Re: Why is the pixel count growing so slowly?

HEMI-Powered wrote:
Today, Matt Ion made these interesting comments ...

Alfred Molon wrote:
Given that memory chips with billions of cells exist, why are
we stuck at the 10-12MP level? What prevents a manufacturer
from creating a CCD with 50-100 million pixels? Should be
doable with today's technologies. Let's ignore the sensor
size, which can't be too big for economical reasons. Are
perhaps manufacturers increasing the pixel count by just 1- 2MP per year for marketing reasonsß
What prevents it? Nothing, TECHNICALLY. Still costs a lot to
do, and there's not the demand to support it: 90% of
photographers don't NEED that much resolution, and of the
remaining 10%, probably another 50% don't need or want to pay
that much.

6-7MP is sufficient to print 11x14, which is already bigger
than most people's photo printers will do, and even going to
10MP isn't increasing the ACTUAL resolution that much.

There will always be debate as to how many PPI it takes to get a "good" print, always skipping minor details such as subject type, lighting conditions, lens quality, sensor quality, image processing sophistication, etc. But, to start at the "preferred" 200 PPI, one should be able to get a really good 8.5 x 11 with just 3.7MP image or if you really want 300 PPI, then it would take only a 8 MP. So, to make the argument at least minimally worth having, one would have to START at 11 x 14, and few people do that.

And, with the plethora of photometric settings a high-quality EVF or DSLR has, it is altogether easy for someone not as skilled as they think they are to turn all those neat mega pixels and all that expensive glass into just as fuzzy a print as a much lower price camera.

The "mass market" are wanting to print 4x6 or maybe 5x7, for
which 6MP is more than sufficient, or wanting to email their
pictures to family and friends and put them on websites, which
really doesn't require anything over 1-2MP.

Even at 300 PPI, to get to 5 x 7 only requires about 3 MP, and one can easily get by with 200 or even 150 if they view the prints at normal viewing distance, a short arms-length away. And, for the most common bigger size, a borderless 8.5 x 11, the printer is almost as important as the PPI plus view distances tend to go way up, at least to arms-lenght, and possibly viewed from a wall hanging. In my experience, one can really only see the obvious like artefacts, posterization, and jaggies when viewing a given print from too close.

But, then, there is a BIG difference between what someone needs vs. what they want ...

And an even bigger difference to what they THINK they want, or what they're led to believe they need...

*sigh*

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why is the pixel count growing so slowly?
    ... What prevents a manufacturer ... from creating a CCD with 50-100 million pixels? ... just 3.7MP image or if you really want 300 PPI, ... a short arms-length away. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Print resolution (was: Where are the BEST Point and Shoot Photos?)
    ... viewing conditions and at normal viewing distance of 22" needs only 156 ... PPI for excellent results, ... CRT high frequency response limits the contrast between adjacent pixels ... Measure your distance from the screen at this point. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: DPI and PPI
    ... meaningless 72 ppi number (and the associated 28x21 inch printed size ... on paper), then you should get the same quality with respect to ppi, ... because both images are the same size (pixels). ... But the file data is compressed in the JPG file to be smaller (in the ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: Can You Alter DPI?
    ... inch book cover If spread 402 pixels over 6", ... in pixels per inch (ppi) you just divide the number of pixels along ... If you instead print it on the cover in landscope mode, the resolution ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: 72 vs 300 dpi
    ... quality is different for different printers. ... ppi (NB: again ppi, /not/ dpi). ... ppi-figure is what you get when you divide the number of pixels along ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
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