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what is the difference between a 12.1 and a 14.1 digital camera? Is the quality of 14.1 better? Is this it? How much better? Better in pictures and videos? Is it something that is noticeable?
The difference between 12.1 and 14.1 is that you can print larger with the 14.1 before you notice the image degrading (usually). The pixel count is one of the least important things in image QUALITY though. Sensor size, pixel size, lens quality, in camera settings, ISO, etc... all make a bigger difference than the megapixel count. I'll guarantee you a Nikon D3s (12.1 megapixel) with a 24-70 f2.8G for a lens will take far clearer, and sharper images than a Nikon Coolpix S100 with 16 megapixels. Plus you could blow them up far larger and still retain a better image quality with the photo from the D3s.
A better bet would be to post what cameras you are interested in and see if anyone has personal experience with them. Also include what you want to do with the camera. Vacation snapshots, landscapes, product shots, etc... that also can make a difference in which to buy.
what is the difference between a 12.1 and a 14.1 digital camera? Is the quality of 14.1 better? Is this it? How much better? Better in pictures and videos? Is it something that is noticeable?
There's no desirable difference between the two cameras. I'd choose the 12.1 out of the two since the photo's will take up less space in filesize.
A 3.1 megapixel camera will make a beautiful 8 X 10 picture. If you're not going to enlarge the picture any more than that or enlarge it much for cropping, then a 3.1 is fine.
The higher the megapixels the more you can enlarge the picture, that's about all.
I don't enlarge my photo's or crop them. Don't let megapixels influence your choice when buying a digital camera!
A high megapixel count can be useful for more things than printing a large picture, though. For example, if you take a picture of something in the distance, wildlife for instance, and you don't have access to a telephoto lens with enough focal length, a larger image can be cropped a lot more than a smaller one while still looking presentable. Of course, even the largest image won't look good if you crop it too much, and the difference between a 12 and 14 megapixel image will still be fairly small. And like Byadand said, a really nice 12 megapixel camera with a good lens will be better than a 14 megapixel point and shoot. A good example of that, actually, at one time I owned an entry level Nikon point and shoot camera that was, I think, 10 megapixels, and a Canon Digital Rebel which was only about 6, and the Nikon produced images that looked like a mediocre cell phone camera in comparison, even though they were much larger. The size of the sensor and the design and quality of the lens is so much more important.
more megapixels crammed together can spell more noise in some cameras. the higher resolution aint worth heck if its noisy.
i do alot of cropping as im a firm believer that photography is the opposite of painting a picture.
in a painting you decide what to put in the picture . in photography we decide what to take out of the photo since if its not adding to the photo it should be removed.
i like as many noise free pixels as i can get as when im done cropping i lost alot.
many experts say the best setting on your camera is one photo resolution size downward from max . that seems to be the most noise free range so the more the max resolution is the better that sweet spot range will be.
interesting enough i went and did some more reasearch on your question and after reading some other views i side with you. while a full size sensor has less noise because the pixels are bigger and in any given space there are less of them the noise level is lower . but changing resolution in camera isnt the same thing.
i now agree with those that say trying to cut the resolution down in a compact sensor camera doesnt have effect on the noise ,the camera still uses the entire sensor and just resizes in camera.
soooooo yes my friend,you are correct. however there is still the issue of bayer interpolation and the jury is still out on that aspect of setting a camera at a lower resolution than native as that has some merit .
this was the origonal article i read.
Which is Better: a 10MP camera dialed down to 3MP, or a 3MP camera?
Easy: when set to the same resolution, a higher-resolution camera set to a lower resolution always looks better than a camera with that native resolution.
This is because digital cameras cheat and use Bayer Interpolation. They don't really have that many color pixels on their CCDs. CCDs are actually black-and-white and use colored stripes to see color. Bayer Interpolation spreads the data around to fill in each pixel as if it could could see color. Because of this the images of all digital cameras at their native resolutions are more blurred than they could be.
If you halve the size of the image, the pixel-to-pixel sharpness will increase because there is now enough data for each and every pixel. See my Bayer Interpolation page for examples.
Therefore it's always better to use a higher resolution camera set down to a lower resolution than a camera with only that much resolution.
In 2002 I ran tests and it was obvious that a D1X set down to 2,000 x 1,312 pixels was much sharper than a D1H at that same resolution.
The D200 is a lot sharper at Small than the D1H was at the same size because the D1H was pushing it with Bayer Interpolation to make its file, while the D200 has enough data for a much sharper image at that same size.
You don't lose much real resolution when setting a digital camera to a slightly lower resolution.
Last edited by mathjak107; 12-12-2011 at 05:20 PM..
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