The TRUTH: High Megapixels + BIG Prints are a WASTE? iPhone vs Sony a7R IV vs Sony a7 III

[@TonyAndChelsea]

YOUR FEELINGS ARE HURT: No, I'm not telling you to throw away your 24 megapixel camera. I'm not saying people secretly hate your 16 megapixel 16x20 images. This doesn't mean every classic film or low-megapixel image ever taken is actually garbage. This was a test of whether higher megapixel cameras actually produced visibly higher quality images and whether people would see an improvement in prints of different sizes. I also tested subjectively what point different people considered an image to be "acceptable." OBVIOUSLY a low-megapixel picture with emotion and feeling is better than a boring high-megapixel picture. But they aren't mutually exclusive! You can capture emotional moments with a good camera, and for many people with the budget, it's simply a matter of buying a D850 instead of a D750, or an a7R III instead of an a7 III. This video taught me that the extra megapixels aren't a waste (as many other people in the community have been preaching for decades, without actually testing it). VIEWING DISTANCES: I discuss it in the video and even show one of my low-megapixel billboards. For those who think people always stand WAY back from big prints, go to an art gallery with big prints and just watch how people interact with the images. They walk up to the image from a distance, take in the entire composition, and then (often) lean in to explore the details. They often lean in as close as they can. When they lean in, either the image rewards their exploration by providing the detail they're looking for or the image reveals its technical flaws. When an image is really sharp, the viewer will stay leaned in and explore the image further. They'll lean in to check out other pictures. When the image is low-res, the viewer will quickly lean back, and they'll stop exploring images. My hair was messed up and I thought it looked kinda cool so I just left it. I didn't feel like putting in my contacts. It's not the start of some new makeover for me.

[@goldfinch2283]

Tony & Chelsea Northrup this is like arguing that people who look at Rembrandt painting from 30cm will get very disappointed and therefore not view the painting from a proper viewing distance. 🤣😂

[@Almarillion]

No, our feelings are not hurt. MP is not everything. Not even DPI is everything. “DPI + viewing distance”is what matters and nobody looks at a big print from a point blank position. I was printing A3 size prints with a d70s, a 6 mp camera. You can produce excellent A2 images with a 16 mp camera, let alone with a 12 mp one, and this is all before you do any interpolating. People were shooting magazine covers with d1H, a 3 mp sensor back in the days.

[@steveg2417]

But can’t we do the same thing now in PhotoShop? Under print image size? When I ask it to print a 24” x 36”, the file size gets very big, and I don’t see the image loss. Plus, I increase the DPI for the print as well. Am I missing something?? I also agree, you can never go wrong with a sharp high MP image!! Don’t get me wrong, I am pre-ordered for the A7RIV.

[@Zhiloreznik]

No one is arguing that more pixels improve IQ and it's preferable. If you are a fine art photographer and being able to go back make amazingly detailed prints is absolutely desirable. Something like Sony and GFX100 is a necessary investment for things like that. But the sob story in the end how ... did you do your dead dog justice if you didn't take an epic picture with 61mpix or more? Like we are cheap bastards for not spending 10000 dollars on gear and we don't love our loved ones. Feelings are not hurt but it sounds like your love for Chelsea is questioned by the sharpness of the rose. I know you don't mean that but that is how it comes across. I wish I had a Porsche GT2 RS on that perfect stretch of road that day but I'm a loser who cannot afford one. Loser.

[@Almarillion]

​@Steve G Steve g, what you describe is called interpolation. You add pixels through an algorithm that analyzes the rest of the pixels. There are several methods doing it: Nearest neighbor, Bilinear, Bicubic, Fractal etc. They all have advantages and disadvantages. Interpolation did exist even before main stream digital cameras started selling, because people were scanning film, but the scanning quality did differ due to the hardware used. There were really good plugings like "genuine fractals", even in early 2000s. Today we have 24mp+ sensors, but you can still have a big enough print from a 6mp, 12mp or a 16mp camera. The reason for that is the correlation between perceived quality vs PPI/DPI- View Distance relationship. An example: An A2 size print is 16.50x24.3inches in the US. Usually it is assumed that a print will be viewed at a distance between 1.5 and 2.0 times the diagonal length of the print. But lets pretend that the viewer is very picky and will stand a lot closer that, like Tony assumes. That still means, the viewer will never be closer than a meter (1m is approx 3.3ft), unless the viewers' intention is not seeing the whole photo. The necessary minimum dpi needed at that distance (3.3ft - 1m) to provide a good level of image quality would be around 180dpi. (mostly guessing due to my previous experiences). A 24mp sensor will provide you an image of 250dpi at that size, and that is not only an excellent number to print but also the number most print-houses will print by default in my country, unless you specifically tell them to print 300dpi. A 12mp sensor would provide around 180dpi at that size even without interpolation, and that is still a fair quality at 1 meters, and a lot better when we consider that most of the people will be even further away than that. And we can always do some interpolation in the end with minimal loss, thanks to the advancements in the method, and print bigger sizes or increase our dpi for a smallet print.

[@SYPCWAK]

“All of my blind study participants said…..” There’s your problem. You should have used sighted participants. Easy mistake.

[@westsenkovec]

This is why I don't like these self proclaimed KZbin experts.

[@Falcrist]

Tony. Dude... He got ya good with that one.

[@vandervsf]

laughed out loud at a yt comment... its raaaaare hahah

[@GSXRMVDUCRD]

HA!!!!!!!!!!

[@ZeldagigafanMatthew]

I know this is sarcasm, but that's not what "blind study" means.

[@sangotade]

I printed a cell phone picture of my wife on the day she had our first daughter. The print is 13 x 19 and it is beautiful. it's grainy and has maybe 1.5 stops of dynamic range but I'm so glad I decided to print the picture. I think with a lot of photography (except for high fashion, wildlife, and architecture) some slight loss in technical picture quality is way less important than the emotion the picture makes you feel. I say take pictures with whatever camera you have currently. Print those pictures and don't be afraid of the picture not being technically perfect. Just don't pixel peep. Get a nice frame and throw it on the wall and enjoy looking at it. It will look great on the wall at proper viewing distance

[@ggpat4748]

khabeer salaam if you are a hobbyist, sure shoot with whatever you have, but for pros and enthusiasts, you need those megapixels. I own restaurants and we hire photographers for food shots. Pros who have high megapixel cameras show the quality when we print on menus and posters. Trust me the details make the food look more tastier. We hired an apsc photographer once, it looks nice on a computer screen but when printed on poster size its not that great anymore. So we only hire high mp shooters for our food shots.

[@Rascallucci]

@patrick gama You don't even need to be a pro, the fact is without enough megapixels you simply cannot blow up the pic beyond a certain size. Using Tony's dog example, my 2 dogs have passed away now, at the time I only used a Canon 400D which only had a 10 megapixel sensor to shoot all of their pictures because I was then a DSLR beginner and the 400D was the newest beginner model in 2007. I still have many of their pics, but only in 8" x 10". There are a good handful of special pics I wish I could have blown them up even further, but I can't. Bottom line is this, you don't need to be a pro to appreciate resolution and details.

[@ggpat4748]

Yes true. If you print your photos you will appreciate high mp cameras. Clients and businesses print their photos. The reason why high mp cameras exist because businesses DEMAND for it. Creative directors and food stylists choose only photographers with high mp (a7r, 5ds or higher) cameras. "Internet photographers" are content with low mp cameras because their photos stay in the web social media. But if you print your photos, higher mp is always better.

[@sangotade]

@@ggpat4748 I agree that megapixels matter and that for printing, more megapixels is usually better for printing (although at proper viewing distances, most can't tell the difference above 300dpi or so)... My point is more that if my dog died, I would print the picture in whatever size I wanted and I wouldn't get caught up in the pixel peeping. Also if you can only afford to shoot with your cellphone camera, you should print what you have. Printing is too important to say "I will only print if my picture is optically perfect". And capturing a moment is too important to say "I would capture this because I only have 12 megapixels on my phone and I won't be able to print it later"

[@pathvector4626]

@@sangotade that means you taking pictures for the "moment", not for "technique". Moments are important for you and/or the person who know the story, but not anyone else. But if you the kind of guy who appreciate the technique & quality, I can safely say that the picture is unusable (or garbage like Tony said).

[@juanquispe3494]

I love the message at the beginning. When you go on a date, bring your biggest camera with you.

[@TheIbongz]

Yeet. 😄

[@karlthefirst8690]

Wow, I’ve never read the chats on Tony’s videos before. I think this will be the first and last time. What a case study in human insecurity: the guy does an interesting case study on MP and print sizes and a significant portion of the audience is out for blood that he’s somehow poverty-shaming them. Jeez. Thanks for the vid, Tony. And thanks for actually doing your research as usual (unlike the vast majority of your detractors).

[@edlazor6698]

Meh, don’t get all bent out of shape. Tony’s case study simply failed peer review. People see and appreciate benefits from higher resolution. Increased image data significantly benefits image post processing and cropping. And even if current printers have limited resolutions, we still see the difference on screen. Plus, look online and you’ll see that Tony was one of the first people to promote the benefits of the increased resolution when upgrading to the A7RIV.

[@robbie154]

No. His test medium was just ridiculously flawed.

[@rockon609]

The biggest way to see you guys in the comments are full of absolute doodoo is that you had to hijack the top comments to get yours noticed, lmao

[@cozymonk]

I was taught in college that it's actually 600 dpi when you can't perceive a difference without getting really really close. 300 dpi was just the print standard as that's the point where aliasing becomes imperceptible to most people, but there's still lots of room for perceivable sharpness.

[@manikarnika7750]

Actually, I cannot tell the difference between 300 dpi and 200 dpi. ...up close with my reading glasses. I start to notice a difference at around 200dpi.

[@stans5270]

People who buy fine art prints have big walls. People who buy fine art prints have big WALLets.

[@brandonhoffman4712]

people who buy fine art prints are also considered poor by those purchasing original fine art that said prints were made from.

[@danieljohnston5306]

Imagine that, people with money spend it..... pssst don’t tell CNN....lol

[@Neopulse00]

@@danieljohnston5306 Nah man, they amass wealth and never spend it, which in turns causes the "proletariat" to hate on them (loling)

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Yeah, often. If they're your customers, this is great news.

[@ninpo1500]

So do people buying the A7Riv

[@MannyOrtiz]

I love the message at the end. Definitely an eye opener

[@RichardJPhotog]

so many people commenting are missing the point...entirely

[@frederikboving]

Agreed

[@piotrstepien1234]

Because I don't agree. Instead of paying more for high megapixel camera, better buy "good enough" camera and go for vacation with your kid to have more memorable moments, worthy to print...

[@RobertShaverOfAustin]

@@piotrstepien1234 Why not do both?

[@NGameReviews]

@@piotrstepien1234 Why not have both? Why comprise future proofing for good memories and then regret not having the highest quality prints later on in life? And even if you're not printing, you may want to crop afterwards.

[@severgun]

Crop of a big image is not the same as big print. Bigger prints are supposed to be viewed from longer distance.

[@aymanmehdi1352]

That's right!

[@xrarach]

Not true, I am making panoramas and of sizes 100 - 200mpx and I love to walk to them as they hang on the wall, or just in the PC and look for the details that I have not seen on them yet :) Those are the images you want to have on your wall, a picture that you can take a look at every single day and try to find there something new, and surprise surprise, you really do from time to time :) All the detail and beauty is just there ...

[@TerryPagel]

I agree. Every image has a viewing distance. And size isn't always the determining factor. If there is a lot of detail in a huge image, it will beckon people to come closer to see the detail. Big images from a 24mp image are probably fine from a standard viewing distance as people won't come up to see detail that isn't there to see. That is why low res images are on billboards - they automatically have a large viewing distance. Big photos in big houses will have bigger viewing distances. 8x10s handed to someone to pixel peep already have an arms length distance built in. So, not exactly accurate, but good info nonetheless.

[@anthony71571]

not true. I like to lay on my large format photos. lol

[@tachikaze7]

I was just about to state this very same fact. This video is informative... but a little misleading, since it basically details the outcome of shooting with the intent of cropping the image. A problem that could, to some extent, be offset by simply using a zoom lens. Maybe this video’s sole purpose was to advertise that photo he is trying to sale 😂

[@rjkral]

So, what did you use to create your beautiful big print there? What do others use for those big exhibit walls? What creates the 240MP print?

[@tecnolover2642]

But viewing distance is always what matters. People will not be looking at a 20x30 print like they would a magazine page. They will be back far enough to take in the whole frame so what resolution is acceptable for what size prints? The problem with this study is that you were only showing them a crop and they viewed it up close. That is not realistically the distance public would view such large prints.

[@jackbond4336]

Tony, I take two things from every video, actually make that three. 1. Is I always leave knowing more than before. 2. My wife thinks I'm crazy, for loving technical videos on photography and for that I thank you. 3. My wife becomes displeased everytime I mention your videos because she knows the bank account is about to be depleted.

[@bdfrankmeow]

Getting higher resolution pictures pass a certain point is not as simple as having a higher mp camera with a sharp lens. You have to be more stable, achieve perfect focus , avoid diffraction, etc. It leads to constant use of a good tripod, low iso and often focus stacking . My point is : it's a lot of work and less suited to many subjects or situations. It's just not for everyone.

[@wildcat1065]

Good point

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Yeah, this is true, but tech has improved over time. For example, the 5DS-R didn't have sensor stabilization, and Canon's sharpest lenses didn't have optical stabilization, and that meant a lot of my 5DS-R images were GARBAGE. The focusing was pretty inconsistent, too. But cameras like the Z7 and a7R IV are stabilized, and the Sony focusing, especially, is extremely accurate. In the future I expect these things to continue to improve, along with the megapixels of the sensors.

[@bdfrankmeow]

@@TonyAndChelsea if you find that stabilisation and focusing are good enough on the 7R IV to keep up, it is great news as it solves some of my concerns . I guess it would apply more to Fuji's medium format except for diffraction that would be less of a problem on their 50mp models but not at 100mp.

[@nordic5490]

bdfrankmeow 3years ago on a camera Club outing, there were tripods every where. Now there are none.

[@bdfrankmeow]

@@nordic5490 yes, stabilisation is a great thing . I enjoy dual is 2 on my M43 Lumix zoom lenses while ibis is enough for my non-stabilisazed primes . My guess is that ibis on a hi-res FF would bring back the speed to roughly what non ibis would be on a 24mp . I recently added a 24mp Nikon D610 and a few old lenses for real cheap and set the auto-iso to set speed 2 stops faster over 1/focal . It does the trick but iso climbs a lot in low light on long focals. If i was not using anything over 100mm or accepting to get a big fast heavy tele, it would be easier to choose the next one...

[@Enlightenment_2025]

That black frame glasses and (completely covered) white hairs made Tony look a different person, today.

[@Autotunethyeveryday]

Summer2015 have you seen him with a mustache?

[@Enlightenment_2025]

@@Autotunethyeveryday, hmmm did I?

[@hamzahaytham3940]

Caleb Hajek You mean the Italian version of Tony?

[@BlingBlingTheBSOFTHEISS]

Summer2015 Well we all age, no one is exempt. Every decade we look different.

[@oh-totoro]

Martin Scorsese

[@millerviz]

I shot for years with a 21 megapixel 5D and routinely sold prints up to 42" wide. No one ever said they were unacceptable or lacking in any way. When I upgraded to the 5ds at 50 megapixels, the images were visibly much sharper to me, but many people saw no difference. The images are exquisitely detailed at 40" wide. Could more pixels improve the images? I'm sure they could, but only the tiniest bit and only at unrealistic viewing distances. This was my real world experience over a decade of shooting and selling large prints. By cropping your images rather than printing larger, you bias the result due to reduced viewing distances.

[@voiceofreason9258]

I agree. I have printed all sorts of 16"x24" prints from my 8Mp Rebel XT. There is nothing wrong with them. I even got into an argument with the camera store I tried to get to print them because they were refusing to do it saying my camera wasn't good enough. I ended up having them printed at Costco. When I showed the person at the photography store the prints, they apologised. I had these prints plaked and they are currently hanging on my cottage walls. No one has EVER said they didn't look right or "unacceptable" being enlarged to 16"x24". This sounds completely bogus to me. Normal viewing distance of 3 feet you are not going to see the pixels on a 144ppi image (2304x3456). I'm using a 24Mp Canon Rebel T6s now, and I can tell you that 24Mp is the same resolution of Kodak Gold 100 Film. I scanned some at 24Mp on my negative scanner and the grain from the film looks about the same as ISO 800 on the camera. If you scanned it any higher, you would not get any better detail resolve.

[@TomFoolery9001]

Curtis, it sounds like your bias is showing. Can't except the basic facts that higher resolution looks better than low resolution when printed at large sizes. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Just like a big sensor at any set resolution will look better than a small sensor at the same res.

[@millerviz]

Sorry Tom, but you must not have read my post. I said the 50 megapixel images looked much sharper to me. But 21 megapixels worked fine even at 27 x 40 for everyone else who bought my prints.

[@lit_wick]

I'm an elementary school teacher and I bought a used d700 to help my school with sport pictures on a budget. They ended up blowing up some of the pictures I've shot and have them displayed all over the neighborhood. They look great on the light posts at well over 60' prints. Brings me great pride to have pictures I've taken on display in my neighborhood. The fact that the camera is 12mp doesn't bother me, and doesn't bother the viewers either.

[@tubularificationed]

The methodology is a bit flawed though :) If you hold your test persons prints under their nose, and ask them, which is sharper: Then they will get as close as possible (depending on age, the younger the closer), and they will engage in a square-millimeters-peeping exercise. This is not a relevant scenario though. In reality, e.g. in galeries and museums, people settle on a comfortable viewing distance, which is about the diagonal of the image. Since a good human eye resolves up to an arc minute (1/60th of a degree), and if we assume 100% vision (resolving power) in opticians' terms, then the maximum resolution, which the eye resolves at natural=comfortable viewing distances, is: 6 megapixels. Which is largely independent on print size / painting size, because the comfortable viewing distance grows with the image's diagonal. Any much more megapixels are really just for square millimeter peeping. So it may depend on the content on your photos. If they are about composition, content and emotion, no-one would bother doing mm² peeping on them. Of course some other photos do draw their pleasure from micro details, e.g. some focus-stacked macro photos of insects, and stuff like that. But it seems that photo genres which benefit from mm² peeping, tend to be "less valuable", more superficial and often just more nerdy stuff. Whereas famous images from the world's photographic heritage usually don't benefit from mm² peeping. They speak for themselves, rather than through their square millimeters.

[@chcomes]

mmmm some of the best pictures u want to print are landscapes, and those benefit from more detail, I think

[@tubularificationed]

It depends. If it is really good, then rendering a lot of microdetails wthin a mm² probably doesn't add much. I tend to resonate more with landscape photographers like Thomas Heaton, who likes simplification, some purity, even minimalism, often calmness, which then often cumulates to grandeur. I think this is the way to go, to get better landscape photos. Not cramming as much busy information as possible within square millimeters. Such pictures are often not that good.

[@v0ldy54]

Not sure how you came up with the 6mpx figure but the human eye can definitely see more than that.

[@Pazcomedy]

@@chcomes depends on the style of landscape.... I have a dark silhouette style and there is faress detail and more story telling by not seeing the details.

[@ggpat4748]

Pro photographers and enthusiast will benefit from high mp. I own restaurants and hire photographers to do food shots. Food looks tastier with all the details captured by high mp cameras when printed on menus and posters. Clients like us who are spoiled with high res images will not hire low mp or apsc photographers. When we got our first high mp photos for our restaurant there is no way we will go back to low megapixel photos.

[@furzkram]

All true - but you missed out a VERY important factor: Your blind test subjects had prints TO COMPARE to another. You would need to send your test candidates through a house with MANY rooms, where it would take them several minutes to get from one print hanging on a wall to the next one. THEN, let everybody take notes about what print in what room they found acceptable or not. WITHOUT letting them being able to go back and forth to compare. I bet you you would get VERY different results.

[@youknowwho9247]

There's no reason to design the experiment the way you propose, unless you want to test people's memory. What you're suggesting unnecessarily muddies the results by introducing additional variables.

[@naturalismundi4359]

As someone who does testing of this sort the test is to open to random guesses. Each person would need at least to test each series multiple times. This is a bit of silliness in that the imagery and art based on sharpness is idiotic.

[@mccririck01]

That would be test of image memory.

[@naturalismundi4359]

@@mccririck01 Correct. The question is... would they pass? If someone pointed to an image and said "thats the sharpest"... but said that the second time to a different print, you could verify that they really couldn't tell the difference. This was done in wine tastings all the time.

[@youknowwho9247]

@@naturalismundi4359 Nowhere does he claim that. This video is about technical image quality. I don't need my camera to look after the creative side of photography, that's what I'm here for. I need my camera to get the technical image quality as good as possible. In that regard, higher mpix count is strictly better than lower mpix count, because I can always scale down the high mpix file but not add detail to the lower mpix file in post.

[@82300sd]

Tug at my emotional heart strings Tony. Throw away all your cameras that have less than 60Megpixels. Get the A7rIV because one day your dog will die, and will you want your dog's legacy captured in an 8X10 print? Your dog deserves a 64X80 print on your wall!!!!

[@TonyAndChelsea]

Obviously the message wasn't to throw your cameras away... Quite the opposite, the moments we capture are very important and you might not even realize the importance until much later. Many camera buyers are in the lucky position of having the budget to choose between, say, a 24 megapixel camera and a 45 megapixel camera, and I hope this helps them make an educated decision. There's been a lot of misinformation out there; a lot of people say you can't see the additional detail from high megapixel cameras, and this test shows it's definitely not the case.

[@82300sd]

@@TonyAndChelsea I'm just giving you a hard time Tony :)

[@TheDouglasTrevino]

Yes, your dog does deserve a 60Mp 64x80 print. You can keep the 24Mp for your cat.

[@kevinscully1685]

While I understand why you did not make ever-larger prints because of cost, it biased the outcome, since the test photos were always viewed from the same distance, something that wouldn't happen as the print sizes got larger. Yes, if you get up close there will be a difference in the larger prints, but how important is that really? If we simply consider photo prints to be a form of pointillism (which they are) the importance to ultra-hi-res photos is diminished to its proper place and the prints can be enjoyed for images they present at the proper viewing distance for their size.

[@boodabill]

Some of my best memories are taken on Polaroids from the 70s.

[@johnnixon1026]

mine too... as us old timers say; back in my day, the picture was there to bring out the stories... but i must say, i don't mind the idea of some big clear prints to tell my stories with...

[@Moshe_Dayan44]

I agree, but there's never a moment when I don't think it would have been better if the picture had been taken on a Nikon with an excellent lens from that era. It's because that blurry image is all you've got of that moment that it is that much more sentimental.

[@pwass3857]

I suspect there may be a problem in your study design. You should take the individuals whom you think are "keen eyed" and give them 100 images to look at (say 50 24mp 50 60mp) and see how accurately they can sort out the 100 images.

[@marcdevries9027]

exactly. When Tony said that about half of people though the 50MP picture was sharper I thought: hey, that's what you expect when people are guessing. When people are doing such a test they WANT to see something. So you have to account for that in the results.

[@kevindiaz3459]

I suspect shenanigans with his color science experiment too. Not to mention people have been making large prints for a lot longer than the Sony a7R4 has existed. Wonder how it is they were able to get acceptable quality from lesser cameras?

[@sexysilversurfer]

Kevin Diaz it is possible that people had lower expectations but now with 4K screens we expect extremely sharp images.

[@marcdevries9027]

@@sexysilversurfer 4K is still not a high resolution compared to printed pictures. So I don't agree that people suddenly expect extremely sharp images because of that. Especially not considering how everybody is happy with low quality smartphone pictures (even printing those pictures) And people are happy with streaming videos over a crappy internet line instead of a far sharper bluray. In general people don't care much about quality in pictures or video at all. It's just that people need a reason to buy the latests newest super high MP camera. But nobody pixels peeps at huge prints. How much MP does that lighthouse shot of Tony have? That was not 250MP. And still people are amazed by it. And I bet they are amazed as soon as they see it, and not only after they have been pixel peeping at it from 10cm. Maybe Tony should have added a question to the comparison. Is this print adequate y/n Would you be willing to pay $3000 extra for equipment to get the other higher res print? sure, if it is completely free, then why would you not want the higher res sensor? But nothing in life is free. And 20 years from now, when he makes a huge print of his dog, he will not admire the individual hairs in the picture. He will look at that picture and it will bring back the good memories and you don't need 250MP for that. I've recently been digitizing old super8 films from my father. The quality is really bad compared to now. But it's not about quality, it is about memories.

[@00_Ryan_00]

Were people viewing the print from normal distances or holding each one at arm's length? I've made 20X30 prints from my X-T2 that look glorious, but i don't view them from arms length.

[@grahamfloyd3451]

Define "normal distance"? If I am printing a photo of a butterfly, I want to stare at it as closely as possible.

[@00_Ryan_00]

@@grahamfloyd3451 how big is the butterfly print in question?

[@CoffeeD_1]

I always step closer to my own prints. The detail is definitely used, and the photo is viewed from multiple distances

[@00_Ryan_00]

@@Koji-888 oh...we are discussing print size compared to viewing distance. Your statement is a different topic.

[@00_Ryan_00]

@@CoffeeD_1 at first, I pixle peep too, but that romance wears off after a few visits to the wall they hang on. My 20x30 prints, I'm usually standing about 5ft away as a minimum.

[@finastaniscia5440]

I got my wires crossed, can someone please help me out. Every lab I know which does photographic printing recommends not uploading images higher than 300 ppi as they say their machines can't print higher anyway. Won't they get a heart attack if I send them a 240MP file for a 8x10 print?

[@TonyAndChelsea]

I've never had a lab reject high megapixel images, and my home printer does 1200 DPI. Regardless if you scale down the high megapixel image it'll still look way better.

[@finastaniscia5440]

@@TonyAndChelsea Thanks for your reply, just want to mention though that each ink cartridge creates i'ts own printing point, and therefore has to be included in that theoretical calculation of the rasterization. If you only use five colours, which is not much for a high quality printer, there will be only 240dpi left from those 1200.

[@benjaminkepinger7368]

Great content, @@TonyAndChelsea, but can you please elaborate why the pixelshift photo ends up more crisp in the print than the regular 60MP shot from the A7r4? All the present labs print up to a maximum of 360dpi - and that's already the better ones. If you want to go beyond that you have to take it to specialized fine art studios where they high-res print on Hahnemühle Baryta paper which is needed then to handle all those nuances.

[@hansn.433]

The great question: WtF are thes formats in civilised modern units?

[@rainerbuesching1]

one inch (1'') is 25.4mm - that's approximately the width of your thumb (I wonder if "rule of thumb" is derived from here :) ). so: 1'' = 2.54cm 5'' = 12.7cm 10'' = 25.4cm 20'' = 50.8cm

[@jackkraken3888]

Its OK size, bigger than OK size, big size and WTF size.

[@reinhardkkoehler]

Hans has a point. Besides the US only Myanmar and Liberia are still using the imperial system. Tony, the latter 2 are certainly negligible with regard to your KZbin audience. But what's the share of your US views vs your rest of world viewers? Is the international share large enough to include the metric measurements for your non US audience? Even if it were not, wouldn't it be nice for courtesy reasons?

[@reinhardkkoehler]

I think you've grown too big on youtube to satisfy US viewers only.

[@reinhardkkoehler]

Oh just to provide the service here: Rough equivalents (sparing the millimeters) 8"x10" would be a 20x25 cm 16"x20" would be 40x50cm 32"x40" would be 80x100 cm (81x101 if precise) 64"x80" would be 160*200 cm (162x203 if precise) Comparing this to the offer by Whitewall, only the first sizes would correspond to what they call standard format and deviate later even then. But traditional sizes here would show a different ratio of lengths 3:2 or 4:3...

[@journeytoaphotograph]

Not just prints either, for screen work having the extra pixels means you can do WAY more with the image. 10 second pan across a landscape still - no problem, all the detail is there to entertain the eye.

[@7thStoneMedia]

Minecraft says you only need a 2 MP camera.

[@spotsill]

7thStoneMedia instagram and most social media platforms compress images down to about 2 mp . You do not need a high megapixel count to look at images on your phone and that is obviously the preferred viewing platform 👍🏻👍🏻.

[@butchjohnson9736]

So do fstoppers

[@Gundolf300]

No. Minecraft says you need a 2 pixel camera 😂📸

[@ZeldagigafanMatthew]

Your primative 1080p ass is showing.

[@inspiredartphotos]

Ok here are a couple of questions. First what about up sampling and sharpening? As in preserve details 2.0 in Photo Shop. What about Topaz Giga Pixel AI? or OnOne Resize that uses fractal based math rather than pixels? Or more importantly a true RIP for large format printing? Most gallery prints use RIP’s and large format printers. I have personal experience with Photoscript and Nova Jet Pro Printers. I have also seen the results from the Onyx RIP and Fiery RIP with the Roland printers. Most so called Giclee prints are done on large format printers with RIPs. A true Raster Image Processor is almost a must in the true large format world. It does the major upsampling. A desktop printer driver pales in print quality. I own a Canon Pixma Pro 100 and it lacks in comparison to a true large format printer with a RIP. The same file prints much better on a Roland with a proper RIP. Having owned a service bureau and printed hundreds of large format prints, this is a very important consideration in printing. Finally a properly sharp photo is very important. iPhone pixels are blocky and do not upsample well. I bet a Sony A7III could print large well with some of tools or techniques I mentioned.

[@elgenizaro]

This is a little bit missleading. When people look the print at bigger size they use more distance to apreciate

[@mrcraggle]

True but when you see these large prints, you still get close and really appreciate those tiny details. It's why the likes of Jeff Wall and others work is just so breathtaking to behold.

[@RebeccaOre]

Um, no. A big print is like a park to see from various distances and to get close to some details.

[@elgenizaro]

@@RebeccaOre any way is not the same...normally people are not PP...they are not camera geeks just random persons. If that we're true you'll never print more than 8x10 with a normal 24mp FF camera

[@Joh146]

I don't see it that way. In my living room hangs a 24x36" picture taken with a 24 mp APS-C camera. The image is sharp even when you get close. Even 32x40" should not be a problem, especially at a normal distance to the image. But of course, if you want to pixel-peep or give another reason for having the best equipment available, you can tell something like this.

[@dougherj]

Seemed like a tutorial on pixel peeping. The 24MP shots that were deemed "garbage" were fine . . . unless you were doing pixel peeping comparisons of edges.

[@chiyolate]

I believe the 24MP that he showed was actually the 60MP one, since the 60MP he showed after, was a little bit blurred (the Darwin writing on the book). Still, the 60MP (or the 24 in the video), was acceptable for me at least..

[@brian576]

They would probably be fine if they had nothing to compare it to but if they saw the 60MP and the 240MP for comparison and asked if they could see the difference or prefer which one, they would most likely say it is trash. Furthermore, if you plan to print it larger and don't plan for viewers to walk up and look at all the details then ya, it would probably pass but they are judging it through a 8x10 print in which they will be up close so of course they'd prefer a bit more sharpness. It's like a 1080p screen looks great, but once you've seen 4k, you start to think 1080p looks pretty bad.

[@zedovski]

Exactly my thought - who would go up to a big print at 5 inch distance to pixel peep in real life?

[@jrd33]

@@zedovski We know the answer to that... Tony Northrup would :-)

[@Zhiloreznik]

I printed a 24x36 from my 16mpix micro four thirds loser camera and people loved it. No one cared about the pixels, since there was no comparison test and the content was that mattered. Food for thought

[@07wrxtr1]

Agreed! I think we as americans get way too caught up in the consumerism aspect, and few have the disposable income to pay CASH for the latest and greatest. With a recession on the horizon, I doubt it's wise to embark on more debt as the meaning/how worthwhile a photo is isn't a 1:1 ratio when it comes to $ spent on camera gear.

[@wademorales]

Of course you will see poor results printing large prints at their native size. But with software and interpolation you can make very detailed amazing looking enlargements with 24 megapixel files and you can make masterful enlargement prints with mind blowing detail at 50-60 megapixels.

[@frobo512]

Wade Morales yep I made beautiful 20x30 prints with an iPhone 5 camera. And just printed a 30x60 on metal from a d500 that looked amazing. I upsampled it in photoshop to get 300dpi.

[@terriplays1726]

This is some nonsense. Interpolation cannot give you any image details beyond the resolution of your camera. It only smoothens the edges, but guess what: That is also done in the printer firmware.

[@wademorales]

Albert Einstein In the upsize of an image software basically makes up pixels to fill in the gaps of the stretched pixels. So more megapixels means less pixel interpolation. Less made up pixels.

[@kirkdarling4120]

@@terriplays1726 You're right--and it's a matter of the subject. Interpolation works fine for straight lines and broad masses of tone. A picture of an automobile intepolates very nicely; a picture of a leafy tree on a lawn, not so much.

[@teebiz8694]

you just nailed it ..... the fact is not many ppl print these days and the maz size one gets is 12"x18" or around this figure .... post cards are most popular followed by 5x7 or 6x4 .... well you rightly put it software and interpolation can help with very detailed amazing looking enlargements

[@braindeadbonobo]

0:16 Should have said "second most beautiful rose of them all", Tony.

[@henrikknudsen3902]

Hope his wife dont read this comments 🤣🤣🤣

[@JoCoMoreno]

Tony: it could be the last picture of your dog youll ever take. Me: goodammit, emptying savings and buying a hasselblad h6d so i csn take pics of my dog.

[@Mr.julian]

Jose Moreno I paused the video and belly rubbed my dog for half hour 😭

[@PhotoArtBrussels]

Buy a 180$ old medium format camera, shoot 120mm film, on ebay!! ;-)

[@StefanEideloth]

@@PhotoArtBrussels any recommendations for the camera and what type of film? :)

[@PhotoArtBrussels]

@@StefanEideloth Auto Focus? Canon EOS Series + EF Lens (i got an EOS 1n), Minolta, Olympus, Contax, Nikon => 35mm film Manual Focus? Canon AE-1 Program, Kiev4, Nikon, => 35mm film KIEV60 = Medium Format = 120mm Zeiss Ikon = Medium Format = 120mm

[@journeytoaphotograph]

I did wonder how many people (like me) looked at their pup and started unpacking the soft-box

[@SpencerLupul]

Great video Tony, but I do think the testing methodology with not actually blowing up real pictures to size takes away from the outcome a little bit. You do explain what you are testing for, that it is POSSIBLE to take advantage of higher megapixels and such, but I believe certainly that a nice photograph can be printed large and that we shouldn’t pixel peep it. There are many techniques you can use if a photo doesn’t have tons of detail to make it look good printed big. 👍🏼

[@JobKaper]

Tony, I love most of your videos. But if you want to compare big prints, you should print them big, not crop them.

[@ellarpc]

I second this statement

[@Mububban23]

But....what would the point be apart from wasting ink and paper? How would printing the entire image, then zooming in to inspect that one area he used, be any different than simply cropping and printing only that area for comparison?

[@ellarpc]

Mububban23 because you wouldn’t be zooming in to inspect. You would hang it on the wall and look at it from the proper viewing distance.

[@fridayeveningsundercard1187]

Mububban23 because they’re looking at a small corner of a much larger image at a short distance. If the images were placed out at a normal viewing distance the look would be fine. A billboard looks like garbage when you view it from 2 feet away, but from 100 or 200 feet, it looks fine.

[@photografiaaustralis2131]

If you want to shoot like the masters then use what they used... 4x5 and 8x10 film.

[@Moshe_Dayan44]

Long live Large Format! :)

[@francisgeorge7639]

Close-up viewing, which is what we're talking here, is not needed for even fine art. That really big moon print is not going to be viewed at a distance that needs even 150dpi. 75dpi would probably be fine.

[@golfbulldog]

key point there, I agree. The crops don't do justice to the way large prints are viewed in real life. One doesn't handle a 32 x 40 print and get close up to it like you would with a 10 x 8...so cropping a section to 10x8 and the looking at it close up is just not a fair test of the way a 32 x 40 print would be viewed. And the size of the print hanging on the wall is not just related to the size of the wall, it is related to the distance available to view the print. A long massive wall in a hallway might accommodatea massive print... but the narrow hallway would not provide sufficient viewing distance to take in the whole scene...one naturally stands back from larger prints...come on T+C, a test result that doesn't try to get people to buy the latest gear would be interesting!

[@EcoMouseChannel]

I made a 14' wide print of the Grand Canyon from just my lowly, Fujifilm X-T2. Megapixels, schmegapixels! Just get out there and shoot!

[@VBITS97]

Did you confuse ' and "?

[@sakritone]

wow ! I'd like to see that 14 feet print. Where did you hang it? In the Metropolitan ?

[@aikidoshi007]

I've never been able to explain to my family why even 60 MP is not enough, this video does that beautifully. Pre-digital I used to shoot on 4x5 and 645 (120) film, and after that everything digital has been disappointing until GFX100S came along. The difference is down to what I hope (one day) to be able to do in a more formal gallery setting. Thanks again Tony!

[@chankwanting]

What's the sample size of your study?

[@DCA55]

Exactly, with a sample size of 10, at least 2 would randomly select the 200MP picture as the best. For control, he should have had folks select from 4 identical photos. I guarantee that would would have seen folks swear that one was better than the other. If he’s going to do sampling, then you have to show statistical relevance.

[@youknowwho9247]

@@DCA55 Why don't you make your own double blind study with 500 participants and publish the results?

[@iforgotmyusername0]

@@youknowwho9247 because tony is the one making the claim....

[@youknowwho9247]

@@iforgotmyusername0 The point I'm trying to get across is that expecting someone to make a large double blind study for a KZbin video is ridiculous...

[@youknowwho9247]

@@weisserth I don't know why you feel the need to straw man his message. He doesn't claim that any particular person needs any particular gear. What he says is that the people he asked were able to distinguish between the prints, technical image quality improving with the resolution of the camera. That's anecdotal, but accurate and better than nothing.

[@-OzSteve]

What effective resolution do you think Ansell Adams pictures were ?

[@TonyAndChelsea]

That's a really interesting question! The resolution definitely falls apart in the really big prints. I've never shot large format like he did, but I recently shot a very large medium format camera and compared it to the a7R III and a7R IV. I'm waiting to get the film developed and scanned.

[@hallamphoto]

@@TonyAndChelsea looking forward to that!

[@-OzSteve]

@@TonyAndChelsea that will be interesting to see !

[@Falcrist]

Just bear in mind that an 8x10 view camera has about 60x the surface area compared to a 35mm sensor or film. Similarly, a 64x80 print has about 64x the surface area of an 8x10 print. If image sensors are about on par with high quality film of similar format (in terms of resolution), then the cameras Adams was using were probably on the order of 4 GIGApixels.

[@Rashadmcka]

Edit 2: in the end i found the panorama was 340mp....... Og post: Ive heard a large format film shooters on youtube, off-handedly throw around the 240 MP number if developed and scanned to the highest quality. So around that i’d assume. Edit: that may have been mentioned on a large format panorama camera, so maybe a bit less. I’ll take another look to see if im remembering correctly.

[@PhotoTubeUK]

I think it's important to appreciate that most large artwork is not designed to be viewed up close with a magnifying glass. I have recently printed 30" x 20" from my old 16 MP Fujifilm X-E2s and it looks great! Good video by the way.

[@davefoc]

I did something similar recently. I had a 30 x 20 print made for a funeral from a picture I took with my roughly 20 mp Canon. It showed quite a bit of grain close up but since it was viewed mostly at a distance it wasn't very noticeable. I experimented with one of the resolution expanding programs on line. What I found was that the solid areas were greatly improved. However I thought the face part of the image suffered. The AI in this case just wasn't smart enough to do a good job on the face.

[@TKC_]

I have used gigapixel and it can do some really incredible jobs with faces but not every time. I used on on some historical kinds of photos. also just on people I know at low res for testing and was blown away. Not with auto settings but with a little tweaking.

[@rsimko]

When looked at the picture of our dog that passed away a while ago, the last thing it came to my mind was the fact that it was taken by a low-megapixel camera. But maybe it is just me...

[@NGameReviews]

People care a lot less about megapixels and fine detail than people like Tony and other tech geeks think. I get the argument that it can future proof your art to allow for much larger prints, but absolutely no one goes up to a print and critiques the sharpness. And if they do then they're an asshole and don't know how else to judge a photograph besides using technical measurements to gauge what a good photo is.

[@anthonyminchinton3399]

As a retired commercial printer 300 dots per inch at 150 lines per inch is the standard offset litho output from Adobe Acrobat & Photoshop. Wide format inkjet printer’s have much higher dot per inch output, but often are let down by the software driving them. Different printing algorithms from different RIPs (raster image processor) can make dramatic differences in output. What RIP & printer do you use for your 50” prints?

[@AcidicDelusion]

To be fair if the picture is a shit shot of a studio it doesn't matter cause it looks like crap at any mp count. If it's a good picture with good composition and a strong subject the lack of sharpness and or clarity is a non issue.

[@derekbrown6832]

I shoot MFT, oh dear, ha, and i have a few prints at 16×14, no crop, and they look awesome. I do have a 12-40 f2.8 olympus pro lens, on the front end. Also, i would add....don't underestimate the importance of finding a good photo lab, ( if you you are not printing them yourself ) as results do vary.

[@mromagnoli]

I have a 20x30, 4/3 Sensor, 12M. It looks sharp and awesome. How you print is pretty important, too.

[@tomcorbett5508]

Should we All be shooting in film So Tony? How many Megapixiles had Adams for them to print his Photos that Huge as in your Video?

[@TonyAndChelsea]

That's definitely something I'd like to test!

[@Caracalaba]

I'd love to see it too, film vs digital for large prints,sounds like a good video

[@himikgenuine]

Adams used large format to print his photos that huge. So, if you need prints in same size with good quality, obviously you should go same direction, and take large format camera. At least, it dont have limitations of that "hi-res" modes of digital cameras.

[@tomcorbett5508]

@@TonyAndChelsea Now that would be Interesting! I haven't seen anyone else talk about it on KZbin, never mind do it?

[@jhoang861]

back in the days, images from billboards were shot using view cameras in order to retain details when blown up that big. Isn’t that what these high megapixels cameras are meant for nowadays? Most of the time, these high megapixel cameras are meant for commercial, advertisement, and landscape photographers. Every other photographers, no need to get it. It’s not necessary.

[@Mark-Huigen]

Fair point! Logical outcome. But won't printing bigger increase the distance you would naturally take a look at it? I've never seen anybody check out a poster from 4 inches away 😉

[@zx7-rr486]

@@will9357 "-There's no detail in a poster at 4 inches away" I'm not sure what you mean by that; are you talking about the lo res posters in shopping malls etc? I can see detail fine in a 300dpi print blown up at 100% at that viewing distance. Sure my 24 inch by 16 inch prints from 35mm film scanned at 5200 dpi are relatively small, but the detail IS there. I enjoy getting lost in the fine detail of a complex detailed scene. With your large format (4 by 5 inch?) pics if you get them drum scanned, you should be able to blow them up to 5.8 feet by 7.3 feet with the same resolution of detail!!

[@e.m7116]

The obvious question is; how many MP does the large lighthouse print Tony is selling have?

[@MrJulz91]

:D maby 18mp. But he is selling us the new 61mp Sony.

[@derekmidgley]

Yes, very good question. I suppose it's possible he zoomed in and shot a six image PANO very quickly before the moon moved... but I doubt you could be quick enough... so this is a superb question. A mystery!

[@sexysilversurfer]

I think he has a video on how he photographed the lighthouse.

[@TheHellis]

@@sexysilversurfer yes there is a video about it. It has some action in it, at least verbally. He was running, you can't much more action out of Tony.

[@Waffle164]

what camera did you use to take the picture of the 50" print?

[@SrCarpi]

wlfd I was wondering the same thing. I was also wondering if any visitor to his home has ever said, “Hey, Tony, that photo isn’t very sharp. You need more megapixels.”

[@mromagnoli]

He took that quite awhile ago, so it was likely pretty low megapixels (relative to now).

[@Waffle164]

@@mromagnoli that's my guess too, but from what i can see through video, it's plenty sharp enough

[@wildbill9919]

Lesson learned: Don't date, get married, or have kids or a dog unless you can afford a 60+ MP camera to take pics of them.

[@melodychest9020]

ROFL, best comment ever!! Hilarious!

[@st.michaelthearchangel7774]

@wildbill9919 Yeah, that’s definitely the take-away I got from this video.

[@rickpimentel5643]

If you cant afford a wife, I highly doubt you will be able to afford the rest.

[@jackharwick2080]

I'm not disagreeing on this subject but there are other things to consider. I sold 12 MP 30x40 photos that were processed with perfect resize and I and the customer were perfectly happy. Now I shoot a 24MP Sony and when I think that I will need a large print I turn the camera verticle and shoot a partial panorama. This gives a 50MP image with a sub $1000 camera. I do enjoy your presentations/

[@ahmedk218]

tony and Chelsea nagging about megapixel war from camera manufacture, 2 month later this video

[@AnantSacramento]

because, now he is a Salesman for SONY.

[@Dragonfireone]

Yeah I know right - I was thinking about that video the whole way through this video.

[@roknovak4155]

So - I'd like to print a couple 200-400MP shots I've got; what's the best place to order such high-res and large prints from? (I'd be interested to hear of options both in the US and Europe as I spend a lot of time in both)

[@steveg2417]

Go to a high end camera shop. I used to go to Kenmore Camera in Washington state. At least a high end shop could tell you where to go.

[@roknovak4155]

​@@steveg2417 I was hoping to hear about some reputable online places! Who still goes to brick and mortar shops these days? :-P A google search reveals White Wall is highly regarded, but I'd love to see some user feedback, and perhaps this is a good idea for Tony for a future video too! There are probably hundreds of places that do high quality 8x10 prints. But I suspect few places can offer a fine art level of quality that you'd send a 400MP file in for, so people can later appreciate it in the way Tony suggest in this video.

[@AbdelrahimRadwan]

Rok Novak lol ! you made a good point!

[@mudbaconvideos]

I'm borrowing your closing speach for work tomorrow. Man, I'm gonna sell a ton of GFX100 from now on!

[@Gijz74]

Exactly. He just sounds like a (high res) camera sales man the last few minutes. Can we please keep things real? 300 dpi is great if you hold a photo at arms length. An 80 inch wide print is not meant to be looked at from 16 to 20 inches. If you double the viewing distance you can do with half the DPI. So at 40 inches even a 150 DPI print will look just fine. And that's where this test is going wrong. Instead of making actual 30 by 40 inch print you hand people a 8 by 10 inch print of the crop. Automatically they're going to pick it up and treat it like a 8 by 10, holding it at arms length. And guess what?!? They think it looks poor. No shit Sherlock. If you would show them a real 30 by 40 print of the A7 files they would be very OK with it. All this proves is that 200 DPI is the minimum acceptable resolution for 16 to 20 inch viewing distances. I've got quite a few 24 by 36 inch prints in my home. Some of them printed of 20MP files from a MFT camera and they look simply great. I know that is breaking 2 rules in one go. Using way to little pixels for such a big print and using a toy camera system which is completely dead. Sorry Tony for letting you down ;-)

[@slon74]

Yep, I don't appreciate this kind of advertising

[@Federico84]

Gijsbert Peijs mft is not dead

[@akacensored3092]

Gijsbert Peijs I understanding your argumentation and partly agree with you. But I have the feeling that you didn’t read or understand Tony‘s pinned comment. I‘d say that it depends on the type of viewer the print is presented to. For me personally I know that I am one of the guys who get really close at the gallery to get in all the details after I have taken in the whole composition. All the details can amaze me for many minutes, while even the best overall picture (by motive, composition, etc.) can only hold me for a few. (Also the technical fascination adds to the general impression.) Do you understand what I mean?

[@Federico84]

@@akacensored3092 how many people are good enough to show their prints in a gallery? and also people made big prints from the beginning of photograpy, lens were less sharp than nowadays but no one complain, but now a picture to be good enough for a print must have zero noise and incredible details

[@saucelove]

This is where a medium format camera comes in place! I’m shocked you did not mention Fuji film GFX 100. Compare that one!

[@grahamfloyd3451]

I second that motion!

[@jeffluo9591]

Will 100MP be better than 240MP?

[@olusolaolutosin2011]

I feel the video is to promote the latest Sony A7Riv

[@metamurph]

Yes, those Ansel Adams prints are not from 35mm film...but still the other side they are art, not pixels. since we passed the "birth" of photography this week, consider that first photo of Paris, is it tack sharp no, but it is awesome and amazing... And old photos I have of relatives -- the challenge of future proof is you can't because what will exist 10 years from now will be very different -- you will say why do I have all these flat pictures

[@tkarchesy]

Jumping on the bandwagon, I was thinking the same about the Leica S (Typ 007) Medium Format DSLR Camera, which has a 37.5MP 30 x 45mm CMOS Sensor.

[@xereeto]

Two of your study participants picked out the 240 megapixel image - are you sure about that? P

[@Optidorf]

From a technical point of view I cannot agree more, but for me it tends to lose the message that is hidden in a picture. The flower at the wall represents a symbol of love. Would a sharper picture contribute more to this message?

[@olereidar]

Dammit. Now I have to start saving for a 400 megapixel Phase One or Hasselblad.

[@chrisloomis1489]

Wait: 600 MP is the New Norm !!! in 36 months.... LOL

[@andreik3096]

@@chrisloomis1489 i bet some have already tried to stich 10 phase one raws into 3Gpix one and print an A3 out of it :-)

[@johnd7564]

@@chrisloomis1489 I'll just wait for gigapixels to come out... and dream at night of petapixels. Hah.

[@wesleyhyun]

I would assume these days that people use high MP for more cropping leeway than native MP printing.

[@marcof771]

Unfortunately the 240 mp mode is not suitable for sea scapes, or trees blowing in the wind etc but yeah, resolution is never enough if you sell for galleries

[@keith2599]

Good day to you Tony and Chelsea... I once flatbed scanned a passport sized photo of my nana in 1941 and enlarged it to a A1 for my mother for her dining room wall and it looked crisp and amazing done at 600 dpi resolution.....i think these are a good opportunity if you need enlargement.... Best greetings to you both from little old england....

[@sirbc]

It's unclear from the video if before you print are you first resizing them in Photoshop using something like Bicubic Smoother or Preserve Details? It would also be interesting to see you redo this test again using the new LR/PS "Super Resolution" and see if that changes the results.

[@AdamFavre]

Considering the only people putting their nose on a print for a 1/2" viewing distance are photogs. No one else does that.

[@thornupsb550]

This. Viewing distance is a HUUGE factor that's not discussed enough here.

[@ChrisJones-rd4wb]

Yes but there are people like me who do massive crops a lot

[@midisax]

You got me with the comment about your dog. I wish I had used my best camera for the last pic I took of mine.

[@FrankP83]

i've crystal clear in my mind the last long hug for my little princess before leave my home and come back to another town away from here for job. And is better than any camera can take :°)

[@KamenKunchev]

Back in 2010 I worked as a cruise ship photographer and my colleagues and I were using Nikon D200 for 8x10 inch prints. We were cruising the Mediterranean sea visiting a lot of great places in all sorts of lighting conditions and mainly shooting through average lenses like the 18-105 and 18-135 Nikkor. All our photos got printed out and put up for sale in our photogallery on board the ship. This camera has 10.2 Mpix sensor and is tough as nails. I am explaining this because only in recent years people have started worrying too much about the Mpix count, the AA filter, the lens aberrations in the corners and the sharpness of the images zooming past 100%. What if I told you that low (6 to 16 megapixels) Mpix count is still a good thing for 8x10 inch images, for social media, for looking at on your 4K screen at home. After all, 4K screens are between 8 an 12 Mpix so looking at nice photos from your 14 year old dSLR in 2019 shouldn't really be a problem if you have something to show other than megapixels, right?

[@werewolfyang3974]

Long story short, 200 ppi is acceptable, 300 ppi is good.

[@Zegmaar_Bas]

But how bigger the pp the better 😏

[@wenyulian9584]

Tony, it is very interesting point of view for higher resolution cameras; however, I read some articles on the internet which claims that for FF sensors, 61 mp is reached the resolution limit due to diffraction. I personally recalculated it. It seems to be true based on the Airy Dusk effects. I hope that you may look into this. My calculation was based on FF sensors size, for green color light and human size object at 10 meter distance using 50 mm lens. To get dof from 10 meter to infinity, it requires f11 or smaller, but f11 is already has diffraction effect. If you have interest, I may send to you how I calculated.

[@patriciafagan3632]

You are so positive about Sony, pixel shift and high megapixel count So different from when you were so very disregarding of Panasonic and their new S cameras, What happened that you can do such. U-Turn ??

[@youknowwho9247]

He's obviously testing Sony because he owns Sony gear and because Sony offers the highest res full frame sensor right now. The high res example could just as well have been a D850, Z7, 5DSR, S1R or whatever. The camera brand is irrelevant to the video. The case is simply that the a7r IV has the highest res, plus pixel shift.

[@patriciafagan3632]

Landscope 360 that is not what is bothering me, what is bothering me is that Tony made a video about the Panasonic S r. In this he was dismissing the high megapixel count and saying all the negative things about having high resolution e.g easy to blur, lots of storage space needed. Even more upsetting is how dismissive he has been about high res mode, in the past he has said it’s not that useful be it in Olympus, Pentax, I’m just disappointed in mixed messages

[@oguzbenice7423]

Interesting video. Thank you Tony! One question: Do you think that in 50 years people will still print on papers?

[@worstuserever]

Paper may well be obsolete by then; technology is, at long last, making paperless a practical proposition, but I think Tony's point still stands regardless of the medium. Assuming an appreciation for still photography remains, we'll simply be viewing on high-resolution displays instead of paper, and so the image capture device will still need a lens and sensor to match.

[@PetePistachio]

worstuserever I think still photos will remain relevant a long time from now. Our eyes can't freeze motion or see a scene for such a small moment in time. These still photos reveal a world we can't otherwise see. I suppose you can pull a frame out of a video and call it a still image, but it's not likely to be anywhere equivalent in quality. And why record a video if all you want is a still photo?

[@michelangeloc.4265]

50 years from now we will be all dead....so.....who cares?

[@petehenshaw5620]

So, how good Is Topaz AI gigapixel in assisting printing larger?

[@oldengguy]

Interesting video. A lot to think about. I think it is important to consider that an actual print of a large size will be looked at differently from an 8X10 print of a small portion. Large prints are viewed from farther back, so that will impact how it looks. In thinking about the time and history of our images, I was married in 2006, and the photographer who shot our wedding now over 15 years ago used two cameras; a Canon 10D crop-sensor at 6.3 MP, and a 5D at around 12 MP. Those photos still look great in our wedding album, and I got all the image files, and they look great on a screen. They are good enough.

[@gregoryhamilton6161]

What was the printer printing at please, 300?? and what was the printer?

[@whafrog]

The only thing to look at in an unemotional, un-composed, still life is the detail. Which means the viewer is *only* thinking about detail when deciding whether or not the image is "acceptable". Which means the test is *heavily* skewed, and dismisses all the other far more important elements of photography: light, mood, composition, story... This is only interesting to figure out what level of detail is actually visible, but it says nothing about what size your prints can be to still be effective for, and have an impact on, the viewer.

[@something-will-turn-up]

Agree. The test photo was a bunch of small, uninteresting stuff on a wall. The image was all about about the details of that stuff. I wonder what the verdicts on acceptable sharpness would have been if the subject matter had been a landscape or Tony's lighthouse image.

[@Slovak64]

Good point. Just think how the test might have come out if he had photographed a piece of graph paper.

[@paulscottfilms]

Yes, agree absolutely. When you look through someone's photos, the best one is because of the subject, not sharpness.

[@stephendenagy3396]

But the point of the comparison was to isolate the issues of resolution. The other factors c onfound the resolution issue. Indeed, there is more to a photo than resolution. But...it's nice to to have both sharpness and resolution!

[@paulscottfilms]

@@stephendenagy3396 agreed My Sony APS-C loses pictorial value at around 1600 ISO, and in my opinion, 24Mpixels just does not cut it. The Samsung cell phone has 48Mpixels out of the tiny sensor, and I wonder how long conventional cameras are going to be with us.

[@altar7885]

11:40 the sudden switch to a sales pitch for his print was so random

[@PH61a]

Maybe someone asked before: with what camera did you take the 80" photo at the end of your video. You said the a7r iv at 240MP was OK/acceptable for an 80" print so did you take it with that camera or did you use a medium format camera?

[@TechnoBabble]

No, it was taken with a D850 and a 500mm f/4 if I'm not mistaken.

[@denniscrabtree2170]

How do you get 240 MP from the Sony a7 IV that has only 61 MP?

[@PinataOblongata]

"Pixelshift". He even said it in the video: "You need a tripod and for everything in the image to be still."

[@alansach8437]

As a friend of mine pointed out: if you stand 12 inches in front of the Mona Lisa it's just a bunch of paint blotches! What does that prove?

[@phatcrayonz]

Don’t get me wrong. He is super intelligent and knows his stuff. Just saying. Sounds like a megapixel commercial.

[@davidzx692]

If you really love your wife or cat you need to buy a new expensive camera with more megapixels. ;)

@@davidzx692 lol!

[@spotsill]

I have not printed out my 12 megapixel files from my vacation to 4x6 yet let alone 16x20😂😂😂. In an era where people are printing fewer Images than ever this I’d say it’s definitely a commercial for megapixels. In the real world 4.000 dollars is a used car 🤔🤔🤔!

[@bethgereben]

Love the first date rose story. You two are so cute. Thanks for the info on the pixels and print size. I will be considering these things as I consider my switch to Sony

[@Almarillion]

Unless you are cropping your pictures in post processing, you do not need anything more than 24mp really. If you are cropping, depending on how much you crop, you may need more. Dont fall in to the megapixel trap. Also you do not need a 300dpi output for a huge print. Nobody views them at arms length distance.

[@onegrapefruitlover]

"One day I want people to be able to look at my pictures from such a close up distance that they can no longer see the composition and still enjoy details" That's just very specific wish, and a fine desire to have, but I wouldn't say it's a requirement for being "future proof". (Unless the people of the future are all pixel-peepers)

[@artsgroup01]

This test seems predicated on the straight megapixels issue and ignores the fact that professional sharpening and enlarging software is widely used, and that the results are in most cases excellent for cameras at the 24 megapixels level. I recommend Sharpen AI and Gigapixel AI, both available from Topaz Labs. I believe that the main advantage of upper echelon cameras in the 50-60 megapixels range is that the size of the digital 'negative' allows far more creativity for fine art photographers interested in cropping photos in order to enhance the visual narrative of the image. Every picture tells a story.

[@waf3I]

So the 20mp sensor they are putting in the new Canon R6 is useless?

[@fernandor8979]

Makes me think about how my 50 inch 4k TV is basically a 8mp image stretched to fit a 50 inch display. TV probably uses internal tech to make viewing better.

[@alexk7977]

Most TVs do use an upscaling technology but the quality of that varies from TV to TV.

[@championxxlNL]

I think the moving image also help perceive it as sharper than it actually is

[@anthonypetit7984]

You’re talking capture density. What about print/output/presentation density?

[@mamiyapress]

Edward Weston used an 8X10" camera and Contact Printed his resulting negatives, image size is not everything but image quality might be!

[@TheBabydaddy1973]

could you please Could you please do this factoring in upsampling programs? Thanks.

[@geoffhoward2171]

The point I found interesting was when he was talking about 80" wide and referring to the large images created by Ansel Adams, that was interesting in as much we have been told for years that 5mp easily out performs 35mm film so how many 35mm frames will fit in one of Adams plates, I wonder what size plate would be required to produce those images using Northrups' reasoning???

[@redmarauder]

Geoff Howard I’d like to see a conversation about scanned film negatives. A mid-range scanner can scan 6400 dpi. For a 35mm negative that yields 61 million dots, or up to 21 inches by 32 inches before reaching 300 dpi in prints. Ansel Adams shot those Yosemite pictures with a 4x5 or 8x10 film camera. Scanned at 6400, that makes an image with 3.27 billion dots. Digital cameras can do things that film can’t, especially in low light, but I doubt they’ll ever surpass the larger formats.

[@svanteekholm7334]

What about AI upscaling of old small MP images Tony?

[@nordic5490]

Svante Ekholm does that work ? Do you have a link to any examples ?

[@johnsmalldridge6356]

Would have been nice if you would have thrown in a Fuji GFX 100 into the mix.

[@photographerjonathan]

why is it needed, it's a 100 mp, he already showed us 240mp

[@johnsmalldridge6356]

photographerjonathan, who ever said it was needed? This is a comparison of different cameras with different capabilities. This being the case, why not have the GFX 100 in the comparison. The 240 megapixel photo from the A7r4 only works with completely motionless subjects while the 100 megapixel photos from the GFX work with any subject. There is also the possibility that GFX 100 may be capable of doing a similar type of pixel shift photo in the future.

[@photographerjonathan]

@@johnsmalldridge6356 because you already know the results. it will have a little more resolution than the 61mp and less resolution than the 240mp. it's not rocket science.

[@johnsmalldridge6356]

photographerjonathan, actually no I don’t know the results. The A7r4 is a full frame sensor and the GFX 100 is a almost medium format sensor. Seeing how these cameras compare at such large print sizes would be interesting. Remember this is as much a comparison of how the large prints compare as much as it is about megapixel count. You know what they say about ASSuming vs. knowing.

[@youknowwho9247]

@@johnsmalldridge6356 This is a test of how resolution influences print quality. He has a progression from 12 mpix to 240 mpix. There's no reason to include 100 mpix as another data point. The fact that it's a medium format doesn't matter for this test. He wasn't looking at noise performance, dynamic range or depth of field.

[@Zenither]

So what camera is Answl Adams using ?

[@Falcrist]

His favorite camera was an 8 inch by 10 inch view camera. That format has about 60x the surface area of a 35mm sensor. For reference, that's similar to the size difference between an 8x10 print and a 64x80 print.

[@stevek8829]

The newest one and his had the most pixels.

[@rowlandcook8612]

One major factor of how sharp a picture is, is how good are your eyes. When I was a teenager I had excellent (fighter pilot) vision, and when Digital cameras started to appear about year 2000. I could tell the difference between a digital photo and a film photo by the noise in the digital photo. Now my eyes have deteriotated and I have to where glasses, and even with glasses I cannot see the detail I used to see. So one question I want to ask, is how old were the 2 subjects who could distinguish between the 60mp and 240mp and how good were there eyes. could they still read the bottom line of an eye test chart?

[@nedlofton6910]

So, how are the large Ansel dams wall-prints made if 240MP only gets you to 80-inches?

[@RobS1972]

Think ahead, how are you going to store files for use in 50 years time?

[@spotsill]

Rob S good point you may not even be able to open a jpg or raw file in fifty years. The camera manufacturers and adobe could declare our current file systems obsolete just like film formats in the past .

[@0ooTheMAXXoo0]

@@spotsill You can still read every old file format that has existed since the 1970s. File formats are so easily kept alive by even a single enthusiast.

[@jbilly24]

They will soon tell us that big memory cards contribute to global warning.

[@purenupe1]

How were 80 inch prints made before the a74 and 5DSR?

[@MrJulz91]

:D exactly. This has no point. All those large print gallerys he's mentioning. I wonder how much mp the "masters" use.

[@JeremySmith23]

PureNupe1 they were made with film, medium format digital or they were just not quite as sharp as is possible. Printing a small section of a large print like done in the video works to view objective sharpness, but when an actual large print is made, usually its viewed from further and the entire composition is taken into effect by the brain, rendering sharpness not as important as a tiny subsection.

[@sexysilversurfer]

No cropping so composition had to be spot on. They are fractal software programs that increase the size though it has limitations.

[@MichaelKeller]

Is Tony cosplaying as Hugh Brownstone? I swear I clicked the thumbnail in my feed before looking too closely and expected a TBMaAE video to start.

[@paulbentley2709]

Hold That thought

[@zackbulatao]

All thats missing is a 4K quality beard... Lol

[@jerryeisner1]

Looks like Tony Brownstone to me, but "hold that thought"! Let's ask Claudia errrrr...I mean Chelsea

[@paulbentley2709]

@@jerryeisner1 Tony has lashed out for a makeover with those special glasses and aluminum hair piece

[@James-lb3jo]

What kind of sensor does the iPhone 11 Pro max have or does it have a sensor ? Do smartphones have sensors ? Thank you .