The limitation of 6 megapixels

I am still waiting to hear back from the camera store about my E-M1 repair (what, me impatient? Never!). I am really hoping that it coincides with our upcoming trip to Christchurch to meet our new grandchild because a) it would be very convenient to pick it up then, and b) I really want a camera to photograph the new edition to our family! And to make matters worse (or better I guess, depending on how you care to look at it), my Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f2.8 G lens has now arrived. Yay! Except I don't have a camera to try it out with. Aarrgghh!

Greymouth wharf from Cobden. Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm. f/8 @ 1/400th, ISO 200

In the meantime, though, I am still using my wife's Nikon D70. And I'm still enjoying shooting with it. I used the camera for a few years when I switched to digital in the mid 90s, so when I pick it up now a certain amount of muscle memory kicks in, and I find it very intuitive to use. Yes, there are a couple of things that 'annoy' me (exposure compensation +/- is flipped around from what I am used to now), but overall the shooting experience is still very enjoyable. And the images still hold-up, even at 6 megapixels. With one exception... cropping.

White Heron. D70 with 18-55mm. f/5.6 @ 1/640th, ISO 200

Most weekends, my wife and I like to go for at least an hours walk together. This usually involves taking a stroll through our local Cobden Lagoon - an estuary that is home to numerous bird life. If we are lucky, one of those birds will be a beautiful white heron.

I usually take my camera on these walks, on the off-chance that something catches my eye, and I'll wan't to take a photograph of it. Most of the time the camera stays draped over my shoulder (or carried in my hand) and I never use it. But sometimes I get lucky, and a white heron (or some other worthy subject) presents itself.

That's what happened last weekend on our walk. We spotted it from across the other side of the lagoon, and from where it was wading I could tell it was very close to a bridge that we would cross eventually. Actually, it's the same bridge from which I captured the image 'Swan River' from my last post.

As we made our way over to the other side of the lagoon, and approached the bridge, I spotted the Heron again - in almost exactly the same position as when we had first seen him. He had hardly moved at all. And because we were slightly elevated up on the bridge, he seemed not to really even notice that we were there. Or if he did, he didn't seem to mind. He was only about 15 meters from us, probably the closest I have ever managed to get to a heron. And would you believe it - all I had was a standard 18-55mm lens!

The smaller image of the white heron, seen above, is the uncropped image - as close as I was able to get with the full 55mm end of the lens. As you can see, even though this was the closest I have ever got, the bird is still relatively small in the frame.

The larger image is cropped from the original. And while the bird is now a bit more prominent, it's still not filling the frame! But this was as close as I could physically get. So I knew I would have to crop in on the image later if I was going to get anything even half-way decent.

And in doing so, we run up against the D70s limiting factor - the 6MP sensor if you need to crop heavily into your image.

Curious Horses. Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm. f/5.6 @ 1/1000th, ISO 200

Unfortunately, it didn't only happen once, but twice, on this particular walk. Heading home from the lagoon, we passed a paddock with some horses that I hadn't seen in there before. The lighter coloured horse especially caught my eye, and I went over to take a photo.

This scenario was even worse than the heron, since as you can see from the uncropped image at right, the horses were even further away from me, and they weren't that keen to get any closer!

So once again, I took the shot anyway - at the 55mm end of the lens (around an 80mm full-frame equivalent focal length) - knowing that I would have to crop out a lot of the image to feature my subject.

In both images, I've probably only kept around a third of the image, cropping out two-thirds. That's left me with file sizes of around 1MB - not great in terms of resolution. Enough for a sharp 5x7 print, but probably not much more.

Does that mean that the D70 is no good as a camera? No, of course it doesn't! If you don't crop the 6MP files, then you can easily print up to A3 sizes. But, if you do need to crop - heavily - then resolution (and print sizes) will suffer. Dat's a fac u'all.

Bus Barn. Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm. f/5.6 @ 1/1000th, ISO 200

So what to do? Well, if I was going to be shooting a lot with the D70 (I'm not), then I would invest in a zoom lens. Something like the Nikkor 75-300mm. Then I wouldn't have had any problem filling the frame with the heron, or the horses, and I wouldn't have had to crop-in later. Thereby taking advantage of all those 6 million wonderful pixels! Easy....

And to be honest, the same should be true no matter how many megapixels your camera has. Yes, it will be easier to do a super close crop of a bird from a 50 megapixel sensor and still be able to get a decent A4 print. But should you? There is a reason why bird, wildlife and sports photographers carry around those massive 600mm lenses with them (and newsflash, it's not just to look professional). They need to get as close to their subject as possible, and fill-the-frame so they don't have to crop later on. This gives them the absolute best IQ they can get. I'm sure there is certainly some cropping going on later in post. But they certainly don't all own 100 megapixel cameras and shoot with standard lenses, thinking that they'll just crop-in super tight later on! And neither should you or I. 

I'm not advocating that we all shoot with 6 megapixel cameras and resolution be damned! Of course not. But... we also probably don't need as many megapixels as we think we do either - and we certainly shouldn't be going out with the intention of cropping out two-thirds of every photo we shoot because we couldn't/didn't get close enough. Wildlife photographer's know they will be shooting nervous animals, from a long way off, so they invest in super telephoto lenses. Comes with the territory I'm afraid. 

I'm not a wildlife photographer, and never intend to be. I do know, however, that on the odd occassion, I will want to take a telephoto image or three. That's why the only lens I kept when I was selling all the others to get the 12-35mm f2.8, was my Lumix 45-150mm. A while that's not super-telephoto by any stretch, it does equate to 300mm focal length on a full-frame system. And boy, could I have used a 300mm lens last weekend when I was photographing a white heron and some horses. Maybe next time...

Getting 'retro' with Digital - the Olympus Evolt E-300

Generally speaking I'm not one of those photographers who worries about the megapixel rating of a camera. I don't feel the need to shoot at 50, 40 or even 20 megapixels to take a 'good' image. Great photos have nothing to do with megapixels. I'll say that again in case you missed it - great photos have NOTHING to do with megapixels.

I have, from time to time, been known to take out a 6MP Nikon D70 and take photos with it. And despite its 'limitations' (tiny, low-res lcd screen ) I still really enjoy shooting with it. You can get some cracking images out of it. I even posted a video about my experiences with it on my Youtube channel here.

And why not? The D70 didn't stop being a camera when it was 'replaced' by the D80, or the D90 etc... Ok, 6MP won't let you print billboards, but it will let you print up to A3. And who but a handful are printing anything nowadays anyway?

Which leads me, I guess, to the subject of this post - the Olympus Evolt E-300. Which was also released the same year as the Nikon D70 (2004), and which also didn't stop being a camera when the newer E-330 was released  a couple of years later.

But why am I posting about it now - you ask? Well, I've only gone and bought one, haven't I! And why would you do that - you ask (again). That's a very good question, and I'm still trying to figure that out I suppose. But I have a few ideas....

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, it was darn cheap. I mean throw-away cheap. Of course there are a few reasons for that. A) its age - yes, it's an old camera from 2004 - practically a dinosaur technologically speaking (although you already know what I feel about that line of reasoning). We live in such a consumer-driven throw-away society, that any technology older than a few years is seen very quickly as redundant and un-useable. Which makes some of these old digital cameras a complete bargain. Ironically, they are even cheaper than old film cameras. But, of course, old technology does come with a few risks. That leads me nicely into point B) its condition. It's not in a good state. In fact giving it the term 'beater-camera' might be doing it a favour? So buying it as-is was a bit of a gamble. It may not even work at all? The seller made no promises - but did say that it was powering on when the battery was charged. So that's something I guess?

As you can see from the photos, which are of the actual camera I've purchased, it has had a pretty hard life by the looks. As seen above, the CF card door looks busted and held together by tape, and general overall condition is poor. I'm hoping that it's only cosmetic, and I won't mind using tape to keep the CF card door closed if I have to.

Actually what concerns me the most is the lens. It comes with the standard 14-45mm f3.5/5.6 kit lens, but there's something very wrong with it in the pictures supplied for the auction. For a start, it's on upside down! And it also appears to have some sort of adapter between it and the camera body? The guy selling it 'seems' to not know much about cameras. He's being very vague anyway - which also may not be a great sign. But, once again, I'm hoping that it's all purely cosmetic, and a functional camera will arrive in the post. Wishful thinking? I hope not.

So why did I but it then? I guess GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) had something to do with it. I just like buying and trying cameras. Despite all my reservations with the condition, auction images and seller, ultimately I suppose I smelled a bargain, and it was too good to refuse. Which takes me back to my original point - it was cheap. So even if it turns up DOA, I'm not really in it for much and can chalk it up to experience. But if it actually works...

Second reason I decided to get the Olympus E-300 is simple - I've always wanted one. I remember vividly when they first came out, and I wanted one then. Some reviewers at the time called the camera ugly, and it's certainly unconventional. But I like the look of it. I also like the fact that it's different from most other DSLR's - both then and now. I guess it reminds me a little of my Fuji X-E2, with its rectangular shape and viewfinder off to the left-hand side. And although it might look like a rangefinder styled mirrorless camera, it's certainly not.

The Evolt E-300 uses a rather unique mirror system instead of a pentaprism to create the view through the optical viewfinder. Olympus called it an Optical Porro Finder, and its sideways swinging mirror lends to the camera's flat-top profile. Instead of the image from the lens being directed upwards to the viewfinder prism it is directed rightwards and then up to the viewfinder which is offset from the lens axis. A similar system was used by Olympus in their Pen series of film cameras. To my knowledge, the Olympus E-300 and E-330 are the only DSLR's to ever use this unique mirror design (I could be wrong), so that alone makes me want to try the camera out. Some may think it's ugly. I actually think it's kinda cool looking. And it looks positively bad-ass with the optional grip attached!

It has an 8MP 4/3rds sensor from Kodak, and was the second DSLR Olympus released using the 4/3rds sensor mount (the original 4/3rds, not micro 4/3rds). ISO's go from 100 to 400, with a boost up to 1600 which isn't advisable. It has no IS - that came a little later. And there's also no live-view, but I'm not bothered by that. The lcd on the back is only 1.8" and low-res, so wouldn't be much good for live view anyway. It does have a silent-wave sensor cleaning system. shutter speeds up to 1/4000th, and a +/-5 EV exposure compensation range! It shoots in RAW, RAW+Jpeg, and Tiff - although I'll probably try to get the best out of the sensor by processing the RAW file.

The seller online described the camera as a 'project' for somebody, and that's exactly how I'm viewing it. I'll clean it up, hopefully get it to work, and then take it out and see what kind of images I can make with it. IF it's a working unit, and IF I enjoy using it, then it may just be the start of my journey into 4/3rds? Zuiko glass is top quality, and apparently some of the 4/3rds lenses are right up there with Canon 'L' series at a fraction of the price. I'm not put off by a 4/3rds sensor, just as I wasn't put off by micro four thirds. At the end of the day, they are all just tools you can use to create your own vision. I just hope that this tool actually works!?

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UPDATE

The camera arrived not longer after publishing this post - and nope - it didn't work! DOA 😱😠

Oh well, you win some, and you loose some....

Is 16 megapixels enough?

A few months ago I posted about my all too brief experience using the Olympus OM-D E-M1 on a photo shoot. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, but I couldn't show any images from the shoot since they all belong to the Polytech I took them for (and work for).

Now, however, some of the images are beginning to appear on billboards and other promotional material in the public arena. So I guess I can re-photograph them 'in-situ' and talk about them in the context of public advertising. And the first such appearance is on a billboard outside the front of the Polytechnic.

Tai Poutini Polytechnic billboard. Samsung S3 smartphone camera.

The 'billboard' certainly isn't enormous - it's 2x1 metres in size. But that's still a fairly reasonable sized print. Especially for a camera that some might say has 'only' 16 megapixels, on a small (micro four thirds) sensor.

So how does a 16MP micro four thirds image hold up when enlarged to a metre high? One word - beautifully. In fact it looks so good, I believe it could easily handle doubling again in size, with hardly any effect on image quality!

In these days of 24+MP cameras, those of us with less megapixels (and even worse still, smaller image sensors), are made to feel somewhat inferior if we have anything less. But even if we want to print 'big', do we really need 20+ megapixels and full frame?

Billboard detail. Samsung S3 smartphone camera.

The file for the billboard was created with a resolution of 240dpi and then the image was enlarged to fit the space. It was originally shot as a vertical portrait, so the extra brick wall was added later in Photoshop (cloned from the original photo). Excuse the quality of the photo taken on my smartphone, but even so, you can see that the detail on the billboard is incredibly sharp. There's almost no visible grain or dot structure (unless you put your nose up to the print), which leads to my conclusion that it could easily handle an even more extreme enlargement.

The original images were never intended for billboard use - the brief was for no larger than A4 for an Annual Report. Yet the files from the Olympus 16MP micro four thirds sensor have no problem being enlarged to way beyond standard page layout size. I'm very impressed with the final image quality and have to conclude that for me - and I suspect probably for most of you - a 16MP micro four thirds sensor image is 'more' than enough.