>Thanks for the info on the photo equipment.  I have a nice Sony digital
>still camera (a Mavica that takes the 3.5 disc) that I bought some 4-5
>years ago. It takes good quality pictures but I think it lacks the
>megapixels to create the high resolution pictures I see these days such as
>yours, basically the pictures while they look good are not....."crisp" I
>think thats the word i can best describe it.

Hi Lyle,

I originally realized that I had answered you online (on Conch-L) -- uh oh --
and was going to move this offline, but others may benefit from this exchange.

The Sony Mavica, when it was first introduced, was incredible compared to
anything else available. For a while it was actually a sort of "dream camera"
for a lot of people. However, the limiting factor eventually became
the 3.5-inch
floppy drive. Since these will only hold 1.4MB of data, there's no room for
bigger images with more megapixels. So Sony then upgraded the Mavica
to work with the smaller recordable CDs so it then produced a 2.1 megapixel
image, which these days is pretty limited in terms of resolution. It won't be
long before it will be impossible to even get the 3.5-inch diskettes

Since all digital cameras (well, I should say most "prosumer" digitals) shoot
at the computer-friendly 72 pixels per inch, the more megapixels a camera
has, the bigger the image. 4 x 6 inch prints, like you'd get from one of the
one-hour labs would actually need at least a 2 megapixel image to work with.
And even that would look a bit soft, particularly when compared to prints
made from 35mm film. These days, most "experts" agree that a four megapixel
image is the minimum for a nice, sharp 4 x 6 print. However, there's more at
work than just the number of megapixels.....

See, a really good two or three megapixel camera can produce an image that
is actually better than some cameras with 4 or 5 MP. Why? Because the lens
is better to start with. And then the microprocessor that's onboard a really
good camera will produce better individual pixels with less aliasing. When it
comes to digital cameras, a cheap lens and poorly designed processor will
never cut it. If you go back and look in your old issues of American
Conchologist,
you'll see the issue where I first wrote about my trips to Baja.
There's a Murex
princeps on the cover of that particular issue. That cover was
actually shot with
a "lowly" (in today's terms) 2 MP camera! Take a look at the detail. It's quite
sharp. The reason is that the camera I used had an excellent lens and a great
processor onboard. I then used Extensis Pixel Smart software to "up-res" the
original image to a hefty five MP, which back then was unheard of. But it does
show how you can get a very good image if you start with a good -- even if
low pixel-count -- image. When printing on a good inkjet printer (almost all
the inkjet printers today are awesome), you'd up-res a 72 pixel image to
at least 200 pixels per inch.

Well, as I write this, I'm starting to realize that I could go on for
many pages.
The bottom line is that the more megapixels you have to start with, the better.
My Nikon 8700 is an 8 MP camera, though when I compared my images to
those of a 6.2 MP professional digital SLR, they look a bit soft.
That's why those
pro cameras can get by on fewer megapixels.

Okay, I'll shut up now.

Best regards,
Jim

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