24MP Educate me.

There seems to be a lot of interest on various photo forums concerning the Z6iii, that comes with a 24MP sensor. I have even seen a couple of posts about trading in a Z8 for a Z6iii.

24MP seems like a pretty low pixel count by todays standards. What advantages does this relatively low MP camera have over cameras with 35-40MP sensors?

If you're only ever going to post images online where they will be viewed on various sized screens/monitors and not make large prints then 24MP is way more than plenty to fill a decent sized computer screen.

Even my old Canon 600D 18MP is more than plenty for online display of images.

If you're making a lot of large prints at 360 PPI for the paper size then everything else being equal, the more pixels on a sensor the better.

If video and an attractive purchase price are important, this camera offers advantages.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDm9CbRxyg0

I thought cost might be a big factor, but why would sombody trade in a Z8 for a Z6iii, as I saw in at least one post on DPR?

Higher FWC
Less noise
Smaller files
Less storage space
Faster transfers
...

BTW: your 4k monitor|TV make do with about 8 MP

It can really depend on what you are photographing
If I am shooting subject that require the use of higher iso that added resolution can be lost.
If I am shooting subjects that are not stationary that fine detail many not be captured.

Here 16mp was more than enough, with the iso and the amount of tracking my 36mp would not have given me much more

from my point of view more pixels have little to do with printing, when i post extreme 10x macro everyone one wants to zoomin at 200% to see detail of things they will never see with there eyes.

That is your opinion to have. I disagree.

That's total BS because not everyone is into getting close up and personal with spiders. That's just another example of you making things up to try to add credibility to your opinions.

If you like your spider photos that's all well and good. Keep making them 😊 Most of them have way too much blur and softness for my liking.

And probably when there is interest about a Z8iii there will be a lot of posts of people trading up. Is there a logic based purely on on camera specs that decides what people buy, or do some swap and change depending on what is considered the "must have" at this particular hour of this day? Then post on internet forums...

Besides, who said that higher numbers = more emotive photography?

As far as the numbers go then 24MP out resolves a 5K retina screen so looking at complete images on a screen ther is no advantage from a higher MP camera. Similarly with prints, there is a base resolution of which there is little point in exceeding.

From a purely aesthetic and artistic viewpoint there is no truth in the reality of an object, the only truth resides in our memory. And our memory is attuned to the familiar, not the extraordinary. With sports action we perceive blur as speed and movement and a high resolution frozen moment as abstracted, or slightly weird. Is this because blur is the absolute truth of an object at speed, or because it is the way (memory) we have learnt to interpret the shortcomings of 35mm film photography? It's the higher res frozen shot that represents "truth" and yet it looks more abstracted to us, simply because it doesn't conform with how we expect photos to look.

The human mind is empirical by nature, not logical. So when we view and interpret an image there is no inherent truth contained in the object or the photo, we find that truth by comparing to our memory. It is well understood in art that if we abstract (or blur the edges of) reality then we make it more adaptable to our memory, if we show tha absolute truth then there is no room for interpretation. Our emotions and feelings are attached to memory, not the absolute truth of an object. CD and vinyl, is the debate really about the absolute truth of the sound?

It's not to say that high MP are pointless, indeed they are not. They have a look, feel and texture in print that is a result of resolution. And they represent an easily understood and numerical way to rank cameras in order, like 1,2,3,4... But as far as the difference they produce in images is concerned it is far less than our understanding of the relative difference in numbers suggests, (often it is next to nothing with normal digital viewing conditions), unless you start looking at images in an abstracted way to compare the differences, like zooming on detail and comparing crops on photo forums... And it also falls a long way short of explaining photography and the nature of images, much like equivalence it completely fails to explain why some images resonate and some do not.

I was thinking of a Z7 to replace the D600, but went for a Z5 because none of the specs generally used to compare cameras would actually make any real difference to my photography, but "NEW CAMERA!!" and "EVF" did.

What in your opinion is that base resolution?

My Epson printer has a native print resolution of 360 PPI and so it accepts image files set to 360 PPI for the paper size.

After cropping the image file to the aspect ratio of the print paper I can then manually resample to 360 PPI or let the printer driver do it. Either way, image data resampled to 360 PPI for the paper size is what is printed

I set the print quality in the printer driver to 1440 DPI.

Some interesting replies.

When I changed to Nikon Z from M43, I went for the Z7 over the Z6. I am sure 24MP would have been fine for my photography, but having more resolution never hurts, if you need to crop. Maybe a case of more resolution because I can have more resolution.

Actually thre is nothing much wrong with the 12MP files of my old D700.

When I read the comments regarding new camera releases, I do get the feeling that some people must have the latest "thing". There often seems to be some sort of feeding frenzy around new gear. I guess this applies to a lot of gear we buy for our hobbies.

My local dealer has a new glut of Z6ii bodies with low shutter count right now, selling for just over €1200. I bought a second Z7i body for a cray low price, when the Z7ii came out. The only difference is that the Z7ii has two card slots! My D850 has two slots, I have never used the second slot.

There is no direct correlation between DPI and the actual dots on the paper. Epson use a semi-random pattern of varying dot sizes with up to 10 colours. Each visible colour on the paper is a result of the overlay/semi-overlay of multiple dot sizes of multiple translucent inks on the paper base and is contained in an LUT in the driver. The best quality print will generally be from the optimum setting, though with Epson vs the human eye 1440 seems to be a favorite setting. It's what I use. As the pattern is fixed there will be a size of print, or more likely a range, where there is a crossover between down-sampling and up-sampling, if you see what I mean.

I print from a D600 (Z5 now) and scans from 5"x 4" film, and believe me that I'm no slouch in the darkroom. At A3 with FP4plus I'm just beginning to notice a difference in texture and feel in the finished print over 24MP digital. This is probably the crossover point where you will notice higher MP cameras, but is complicated by editing as digital is destructive and subtracts and I try very hard to preserve the "analogue" nature of the film by being really sympathetic with the darkroom processes and ignore a lot of the digital "tools".

In my experience, for largish prints the more original pixels from the sensor the less "severe" the interpolation needs to be to resample the image data to the printers native print resolution, either manually or by the printer driver.

Alan, people here and elsewhere are laughing at you and your comment above is another example why.

Elsewhere you condoned NCV resorting to calling someone an "arsehole" and "stupid".

You didn't deem NCV calling someone an "arsehole" and "stupid" as being insulting. 😀

If you need your memory refreshed, have a look at this post -

dprevived.com/t/dpr-moderators-still-at-it/368/37/#post-76943

I didn't insult Donald in this thread at all because what I posted was fact.

Which of my sentences I posted about Donald are you claiming are not true?

Your totally inconsistent moderating coupled with comments like yours above is a significant reason why participation on dprevived has slowed to a trickle.

You are very selective in who you allow to insult other members and who you try to come down on 😉

Hence the semi-random dot pattern. By removing the direct correlation between pixels and actual printed dots then you remove the points where the patterns divide neatly or interfere "severely" and there is then very little difference between a 50% resize and one of 47.83% with no effective loss of resolution. Printers have moved on a long way in the last 30 years, the divide by 4 approximation from cmyk and basic print head technology is long gone.