Okay, I need to see closer here. Enhance.
What? That's awful.
I have wasted so much time studying spec
sheets, comparing cameras
based on their resolutions.
It was only when I started experimenting
with lower resolution,
older cameras, that I found
the threshold for resolution was
significantly lower
than what I'd expected.
Many years ago, I owned
a 30 megapixel camera.
At the time, I never even thought about
it, because I was using
this Canon EOS R primarily
for video.
Since then, I've actually been using
cameras with lower and
lower resolutions, but at the
same time, I'm finding the quality of my
photography to be improving.
Whether it's many micro four thirds
cameras I've tested, or
old CCD canons with only 12
megapixels of resolution, I often had fun
knowing that I was using
kind of like an inferior
out of date format.
Sorry four thirds sensors, but getting to
use older tech
actually made me sort of let
go of the stress of getting
the perfect images sometimes.
It was always this endearing factor of
thinking, "Ooh, what can I
make with such a low quality
sensor?
What if I actually made an okay photo?"
But honestly, from doing this and then
using higher resolution
cameras as well, what I
found has been surprising
and actually quite reassuring.
You might think that 12 megapixels or 16
megapixels is nowhere near what you need
for street photography,
but after what I'm going to show you in
this video, I think
you'll change your mind.
I want to show you some examples of where
you're likely to view
images today, say from
a smartphone or from a desktop monitor or
a laptop or a standard
1080p or 1440p monitor.
Your smartphone.
For an example here, we're going to use
the iPhone 15 as the benchmark.
I know Android have better resolution
screens, but hear me out.
The iPhone 15 has a screen
resolution of 2556 by 1179.
That comes through as a
three megapixel display.
Bit of a shocker.
And then think how small an Instagram
image is on that screen.
I thought, okay, okay, like smartphone
resolutions are going to be lower.
It's a smartphone.
Some androids are going to
have higher resolution screens.
It's typically pretty lackluster, but
phones out of the way,
it's going to be my large
4K monitor where the difference is made.
This monitor is from LG.
It's 4K IPS and really,
really good in my opinion.
And it's where I edit all my photos and
all my videos while I'm
not using just my laptop.
But quickly talking about my 13 inch
MacBook first, which has a
screen resolution of 2560
by 1600, which when we convert that to
megapixels is 4.1 megapixels.
That number is almost laughable.
My 4K monitor on the other
hand is 4K, so it's 3840 by 2160.
Have you ever converted
4K to megapixels before?
That is only an 8.29 megapixel display.
Like what?
So okay, resolutions are low on screens.
Why should you care?
Well, let's say you bought a 16 megapixel
micro four thirds mount
camera, of which there
are many and they're all
really fun to shoot with.
They're super
affordable and have great lenses.
When you take a photo on one of these
cameras, you can crop that
image up to two times before
you notice any discernible loss in image
quality when looking at
it on a large 4K display.
Likewise, a 12 megapixel image from a
camera like this Canon
G9 from my A7S III from an
original Canon 5D, you can crop these up
to 1.5 times before
you notice that same loss
in quality.
I ask you this, do you
still want to buy a Sony A7R?
If you do, continue watching.
So if you're currently eyeing up a 33
megapixel flagship camera
or even a resolution beast
like a Sony A7R with like 40 plus
megapixels, hold on to your
hats, people, because I want
to show you what you can get out of a 12
megapixel sensor while
saving you a ton of money and
actually improving your photography.
What am I going to do?
All of my photos, they look terrible.
But this guy actually
makes quite good videos.
Guys, click subscribe.
Nice, I feel good about that.
In the past, even when shooting on
something with quite an
average level of resolution
on my A6700, I've shot at 26 megapixels,
kind of like a wide shot.
And if I didn't like it, I would just
crop in to get like an
Instagram crop of the center
of the frame.
And that was totally good enough.
This is an example of the bad habits that
can form from not lazy,
it's not lazy sometimes,
there are some amazing photos that came
from crops, but came
from like just a, you know,
pretty unintentional photo attempt.
I want to show you an
image that I shot recently.
I was too busy looking at the subject and
the details that I
was trying to line up to
remember you're on a 12 megapixel sensor
and we're currently
probably a few meters too
far back to make this work.
So because I didn't get that closer
composition, I then
decided to crop in post.
And doing this has taught me two very
important but very different things.
The first is that I should always take
the time to move
closer for the better photo.
Take that safety shot a bit further out
while you've got time,
but then take the time to
actually move in and taking a few more
photos as you get closer
until the scene changes.
And the second is even with the crop I
did on this 12
megapixel image, which is quite
a big crop by my standards, I still got a
resolution of 2835 by
1894, which gives me
a 5.37 megapixel image, which is good
enough for my MacBook,
good enough for any 1080p
monitor, good enough for my iPhone.
So now I put this up to full scale on my
4k monitor that I
noticed an issue, but even
then you have to look for it.
You might have come across an assumption
kind of like a school of
four that lower resolution
sensors typically perform better in low
light and with lower levels of ISO noise.
This is part of the reason that the Sony
a7s line of cameras,
this is the Mark III, had
the reputation of being the
low light king of cameras.
This is because the size of each
individual photo site on
that 12 megapixel sensor is
larger compared to each individual photo
site on a 48 megapixel sensor.
In fact, they should be four times bigger
than those same photo
sites on a 48 megapixel
sensor, and therefore they have four
times the surface area
to capture more light.
So it's the size of the photo sites on
the sensor being larger
allows them to perform
better in lower light.
It's not about the size
of the sensor in general.
12 megapixels on full frame, however, is
not equal to 12
megapixels on a compact CCD sensor
camera like this.
Due to the size of the sensors on these
cameras and the size of
the photo sites on each of
these 12 megapixel sensors, they're not
both going to collect
light in this same way.
So it becomes a balancing act of total
number of megapixels
versus the size of the sensor.
And then what do you
do with each of these?
But that's a whole other video.
Oh wow.
And so I can use those settings to make
the photos on this camera
look like Fujifilm photos.
Wow, this specific video I'm talking
about is actually amazing
and you should watch it.