting across the ridges and furrows of the field, creating light and shaddow in the texture, that helps reveal that texture when we look at it. At noon, with the sun more directly overhead, that angle of light tends to be a lot flatter, and create a lot less shadow, a lot less contrast and 'flatten' the furrows. Now, you could take the same scene with the same camera, at different times of day, and this shading effect just from the angle of lighting, will create an mage that viewers will insist looks 'sharper' in the low raking light picture compared to the overhead lighting picture,simply because there is more contrast in the texture, despite nothing else having been changed.
Oh-Kay, Camera-Phones tend to use micro-sensors; a Crop-Sensor in a typical DSLR is around 16x24mm, about half the area of a 'full-frame' camera, that should be 24x36mm. In a camera phone, the sensor may be as small as perhaps 3x4mm Now the 'normal' angle of view is obtained from a lens with a focal length 'approximately' the length of the diagonal of the sensor.... bit of Pythagoras... the squaw on the hippopotamus is the equal of the squaw on the other two hides, and err... normal angle of view for a Camera-Phone would be obtained with a lens maybe 5mm focal length; on a Crop Sensor DSLR it would be around 30-35mm, and on a Full Frame camera, around 50-60mm...
Now! There are two important Focus-Distances. The 'Closest' Focus Distance, and the 'Hyper-Focal' Distance. The Hyper focal distance is the range beyond which everything will be rendered by the lens in acceptably-sharp-focus. Closest Focus Distance, the range beneath which nothing will be rendered in acceptably sharp focus. Between the two, we have the range of critical focus, where we actually need to pick a subject to focus on, and twiddle the lens, or let some electronics do it for us!, to get that subject in 'sharp' focus.... and a Depth or Field of 'acceptable' focus in-front and behind that subject/range.
Oh-Kay... Depth-of-Field... risking yet another telling off for old fashioned simplification... within the rage of 'critical focus' the DoF is approximately 1/3 infront of the subject, 2/3 behind, and the DoF zone a proportion of the focus range set... so as you focus further from the camera, so the larger your DoF becomes,and drastically so as it doesn't follow a linear rule. BUT, the shorter the lens, so the smaller the range of critical focus, and the closer to the camera it tends to be.
RIGHT...upshot of all this is if you have a very short focal length lens, its range of critical focus will be very short, its closest focus distance very near, and the range of critical focus incredibly small. This is something micro-sensor cameras particularly camera phones actually rely on. using a very small sensor, begging a very short lens, to bring the closest focus distance, and the hyper-focal distance so close together, and so close to the camera, that the camera is is effect 'Focus Free' and need not have a complex focus system to adjust the lens focus in the critical focus range. Factory set to 'hyper-focal' effectively everything is always going to be in acceptably sharp focus.. or as ear as makes no odds.
I have a little action cam which has a 4.5mm focal length lens for this exact reason. Predominantly a video cam, saves it adding an expensive mechanical focus mechanism, more still, it saves any chance of that mechanism 'lagging' as the subject and possible subject distance changes; makes the camera simple and cheap, and with almost infinite DoF, seemingly very very 'sharp' pictures, because so little is in the rage of critical focus, that's so short ad close to the camera.
I have a 'full-frame' 35mm film camera, and its 'normal angle' lens is 50mm. Now the closest focus distance is around 25cm and the hyper-focal around 10m. The range of critical focus is quite large, and the DoF at any focus range quite short particularly at closer focus distances, where at under a meter it may be only a few mm, depending on the aperture set.
Now! as objects in the scene start to fall at the limits of the DoF zone, or outside them, the lens wont render them in 'Sharp' focus.... this allows you to effect 'selective-focus' and actually use this to your advantage, to get a subject in 'sharp' focus, but throw the back-ground or foreground out of focus, to emphasize your subject in a scene.... a technique that with a smaller sensor camera and very short lens, may be almost impossible to achieve.
It is a technique in 'hobby' photography, that when people discover it, they attribute almost entirely to large aperture settings, that see the start chasing fast aperture, often prime, lenses, and often longer focal lengths to get more of it.. and the grumbling that their photo's seem not to be very 'sharp'.... but still.
The potential is there, with a larger sensor/longer lens combination camera to achieve this selective focus effect focus fade effects, and even 'dreamy' soft focus effects.... whether you intend to or not!
Which leads towards a conclusion... that first of all, what is so often debated as 'Sharpness' is't really a property endowed by the equipment, at all. Its a question of perception, and 'effect', in which the subject and the lighting is as much of a factor as anything else.. it's not so significantly effected by the equipment, and what brand lens you are using what size sensor or the number of mega-pixies that may have.
A 'sharp' clearly defined subject, say a house, will appear 'sharper' in a photo than a rather more 'fuzzy' bush. Light which provides contrast in the form of that subject, like raking light over plough furrows, will seem 'sharper' than an over-head light that flattens it. An Arial photo of a desert, will similarly flatten the dunes, where a ground level shot will more likely reveal them. Then you get to the question of focus, and depth of field, and how with a longer focal length lens, focus will seem 'less' sharp as the DoF zone becomes shorter around your subject.
Now! Big danger with the suggestion of 'sharpness', and belief that so-much of it is in the hardware, can lead you down a path of obsessing over lab-tests, looking at test shots of diffraction grids and the like, counting 'lines' and contemplating digital 'sharpening' adjusting sampling limits so that remove the middle shades between black and white, to give harder 'sharper' boundaries, and things like that, rather than i the subject and the subject lighting, ad sinple focus!
MORE, loosing sight of the trees for the wood, and the real issue "Do I LIKE this photo?".. where clinical 'sharpness' is but one factor,and one which you may NOT actually want, as with selective focus effects, or may, all dependent on your intent.. and as so much else, so much is dependent on the scene to start with, not the kit in your mitt! And the your intent, and know-how to achieve it.
My advice? You want 'good' photo's, start there, and worry about that, starting with whats in-front of the camera, look through, not at, that!
As far as the Mega-Pixies go, it is but ONE factor in the equation,where there are so many more, and may have so much more influence.... the answer to all practical purpose and extents is NO, more pixies doesn't make more 'sharpness', certainly not on it's own....
HoppyUK
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 23,200
- Name
- Richard
- Edit My Images
- No
Short answer is yes, more pixels produce sharper images - but in practise you may be hard pressed to notice it.
Sharpness has two components - resolution (fine detail) and contrast (how clearly those details are seen). Of the two, contrast contributes most to our visual perception of sharpness once resolution reaches a fairly modest level (easily exceeded by most cameras these days). For example, when you apply sharpening to an image, it doesn't improve resolution but increases edge contrast around details so they're more clearly visible - and the result can be dramatic.
Basic optical physics is that when resolution goes up, image contrast goes down. If you have two cameras with big and small sensors (eg full-frame vs APS-C) but similar resolution sensors (same megapixels) then the larger sensor will produce sharper images because the lens is working at a much lower resolution level and contrast is inherently higher. Same number of pixels, but much larger pixels on the FF sensor.
If it's sharpness you're after, then get a camera with a larger sensor, and put best quality lenses on it. In third place, get more pixels. But overriding everything is good basic technique to ensure that you get the best out of whatever you have. In particular, accurate focus and fast shutter speeds to reduce both camera-shake and subject movement, and avoid high ISO. Last but certainly not least is the kind of light you're working in. Hard light casts stronger shadows and naturally increases contrast that emphasises detail (bright sun, direct flash) whereas soft light on an overcast day flattens contrast and softens perceived detail. When using long lenses at distance, atmospheric pollution can also reduce contrast substantially, like shooting through fog.
Last edited:
Terrywoodenpic
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 8,172
- Name
- Terry
- Edit My Images
- Yes
More pixels provide the capacity to capture more detail.
However other factors will determine if those details are sharp.
some of these relate to the subject and movement
some the camera vibration
some the lens quality and focus
Some the shutter speed and aperture
Some the construction and size of the sensor.
And some the Camera firmware.
However other factors will determine if those details are sharp.
some of these relate to the subject and movement
some the camera vibration
some the lens quality and focus
Some the shutter speed and aperture
Some the construction and size of the sensor.
And some the Camera firmware.
Last edited:
Oliver Pohlmann
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 358
- Name
- Oliver
- Edit My Images
- No
Do you really need to do this every time?
Last edited:
john.margetts
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 2,996
- Name
- John
- Edit My Images
- Yes
I would have thought it essential.
chris malcolm
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 1,369
- Name
- Chris
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Yes! Absolutely! You should give all this very careful consideration every time you change the size of your camera's sensor!
- Messages
- 7,457
- Edit My Images
- No
Here you go... does this photo look sharp enough? (Well, apart from the flywheel, as that was doing about 700 RPM at the time, and no critique please as it was just a record shot of the first test run of a newly restored vintage engine!)
It was taken in May 2006 with a Minolta DiMAGE D7 (1/90 second at f/8), the first non-professional digital camera to give us 5.2 megapixels (a 5.24 megapixel CCD with a 4.92 megapixel effective resolution and 2560 x 1920). Not too many megapixels there then, but I wouldn't call it unsharp or blurred (especially given the shutter speed). So do more pixels mean sharper images? As others have said, it's only part of the story.
It was taken in May 2006 with a Minolta DiMAGE D7 (1/90 second at f/8), the first non-professional digital camera to give us 5.2 megapixels (a 5.24 megapixel CCD with a 4.92 megapixel effective resolution and 2560 x 1920). Not too many megapixels there then, but I wouldn't call it unsharp or blurred (especially given the shutter speed). So do more pixels mean sharper images? As others have said, it's only part of the story.
Last edited:
Oliver Pohlmann
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 358
- Name
- Oliver
- Edit My Images
- No
I meant the amount of unnecessary waffle. I didn't even read what he wrote. I just quoted a random section.
stumac
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 3,369
- Name
- stuart
- Edit My Images
- Yes
I would say that would be up to the op whos question he was answering
john.margetts
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 2,996
- Name
- John
- Edit My Images
- Yes
That is what I thought you meant!
OP
sparker
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 575
- Name
- Simon
- Edit My Images
- Yes
At this moment in my photographic journey.........I'll take all the "waffle" I can get.
Well that's a bit rude
....and thank you to all who have contributed positively
Last edited:
Teflon-Mike
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 1,076
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Ask a half dozen camera enthusiasts a question, you'll get a dozen answers, and at least three arguments! Keep-It-Simple-Silly.
End of the day its about making pictures, and whether YOU like them or not... so take pictures, and don't worry too much what other folk think, just what you do.
All too easy to get bogged down in the detail and loose sight of the wood for the trees, along the way... and points of ultimate image quality and equipment refinement are paths that lead a lot astray, to obsess over 'what' makes a better picture, rather than 'who' makes a better picture.
There are thousands of perfectly composed & perfectly exposed and perfectly BORING photo's, that have little or no meaning or relevance or interest to any-one who looks at them; The fuzzy snap with half a thumb over the lens of Auntie Mable loosing her knickers at Paul & Sharron's wedding, is interesting, and so what, its a bit blurry, so what, it has half a fuzzy thumb in it so what, the floors wonky! Its FUNNY! And some-one has captured a moment, an 'interest', and people will smile when they see it, and not care for the technical faults.
99% of a photo is in the subject, and whether that is 'interesting' and worth looking at to start with, and the technical merit after is just the polish... that 'may' make for a better picture, but? If you took a 'perfect' photo of Mable loosing her knickers? A lot of folk would believe it 'staged' and 'artificial', and it could actually loose a lot of the impact it has, purely because of the 'imperfections'... which is to take the question to another level, BUT, one mans 'imperfection' is another's 'intent'... and its the photo that matters...
Remember, point of a camera is to make a picture, point of a picture s to be looked at. If no one looks, no reason to be. So who is going to look, and what will interest them? It all starts with the subject, not the equipment.
welshwizard645
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 3,496
- Name
- Peter
- Edit My Images
- No
Potentially.
as mentioned above you can get decently sharp photos from digital cameras made 12-15 years ago. Even the 6MP Canon EOS300D and 10D were considered sharper than later cameras Canon produced.
Bigger issue with higher MP cameras with smaller photosites is that movement is more likely to be captured (making images look softer) and I have been recommended to use faster shutter speeds.
as mentioned above you can get decently sharp photos from digital cameras made 12-15 years ago. Even the 6MP Canon EOS300D and 10D were considered sharper than later cameras Canon produced.
Bigger issue with higher MP cameras with smaller photosites is that movement is more likely to be captured (making images look softer) and I have been recommended to use faster shutter speeds.