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Too Many Pixels? I have to apologise for the lack of updates over the last few months. My work as a professional industrial and commercial photographer has been booming, and that’s what pays the bills. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped testing though. In fact I’ve probably been testing more than ever. After a couple of years of being a very happy Canon customer, I gave up waiting on the Canon EOS 5D Mk2 and bought a Canon EOS 50D. Although the camera is very well made and has many improvements over the earlier Canon EOS 20D’s to 40D’s it is not all good news. My reaction to initial tests wasn’t the usual “wow” but more of a subdued “Oh...” The problem, and it’s not unique to Canon, is that we appear to have reached the stage where more actually means less. That’s pixels we’re talking about here. More pixels equals more noise, which means more noise reduction, which means lower quality - not better. Both the Canon 50D with 15mp and the Canon 450D / Rebel XSi with 12.2mp actually resolve lots of detail, but you’ll only see it if you shoot RAW and turn all noise reduction off. Then you’ll see why the NR was on.
Problem is we all want more resolution, but it may be that the optimum number of pixels for a DSLR with a standard APS-C size sensor is about 8 - 12mp. However, marketing requirements, as with compact cameras, will probably mean we’re going to get more pixels whether we like it or not, so get ready to learn some new skills.
One way to make Canon EOS 50D high ISO images look great is to downsize your final image in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Yes it sounds crazy, but it works. I find resizing to around 6mp level produces images that do look great, even at 100%. (about 3000 px on the longest side). However buying 15mp to end up with 6mp wasn’t really what I expected, and that’s before you even consider the other side effects of really high pixel densities. So is this progress? Please discuss - I’ve no idea what the answer is. David Gold
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