Which Megapixel for Std Jumbo prints?

marco79

marco79

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My parents just bought a new point and shoot camera. It is a 14 megapixel.

At which megapixels should they set it to to print out standard jumbo prints with any parts of the picture being cropped?

They would get about 200 more photos on the 4Gb SD card if the use the camera at 12 Megapixel. Is this a problem?

They are even less tech savvy that me so they don't want to switch memory cards on their oversees trip.
 
That will be fine. Your parents should invest in something bigger like a 16gb SD card since they are so cheap.
 
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marco79 said:
At which megapixels should they set it to to print out standard jumbo prints with any parts of the picture being cropped?
Click to expand...

That's like asking how long a piece of string is. How much do they plan to crop?
Even a 100 Megapixel photo may not be enough if you throw the majority of the image away during cropping.

A jumbo photo is 4x6 inches (10x15 cm) IIRC.
Printing at 300 DPI (dots per inch) is considered reasonable quality so you'd need a final image size of 1800 x 1200 pixels (2.16 MP) after cropping.
So even 6 Mega pixels would suffice if they don't crop away more than 1/2 the image.
16 Mega pixels is enough to print out on an A4.
 
marco79 said:
Will the 12MP be fine for the jumbo prints or the 12MP will be fine when using the camera to get more pictures?
Click to expand...

Both actually, even a lower resolution like 10 megapixels will still give good quality photos.

Edit: I would like to add. I use and old 10 megapixel DLSR, and whenever I print photos they are always A4 and the quality is always good.
 
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Does the OP not mean without any cropping? One problem is a standard Jumbo print is 10x15cm (correct me if I'm wrong), but Point and Shoot Cameras take photos at a 4:3 aspect ratio, so when you go to print they're going to crop a bit.

12MP on a jumbo print is not an issue at all. My SLR is only 8MP and even a 4 or 5MP camera will print photos fine on a Jumbo. Maybe OP can confirm what exactly he wants.

As other's have mentioned, you can pick up a good quality 16GB SD card for R120, do that :)
 
First of all the camera users, my parents, are not photographers. This will be their first time in 2 years taking photos. So if whatever they are photographing is off centre then I don't want the prints to cut off. Eg. they are going to Egypt, I wouldn't want the photo of the Sphinx after printing to have cut of it's tail, it already doesn't have a nose. Or the Pyramid prints to cut off the top.

As for the 16Gb SD card. My mom just paid R899 for a camera, there is no way shes going to spend another R120. I gave her a spare 1Gb SD card I had which could capture another 250 photos if needed.

I think I must just set the camera to 10MP or 8MP just to be safe. My cellphone takes great pictures at 8MP.
 
Marco, reducing the resolution isn't going to fix framing mistakes.
If the subjects being photographed are not in the frame then they won't magically appear in the photos afterwards.

What you seem to be worried about is the photos being cropped during the printing and this can be fixed.
Just tell the photo development lab that you want the photos to be scaled to fit the printout.
That way you may end up with larger borders on two sides but nothing will be cropped during printing.

This has nothing to do with camera resolution but rather aspect ratio as GarethC mentioned above.
"Scaled to fit" (while maintaining aspect ratio) are the magic words to use when you want the photos to be printed.

Alternatively you can provide us with the camera model and we can check if the camera supports a resolution with an aspect ratio of 3:2 so that it fits the jumbo print aspect ratio.
 
In the opening post I had 2 questions. 1st regarding cropping, 2nd regarding reducing the resolution.

They have the Samsung es90.
 
Ok let me give this a try. Shooting at a lower megapixel only reduces the resolution of the image. It does not affect what's being captured by the camera.

You can take a photo of the same object at 16 megapixels and 6 megapixels and the photos will look identical. Nothing will be missing from the 6 megapixel photo.

It's like using a 42" or 12" television. You can see the whole image on both, it will only be much smaller on the 12".

Coming back to the camera. Shooting on a lower megapixel is only going to affect the quality of the photos if your parents plan on printing the photos in very large formats, like poster size for example.

So to sum it up. Everything that you see through the viewfinder or in the display on the back of the camera will be captured in the photos regardless of the megapixels/resolution used.
 
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Thanks for all the advice. Most of the photos will be printed in jumbo size, maybe 1 or 2 in A4. Plus I want to give them a photo-book of their trip for Christmas. Any good places who does photo-books?

I am going to take some photos in 12, 10 & 8MP and see how they differ on the PC.
 
Honestly I'd say get a bigger SD card. They're not that expensive and it doesnt need to be the fastest model available either. It's always better to work on more MP than less.

Also keep in mind when you're making your calculations that your images from the 14MP camera are not going to be anywhere near 14MB and the file sizes will vary immensely. For example jpgs from my 18MP 7D vary from less than 5mb to 9mb depending on the subject matter.

Also… you might be able to adjust the compression on the camera - usually they call it normal, fine, superfine or something along those lines.
 
marco79 said:
As for the 16Gb SD card. My mom just paid R899 for a camera, there is no way shes going to spend another R120.
Click to expand...

So your parents are going overseas but can't afford to pay R120 for a bigger SD card to capture memories of their trip on?
R120 is only 0.6% of R20K.
Just getting some perspective ... :)
 
They're old school. They wanted to get a few of those disposable cameras but I convinced them to get a digital one.
 
marco79 said:
Thanks for all the advice. Most of the photos will be printed in jumbo size, maybe 1 or 2 in A4. Plus I want to give them a photo-book of their trip for Christmas. Any good places who does photo-books?

I am going to take some photos in 12, 10 & 8MP and see how they differ on the PC.
Click to expand...

I have had some of those "Picasso" photo books printed at qphoto (http://www.qphoto.co.za/picasso/introducing-picasso-iii.html).

I am very happy with the results for the price.
 
Just remember to print A4 you're going to ideally want 8.7MP at your disposal. Fortunately the 4:3 aspect ratio means you're only going to lose out on ± 0.6MP when you resize to fit but once you start cropping you could be dropping pixels at an alarming rate.

Be a nice guy and treat your folks to a larger card. :)
 
marco79 said:
First of all the camera users, my parents, are not photographers. This will be their first time in 2 years taking photos. So if whatever they are photographing is off centre then I don't want the prints to cut off. Eg. they are going to Egypt, I wouldn't want the photo of the Sphinx after printing to have cut of it's tail, it already doesn't have a nose. Or the Pyramid prints to cut off the top.

As for the 16Gb SD card. My mom just paid R899 for a camera, there is no way shes going to spend another R120. I gave her a spare 1Gb SD card I had which could capture another 250 photos if needed.

I think I must just set the camera to 10MP or 8MP just to be safe. My cellphone takes great pictures at 8MP.
Click to expand...

Right! I understand what you're saying now. a picture with 5MP will print fine on a standard jumbo. So let's assume you don't want your final photo (after cropping) to be smaller than 5MP. I made this handy sketch below for reference:



Basically, the blue area is the minimum area you want to use for a print, so you if you shoot at 12MP you can move that blue area anywhere around the red and green area and still ahve a decent print. If you shoot at 8MP, you can move the blue area anywhere within the green area and still have a decent print.

Unless your parents are going to shoot completely out, 8MP photos still give you a fair amount of room for cropping.

EDIT --

Also for your reference, the black line shows about how much you crop off when you print on a standard Jumbo print due to different aspect ratios. You'll generally take a bit off the top and the bottom though. The alternative, as mentioned, is to just print smaller with white borders on either side.
 
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GarethC said:
Right! I understand what you're saying now. a picture with 5MP will print fine on a standard jumbo. So let's assume you don't want your final photo (after cropping) to be smaller than 5MP. I made this handy sketch below for reference:



Basically, the blue area is the minimum area you want to use for a print, so you if you shoot at 12MP you can move that blue area anywhere around the red and green area and still ahve a decent print. If you shoot at 8MP, you can move the blue area anywhere within the green area and still have a decent print.

Unless your parents are going to shoot completely out, 8MP photos still give you a fair amount of room for cropping.
Click to expand...

Thanks, clears it up a bit.
 
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