Is 24mp the sweet spot of 36x24 format?

[FlashGordonPhotography]

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Bah!

About 20 years ago some muppet started a post saying *is 6MP the sweet spot?*. Then 10 years ago another post *is 11MP the sweet spot*?* And now this. Page three and the overly sensitive are already getting personal with, “get your eyes checked”. Like they know it all and know it for everyone. We may as well have the annual DoF thread. In 10 years from now there’ll be a *is 60MP the sweet spot* thread. Move on already.

There is no resolution sweet spot.

Even if you don’t print big. Even if you don’t crop. If you want 60MP? Great. Awesome. Go for it. It’s your money. Enjoy it how you wish. If you set your SL3 to 18MP? Well done. Enjoy your camera. Have a great time. Neither of you need to justify your decision and it’s your decision to make.

A few of us (very very few) have some technical requirements for certain gear. For the rest of us it’s just because we can. Most of us have more than we need. Most of us should get better techniques rather than better gear. For others it’s aspirational. Just because *X* hs never made a print does not mean he/she won’t in the future. Some of us like to pixel peep. Nothing wrong with that. Some of us just like pretty stuff. Let’s face it, if it was purely a technical exercise we wouldn’t be shooting Leica.

So what? You’re not hurting anyone. Do what you want.

Gordon

p.s. I’m running an exhibition of medium-large prints (800mm to 1200mm on the long edge) and we’ve set up the space with some nice benches at ideal viewing angles so you can sit and enjoy them. Without exception viewers have their noses so close to the prints that we need to clean the glass. People will view stuff how they want to view stuff. Another thing we could stop telling others how to do it right.

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[IkarusJohn]

MP for itself is of no interest to me. 

What I am interested in is the best dynamic range, no moiré. In short, the highest quality file, regardless of MP. 

I’m not big on cropping, preferring to select the focal length of the lens I need. 

Similarly, while some like looking at the detail in a printed image (actually, most people do, even briefly), the image is about the whole. You only get the full sense of an image at viewing distance. 

So, in my view the gains in MP become marginal very quickly. 

The downsides in increasing MP also become obvious very quickly. Motion blur (the shutter shock with the Nikon d800e made it unusable at certain shutter speeds), camera processing (M11, I’m looking at you) and file handling (X2D) are all issues. 

Between them, I wish Leica and its wafer manufacturers, processor makers and code writers would just give us the best of each for the M camera, ignoring the spec race (currently MP being the easiest to sell).  Just promoting MP isn’t working.

So far, they aren’t doing so well. 

[jaapv]

Well given that the human eye  (compared to monitor/ camera) resolution is outresolved by 8K/ 33 MP, everything else is redundant and just a rat race. And fingers up everybody who owns an 8K monitor for photo display…. Nobody? I think that technology has hit the biological barrier. 24 MP to me is the tipping point where the advantages of a higher resolution get eclipsed by the disadvantages. 
 

https://techjury.net/blog/what-resolution-is-the-human-eye/#

[NigelG]

TLDR…yes IMHO.

(But since all my FF digital Ms / crop Fujis / Ricohs and Leica TL2s are all 24 MP - In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies “Well he would (say that) , wouldn’t he!”

Edited December 10, 2024 by NigelG

[Jeff S]

1 hour ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

Without exception viewers have their noses so close to the prints that we need to clean the glass. People will view stuff how they want to view stuff. Another thing we could stop telling others how to do it right.

Maybe one day you will graduate to museum display with rope/belt barriers. 😉

Jeff

[SrMi]

There is a special joy when looking at well-executed high-resolution images at 100% view on your monitor, regardless of the monitor size.

[jaapv]

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But how much is placebo? 

[SrMi]

Just now, jaapv said:

But how much is placebo? 

I am not following. I am looking at real, not fake detail.

[hdmesa]

3 hours ago, SrMi said:

There is a special joy when looking at well-executed high-resolution images at 100% view on your monitor, regardless of the monitor size.

When both are viewed at 100%, I much prefer the SL2-S files over the SL3. Even downsampling SL3 files to SL2-S size doesn't have the same sparkle to my eye. It's probably a bit of aliasing I see with the SL2-S that I like, similar to the look of the GFX 50S at 100%.

Edited December 11, 2024 by hdmesa

[FlashGordonPhotography]

5 hours ago, Jeff S said:

Maybe one day you will graduate to museum display with rope/belt barriers. 😉

Jeff

haha.

I genuinely hope not. I work really hard to show images that have subtle details that show at different viewing distances. Especially in bigger prints.

Gordon

[FlashGordonPhotography]

6 hours ago, jaapv said:

Well given that the human eye  (compared to monitor/ camera) resolution is outresolved by 8K/ 33 MP, everything else is redundant and just a rat race. And fingers up everybody who owns an 8K monitor for photo display…. Nobody? I think that technology has hit the biological barrier. 24 MP to me is the tipping point where the advantages of a higher resolution get eclipsed by the disadvantages. 
 

https://techjury.net/blog/what-resolution-is-the-human-eye/#

I was about to say bollocks when I read the linked article and it also says bollocks. They state 576MP and 5-15MP in the same article. And those were estimations (read: best guess) with enough caveats at the bottom to fill an insurance company sized disclaimer. The actual answer is, we don’t know. Since eyes and still cameras don’t operate in a remotely similar way it’s functionally impossible to make that statement. Eyes don’t resolve in megapixels. 2/3 of the data on a bayer sensor is made up. How do you compare them?

I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago. Even asked an optometrist. His answer was *eyes don’t work that way*.

Until a few years ago I could clearly see individual pixels on my 32” 4K display. Not now, unfortunately, without assistance..

Gordon

[Einst_Stein]

10 hours ago, vkdev said:

I think it’s worth taking care not only about printing but also about other means of viewing your photo. 8k display has higher resolution than 24mp.

but that's not what this is about. I would dream a little:

Im waiting for a 100+MP sensor to create HDR 50+MP images using every even pixel for one exposure value and every odd pixel for another. And then stitch the two pictures together. this is just an example. or a video recording that, using a similar scheme, can double FPS. Having a large number of megapixels, high data reading speed and a powerful processor, you can come up with many more useful scenarios.

This is going to run in a circle. Do you see real needs of 8K display?

[LocalHero1953]

9 hours ago, SrMi said:

There is a special joy when looking at well-executed high-resolution images at 100% view on your monitor, regardless of the monitor size.

Not for me. I'd rather the see the full picture and what it contains and says. I only look at 100% views for problem solving.

[jaapv]

3 hours ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

I was about to say bollocks when I read the linked article and it also says bollocks. They state 576MP and 5-15MP in the same article. And those were estimations (read: best guess) with enough caveats at the bottom to fill an insurance company sized disclaimer. The actual answer is, we don’t know. Since eyes and still cameras don’t operate in a remotely similar way it’s functionally impossible to make that statement. Eyes don’t resolve in megapixels. 2/3 of the data on a bayer sensor is made up. How do you compare them?

I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago. Even asked an optometrist. His answer was *eyes don’t work that way*.

Until a few years ago I could clearly see individual pixels on my 32” 4K display. Not now, unfortunately, without assistance..

Gordon

Well, the author is not alone in his conclusion 

https://blog.eyewire.org/what-is-the-highest-resolution-humans-can-distinguish/

https://blog.zositech.com/resolution-of-human-eye/?amp=1

If you read through a number of articles on the subject, ranging from near-incomprehensible peer-reviewed research to MDs touting laser treatment, the jump from  576 to about 5-15 MP is rather universal. One needs to sit maximally 50 cm from an average sized 8K TV to ba able to see a difference. With our small editing screens or prints the distance would be measured in centimeters. 

[Jean-Michel]

I am pretty sure that the only person looking at my images at 100% on a 4 or 5 k monitor is myself during processing. Anyone else who views my images on a variety of screens of various qualities and most likely not calibrated sees something more or less close to what I produces (yes, this was a run-on sentences!)

Those viewing my images in frames on walls get a better and more even rendition, unless I use standard glass rather than non-reflective glass, in which case they get to see my I age and a mirror reflection on the room.

Those who view my images in a book also get a pretty good view assuming that I prepared the files correctly and the printing is of sufficient high quality. 
 

Of course, starting with a higher resolution file does not harm the process!

[Stuart Richardson]

12 hours ago, IkarusJohn said:

The downsides in increasing MP also become obvious very quickly. Motion blur (the shutter shock with the Nikon d800e made it unusable at certain shutter speeds), camera processing (M11, I’m looking at you) and file handling (X2D) are all issues. 

 

This is the myth that will never die. Perhaps it is just how you worded it, but motion blur has nothing to do with sensor resolution other than increasing sensor resolution will show more of the blur that was also there for the low resolution camera. If you take an identical photo on a 24mp and a 60mp sensor, and you can see blur at 100% on the 60mp but not on the 24mp, if you were to sample the 60mp file down to 24mp you would no longer see the motion blur. Motion blur has to do with magnification, not sensor resolution.

To be honest, I am actually surprised how much disinformation is in this thread. I know I don't know everything, but after 25 years in the photo world, almost twenty since I trained under a master printer and sixteen since I started printing exhibitions for museums and galleries, there are two things I feel pretty confident saying:

1. You can make a good print from nearly any camera ever made. That is to say that at the end of the day, the photo itself is the most important thing.

2. If you want to make large prints, they look better with more resolution, unless you are going for a lofi look.

There are two main ways to achieve this:

1. Increase the resolution of the camera and lenses.

2. Lower the magnification ratio (i.e. use a significantly larger piece of film or sensor).

With increasing resolution comes better tonality and microcontrast, less moire and all else being equal, more processing headroom (because digital processing is reliant on data, and there is a lot more of it in higher resolution cameras).

Sensor resolution is just one part of the imaging chain, but it is a fundamental one. Just how you can't outrun sloppy technique, you can't get any more resolution than your sensor provides. AI interpolation tends to look unnatural and worse than simple bicubic interpolation because it is uneven and inconsistent in its application. Details look strange and there are a lot of soft to hard, smooth to rough transitions that put the images into the uncanny valley. There is no free lunch. You can't create information that was never recorded. Well, you can, but it will be a machine generated imitation of the world, not a recording of it. The imaging chain starts at subject motion and stability of the photographic platform (i.e. tripod, IS or hand stability), and runs to focus quality, lens quality, aperture, shutter speed, camera vibration and eventually winds up at sensor resolution.

Is 24mp enough for most people? Yes. Is it enough for everyone? No. Is it where camera resolution will or should stop? That seems highly unlikely to me given the last few thousand years of human technological development.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Stuart Richardson

[vkdev]

49 minutes ago, Einst_Stein said:

This is going to run in a circle. Do you see real needs of 8K display?

Everything goes in circles. Today it's typical for computer and TV displays to be 4k. 25 years ago I used 800x600 and1024x768. Tomorrow the regular display will be 8k. and it will just happen. regardless of whether I need it or not. 

I just want to say that standards are gradually changing. chasing numbers like 100500mp is absurd, but I also don't like the idea of abandoning minimal support for the next standard.

...note that new Sony cameras have at least 33mp and not 24. I wonder what this means

[hansvons]

6 hours ago, hdmesa said:

When both are viewed at 100%, I much prefer the SL2-S files over the SL3. Even downsampling SL3 files to SL2-S size doesn't have the same sparkle to my eye.

I can relate to that without having ever worked with a 60MP SL3 DNG. Here’s why.

I owned a Red Epic Dragon 6k/24MP cine camera but preferred shooting with rented Arri Alexas with a 3.2K sensor providing less than half of the resolution despite losing money. DR was better, the colour was better, sensitivity and juice in the shadows were better, and texture was better—even when upscaled to 4K. It was only heavier, which was the reason why I owned the Red camera as a convenient alternative for smaller projects.

After over a decade of using basically the same sensor, Arri released this year an S-35mm /APS-C Alexa that sports a new 4K sensor with roughly the same pixel pitch as the sensor of the SL2-S. I haven't had the opportunity yet to shoot with it, but it’s said to the new benchmark (by far!) and sells like hotcakes (at the price of a proper BMW/Merc, body only). 

Blackmagic, the other indispensable manufacturer in the cine market, went the opposite way, and offers cameras with 12+ resolution at a very different price point. I don't have a use case for them, but I’m sure there are people who can take advantage of the 12K sensor. 

Can you compare the 12K BM camera to an Alexa? No. And that’s because the Alexa is made strictly for cinematography. Cinematography means often working at the edge and at the full length of what the camera and the lenses can do (the 12K BM will not remotely be in the same ballpark). It’s a dance between sparkling success and stranding, creating imagery that has everything that pays into the mood, deep shadows with lots of juice, fine, desaturated roll-offs in the whites, a clearly visible yet undistractive texture (essential for sharpness and viewing experience), the infamous never to be pin-pointed je ne sais quoi, you name it. Most of these “features”  can not be replicated in post.

Arri states that higher resolving sensors can not accomplish what their customers want in 2024 and the forseeable future. I take them for their word because it corroborates what I have extensively experienced in my life and continue to experience in my quest in stills land.

This can be very different if texture (aka noise) is nothing for you and fine detail is everything. Then you might default to low ISO settings, use cutting-edge denoising tools and look out for high-MTF lenses. Then the quest is about getting the highest possible MTF of a camera-lens combination, requiring very high MP, BS-illuminated sensors, advanced debayering algorithms, etc., rather than what I do, which is finding the meaning behind the pixels (which tends to drive me constantly into the arms of film that can not be measured by MP). 

So, for me, and for now, 24MP FF is the sweet spot until my requirements change.  

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[Leicastheniker]

There is simply no “sweet spot” when it comes to resolving the analog and infinite world into zeros and ones. This applies to the digitization of audio just as much as it does to digital photography: the more, the better!

[hansvons]

9 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

This is the myth that will never die. Perhaps it is just how you worded it, but motion blur has nothing to do with sensor resolution other than increasing sensor resolution will show more of the blur that was also there for the low resolution camera.

Yes. And no "however". 

That’s why I find the M system unsuitable for high MTF projects. It’s focusing mechanism and the lack of IBIS makes it prone to motion blur, aka camera shake regardless of the sensor or film stock.

However (can't help myself), if your publicised images are in the 2-4K range, the 60MP M11 is just fine as any other M.