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This raises a hypothetical question: suppose we could have say a ‘perfect’ 3MP – in a compact camera, with a reasonably good zoom lens; if we put those 3MP into a 2/3″ or 1/1.7″ sized sensor, we could probably get a fast-sh 24-120mm f2-4 equivalent into something that would be reasonably pocketable. The relatively low pixel density would mean several things – good acuity, low noise, good color accuracy, and much higher forgiveness of the lens quality. With today’s technology, I don’t see why you couldn’t get a clean ISO 6400 and useable ISO 12800. Even with a lens of moderate speed, that’s a more than sufficient shooting envelope for most photographic purposes. Add a good optical stabilizer, fast AF, 14 bit RAW, responsive buffering and controls, and most people would be set. And with raw files that small, you could probably get 10,000 of them onto a 32GB card.
But, nobody would buy it and it would be a commercial failure. Only 3MP? Really?
That’s the kicker. If you’ve ever had a really high quality, but small-ish file, then you’ll know that you can actually do quite a lot with it; I remember seeing some images from the 2005 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition – prints, at 40×60″ or so – which were shot with a Nikon D1H: that’s right, all of 2.7MP. Did they sing? You bet. Did they look grainy, or pixellated? Not especially so, but I’m sure you’d see the difference if you shot the exact same scene with a D800E. The shot that won would no doubt still be a great capture even twenty years from now. A hundred years from now. Does the equipment matter? Insofar as it didn’t get in the way of the capture, no.
In a more realistic scenario, a proper 300dpi print (actual pixels, not printer ink dots) looks extremely sharp. 200dpi is still acceptable; do you know what most computer screens are? Closer to 110. Sharp images still look sharp, don’t they? [...]
Most people print no larger than 6×4″, or perhaps out to 8×12″ for special images; survey a group of enthusiasts on the largest print they’ve made, and you’ll probably find 13×19″ a good end point. There are two reasons why: cost, and lack of display space. Enormous prints are great, and actually printing work is important, but you’d also better have enormous walls to hold them.
So what does a 1500×2000 pixel, 3MP file get you? At 110dpi, 13.6×18.2″ – lo and behold, that’s pretty darn close to 13×19″! The one problem with this scenario is that it assumes that all photographers using the ‘sufficient’ camera have the shot discipline to get things perfect at the pixel level, and that they’re really getting the full resolution of the sensor. Sigma/ Foveon shooters will know what I mean by this – the files may be small, but the real resolving power is pretty darned high. [...]
