Megapixals and print sizes
- Thread starter Aaron
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- Andy
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I got an excellent print made at 20x30 from my epl1. That's a four thirds 12mp sensor. Could have gone bigger me thinks
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- Stewart
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There is NO maximum size.
The distance from which you're looking at the picture is critical.
With a D200 you can make a 12"x8" print which has 323 ppi (pixels per inch) and, assuming your lens is good and that it's in focus etc, it will look sharp even really close up.
If you go for 24"x16", it's only 161 ppi and it will appear slightly pixellated if you stand right close to it - but you'll typically be looking at it from a few feet away and it will look good.
At 48"x32" you've only got 81 ppi, but you need to stand a fair way back to take it all in and from that distance it will again look good.
If you print out each pixel on a piece of paper a foot square, you can assemble them on a disused airfield and it will look brilliant on Google Earth. Though that would be a bit pricey. And it would look very pixellated close up.
There's a general rule of thumb which says that the optimal viewing distance for an image is the same as the diagonal measurement of the image. It can be shown mathematically that a 6 MP image will look sharp at any size if viewed from the optimal distance. Yes, that wasn't a typo. 6 MP.
And here's an example of the "disused airfield" approach. Follow this link to Google Maps and zoom in a bit.
The distance from which you're looking at the picture is critical.
With a D200 you can make a 12"x8" print which has 323 ppi (pixels per inch) and, assuming your lens is good and that it's in focus etc, it will look sharp even really close up.
If you go for 24"x16", it's only 161 ppi and it will appear slightly pixellated if you stand right close to it - but you'll typically be looking at it from a few feet away and it will look good.
At 48"x32" you've only got 81 ppi, but you need to stand a fair way back to take it all in and from that distance it will again look good.
If you print out each pixel on a piece of paper a foot square, you can assemble them on a disused airfield and it will look brilliant on Google Earth. Though that would be a bit pricey. And it would look very pixellated close up.
There's a general rule of thumb which says that the optimal viewing distance for an image is the same as the diagonal measurement of the image. It can be shown mathematically that a 6 MP image will look sharp at any size if viewed from the optimal distance. Yes, that wasn't a typo. 6 MP.
And here's an example of the "disused airfield" approach. Follow this link to Google Maps and zoom in a bit.
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- Lewis
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Or you can use software such as Genuine Fractals to create extra pixels, I've had some good 16" x 24" prints at 360ppi from my 8MP cameras.
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- john
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Or go the other way and reduce the pixels needed to create great posters using Rasterbator
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- Chris
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I'll very happily print A2 from my 5D. No problem. A lot of how far you can go is determined by post-processing and viewing distance.