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Tony Hwang

wrote:

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 09:13:19 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

"Jim Redelfs" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:

Megapixels. More means sharper pictures.

I respectfully disagree. Or, at least, that is a misleading simplification
of
how megapixels work.

CY: OK, lets look at th at.

Assuming that no cropping of the image is done, and you print the photo no
larger than 8x10, 3-4 megapixels is sufficient.

CY: The manual that came with mine said that different picture sizes (in
terms of kb or mb) relate to different print sizes. I can choose 300 kb, up
to 7 mb, I think it is. As I undertand, megapixels relates to the graininess
of the image. Graininess is a very old term, from the black and white film
days.

One would have to enlarge a photo to WALL POSTER-size to notice the
difference
between 4 MP and 7 MP.

CY: I'll take you word on that.

There ARE, however, advantages to more megapixels. Viewed on all but the
HUGEST computer display or printed to 4x6, there is NO visible difference
between the same shot taken by a 4 MP vs 7 MP camera.

CY: You haven't menitoned the KB and MB yet.

More megapixels can also be considered "digital zoom". That is, you can
zoom-in to just a portion of the frame and save the photo there. This
process
is accomplished by "shedding" pixels from outside the crop area.

CY: You havn't mentioned KB and MB yet.

7.1 megpixels is MORE than enough for the casual snapshooter.

CY: That sounds reasonable.

Memory space. Mine came with 1 GB, though I can buy 1 GB or 2GB cards with
it.

The Canon model queried by the OP comes with a 16 MB (megabyte) card. That
is
barely large enough to have fun the moment the box is opened before the
shutterbug is looking for a bigger card. A 1gb card is plenty. A 2gb might
be a little better. They have gotten so cheap lately that buying either one
shouldn't "hurt" too badly.

CY: My 2 GB card was $15 on Black Friday. I shoulda bought two of them.

I shoot low resolution small pictures nearly all the time.

That is probably not a good idea. If the original photo is of a "small"
size,
both in JPEG compression and "fine-ness", it can never be improved. This is
particularly important when one captures The Photo of a Lifetime or some,
other special occasion where enlarged prints are a possibility.

CY: I got a couple 8 x 10 from a low KB picture, and it was usable.

Using a computer and basic software, a large-size photo can be easily
downsized for emailing or other purposes where a high-resolution photo is
not
required. If it starts out low-res, there's no making it better.

CY: Agreed. Though, most of the pics I'm taking aren't Florida vacation or
something like that.

Disk space has become almost cheap, too. Shoot your photos at the highest
resolution and, if the disk fills-up, off-load the files to a spare drive
and
start over.

CY: Which is fine, when you have the drive space for 7 MB frames. I'm
working with a small camera, and a small computer drive. For me, 120 to 150
KB per frame is just fine. I can also email them without overloading the
person on the other end.

The camera also takes silent movie clips.

The OP's queried camera takes movies up to 60 fps (frames-per-second) with
sound (probably monaural).

For B&H's $128 it sounds like a great camera.

I just read this and wanted to comment even if it is totally off
topic. My Olympus which I got about 3 years ago suddenly just died.
It was a 3MP, and it took excellent pictures. I am not endorsing
Olympus though, because I have owned 4 of their dig. cameras and all
of them seem to just suddenly die after a few years, and I do keep my
cameras in a case and take good care of them. I also do not take very
many pictures. I actually would have not bought that last Olympus
because of the bad luck I had with their cameras, but got it as a
gift.

Anyhow, that 3MP took great pictures as long as the camera was alive.

A couple weeks ago I bought a new HP camera. I also had to buy a new
card for it. because my older cards are no longer used (smart media).
This new camera is a 6.2MP. I am extremely dissatisfied with this
camera, and intend to return it next week. 1. The pictures are all
grainy, and just not clear and crisp like the ones I got on my older
camera. 2. This camera takes 2 AA batteries. I have gotten at most,
20 pictures from a pair of new alkaline batteries. My Olympus would
take hundreds of pictures from 4 AA batteries. (and I tried a
different brand of battery). 3. It has no viewfinder. Ya. it has the
digital screen, but I've never owned a camera without a viewfinder and
taking pictures at arms length is just uncomfortable is not weird.

So I have more than twice the MPs I had on my last camera, and the
pictures are terrible in comparison. I hate evereything about this
new camera, which is a HP M547. I'm now trying to decide if after I
return this one, if I should get another brand, or just buy a used
Olympus like the one I had before and hope it lasts awhile. For one
thing, it seems that there are hardly any brands that have viewfinders
these days. Whoever came up with that assenine idea is really an
idiot.

New is not always better !

Gary

Hmmm,
Higher MP tends to have noise problems.
I must have a VF for acurate framing.
For my family picture taking 6MP is plenty.
And mine has built-in 12X zoom and OIS.