Would someone let me know if a 5 megapixel digital camera can...........

[Kelley (Texas)]

produce a sharp 8 X 11 size photo? If not, how about a 8 megapixel digital camera? What I am also trying to find out is if you have to send a photo to a publisher, what is the minimum megapixel digital camera that can be used? Kelley (Texas)

 

[Sodbuster27]

A 5 megapixel camera will do a decent job for an 8x10 photo. But as with anything, think about this....

You get good quality with an instamatic film camera (smaller negative -- think in terms of pixels here too)
You get better with 35mm film.
You get better yet with medium format film (6cm x 6cm negative)
Then you get much better quality with 4"x5" film
and so on and so on...

Personally, I would err on the side of quality. With 8 megapixel cameras going so inexpensively and some of the optics being much better (which is another major consideration for image quality), I would go with the larger, quality camera.

As far as publishing, each publisher will have their own published standards. Purchasing the higher quality camera, you can then use software, Photoshop/Photoshop Elements/open source software, to resize the image to whatever the requirements are for the publisher. (Sizing down is easy -- getting more quality from a lower quality digital image, much more difficult if not impossible).

My 2 cents,
Sodbuster

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my question. Again, "Thank You!" Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)

 

[John in Nawth Carolina]

Kelly,

The lens quality may be even more important than the number of pixels. I believe you have enough pixels. Having a good lens is very important.

 

[Gord SW Ont]

Kelly - you should ask the particular publisher involved as they can have differeent miminum requirements. Some stock photo businesses want very high resolutions ... as high as 25+MB images. You want to make sure the publisher you are dealing with does not have a special requirement such as this.

Most publishers however usually want the often quoted standard of 300 pixels per inch (ppi) for printing purposes. Using this figure, theoretically one would need a (8*300)*(11*300)=7,920,000 or 8MB image. However, very good results can be obtained at lower ppi's. For example, at 250 ppi you would get the (8*250)*(11*250)=5,500,000 or 5MB figure you also mention. Even lower ppi ... possibly 150 or 180 can give good results although a publisher may want more. To a certain degree the publisher can upsample the file to increase the number of pixels in an image but such software has to add pixels and even if it has excellent interpolation/exterpolation algorithms to do this it is just making a best guess. Actual pixels taken "in camera" will be best.

As the other posters said the resolution is not the only factor to consider with respect to sharpness.

Not sure if this helps any ... good luck!

Gord SW Ont.