Megapixels - smooth?

jryans10

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Name
John
Edit My Images
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Hi,

I noticed on my Canon EOS 1100D (and I think with my other DSLR's as well) there are 2 of each megapixels.

For example, one has a 'smooth' thumbnail which I think suggests it is a lot more better quality, and the other one has a 'pixelated' thumbnail.

Anyway, I have a 32GB card and when using 12MP I have the following:
- Smooth: 5,000 + shots
- 'Pixelated': 9,999 + shots

I'm just wondering, is there any real benefit of the 'smooth' one? Only I thought with higher megapixels it doesn't show up as pixelated anyway?

Thanks,
- John.
 
The "Smooth" one is a high quality file with less compression applied to it :thumbs: hence the reason that you cannot shoot as many frames, and to be honest I wouldn't touch the stepped file with a barge pole as the colour rendition will be more blocked out making for nowhere near as nicer image...

That said ideally you will shoot RAW as this is a much large file that makes all the difference when editing giving you a lot more control, often a RAW is decribed as being like a Film Negative, all the information is still there where as a JPEG had been edited by the camera rather than you

Matt
MWHCVT
 
Thanks for the info - just wondered which people preferred and use.

Also talking about RAW, would you recommend taking all shots in RAW such as on holiday etc or just leaving them as JPEG's?

Thanks.
 
I always shoot at the highest quality setting possible. It is always possible to reduce the size of file later, if required, for posting on the web for example, but you would kick yourself if you managed to take one of those once-in-a-lifetime type images, but found that you couldn't print it as large as you would like because the quality wasn't there.
 
Thanks for the info - just wondered which people preferred and use.

Also talking about RAW, would you recommend taking all shots in RAW such as on holiday etc or just leaving them as JPEG's?

Thanks.

To be honest that's something nobody but you can answer as it's a horses for courses type thing, personally however I always shoot full size RAW files, what this means however is that every photo has to be edited in some form if you want to show it say online or for print, however the power of RAW when it comes to editing is epic

Matt
 
I'm very new to photography but I always shoot RAW shots also. The file sizes are huge but it forces me to frame the shot correctly so I don't waste space.

It's also very helpful for beginners as you can tweak the exposure and white balance if you didn't get it exactly right during the shot.
 
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