How many MEGAPIXELS is too many?

hey everyone and welcome back to a new video in a few recent videos I tackled some issues around ISO that not everyone agreed with now I'm going to do it again and maybe get even more people to disagree with me when buying a new camera one of the big decisions we need to make is around the megapixel count of the camera it's a key driver of the price and the features and so of course we need to understand the pros and the cons now likely you've heard the widely believe you that low megapixel cameras have better image quality and noise performance than high megapixel cameras cameras but is this true in this video I'll show you what's actually going on and I'll warn you the result is going against the grain don't forget to stay for my bonus tip where I'll show you how to get the ultimate image quality in low light High ISO situations like in these photos my name is Simo Dona and I'm a professional nature and wildlife photographer living in Eastern Canada I make weekly videos giving you photo tips or taking you behind the scenes for nature photography subscribe if you want to see more M feel so moody such a fighter try to [Music] open so the heart of the matter here is that when it comes to cameras and how many megapixels you have it's widely believed that high megapixel cameras have more detailed but low megapixel cameras have an advantage with less noise better High ISO performance and better image quality but is this true to keep this Fair it's important to compare two cameras from the same generation to rule out technology changes and remove any variables I'm going to compare the Canon R5 at 45 megapixels and the Canon R6 at 20 megapixels which both came out at the same time and remember we're talking image quality here apart from resolution which is another matter so what makes up better image quality often this is attributed to better noise performance more faithful color reproduction and greater dynamic range so let's look at the standard thinking on this and why people believe this in large part it's because if you lower the megapixel count on a sensor and keep it physical dimensions each pixel is larger what benefits do these bigger pixels bring in this video I'm not going to repeat the differences between shot noise and read noise I did that in the last video which you can check out here but in general larger pixels really called photo sites can collect more photons and improve What's called the signal to noise ratio that means that at the pixel level the image looks cleaner note that I said at the pixel level this is a key caveat in this discussion let's look at two photos shot at ISO 12,800 on my Canon R5 and Canon R6 in Lightroom and right here we're going to unravel one of the reasons why people say low megapixel cameras have much less noise many image processing programs like Lightroom have a feature that when you zoom in on an image it zooms in a different amount based on the megapixel count of the camera when we zoom into a 100% which is a one:1 ratio of pixels we see that the R5 image with more megapixels is zoomed in more one of the features of noise is that the more you zoom in the worse it looks so in this comparison the low megapixel R6 looks less noisy but to make this a fair comparison we need to zoom in the same amount as we would in real life as you can see the r six with the lower megapixel count looks a bit cleaner even if the scale is the same so the advantage goes to the RX but a bit less than if we were zoomed into different amounts like earlier now here's the rub I can add some noise reduction to the higher megapixel R5 and get the noise level down to that of the R6 and still have more detail Left Behind someone might say well yeah you can do that to the R6 too and get it even cleaner you can but the image would fall way behind in detail hey just a quick reminder that if you're watching this around Labor Day weekend we've got a sale with $100 us off my Wildlife photography course if you want to take photos like this this and this check it out in the comments below so when it comes to noise the lower megapixel camera does indeed have less noise at the pixel level but that doesn't give it an advantage over the R5 the R5 can equal its performance in real world use and still have more detail now what about color Fidelity and dynamic range two attributes that are often seen as important in image quality while this has been debated to death and people still don't agree my experience is that this is more a factor of manufactured technology and the gener of your technology meaning how new is your camera manufacturing sensors with photo sites that can collect more light before becoming full and Overexposed called the full well depth and reproducing colors more accurately and Faithfully is more a technology Choice by manufacturers than physical limitations of the photo site size if we compare the large pixel King in modern full-frame cameras the 12 megapixel Sony A7 S3 monster 8.4 Micron pixels with the 61 megapixel A7 R5 much smaller 3.8 Micron pixels here on photons to photos.net the dynamic range is about the same with the 61 megapixel camera actually outperforming the 12 megapixel camera at lower isos so in short when it comes to photography improving image quality by buying a lower megapixel camera isn't really a thing if you want better low light performance and image quality by far getting a newer generation sensor or even better getting a larger sensor will give you way more benefit than choosing amongst pixel sizes now what about video our lower megapixel cameras with larger pixels and advantage in video it turns out that lower megapixel cameras evens up the battle a bit now why is this one in video You're rarely cropping or at least not cropping as much as in photography as such part of the advantage of high megapixel cameras is lost two we tend to use less noise reduction in video compared to photos so having more detail images from a high megapixel camera that we can just reduce the noise on to match the high ISO performance of lower megapixel cameras is partially negated third to meet the dimensions of 4K video many high megapixel cameras are much larger than 4K in dimensions and use things like line skipping where they only use every second line of pixels in creating an image wasting some of the resolution fourth lower megapixel cameras can read out the sensor faster as they have less data to transmit so they can avoid artifacts like rolling shutter and fifth less data to transmit and store also leads to less heat and less overheating so in video lower megapixel cameras like the Sony A7 S3 12 megapixel video Centric camera are indeed helpful and a great idea but while it does have very very good image quality many of the benefits are also around workflow and usability and I promised you a bonus tip sometimes we want to take photos in very dark scenarios where we're forced to use a very high isos if our subject isn't moving we can just take longer exposures at lower isos but for something like the Milky Way that's moving you need a bit more shutter speed so higher isos when I shoot Milky Way Photography I have to limit my shots to something like 13 or 15 seconds and often use ISO 3200 what could I do to clean up these images you can take several images and stack them in Photoshop we can hit file scripts load files into stack and then select automatically align Source images for Milky Way shots in particular I use a free program called secator I think it's PC only there's a Mac equivalent that you can buy called Starry landscape stacker it separates the sky from the land Stacks the sky Stacks the land and then puts them back together now why does this work it's because we're reinforcing where there was actually light and photons which appear in every photo but averaging out the noise which varies by photo here's one frame compared to a stack of 12 how many should you stack I find that eight gives some decent benefit but more than 20 you stop seeing much improvement so around 10 to 12 is my usual number so there are lots of good reasons to get a lower megapixel camera for photography you get smaller files these smaller files leads to faster workflow they have less rolling shutter if you use the electronic shutter or in video mode they can enable faster frame rate or deeper buffer due to the smaller files and they're usually cheaper the summary of this is that low megapixel cameras indeed have an attribute of having lower noise and clean images but it wouldn't be correct to call it an advantage as higher megapixel cameras can duplicate their results and sometimes still get even more detail now this doesn't mean you shouldn't buy one I have a 20 megapixel Canon R6 and I also own the Canon R8 and I love them just make sure if you get one you're getting it for the right reasons if you really want better image quality and lower noise get a more modern sensor or a larger sensor which maybe can be the topic for another video but if you do lots of video a low mega pixel camera can be a great asset and provides nice benefits and beautiful files straight out of the camera with little fussing plus provides lots of other benefits like low heat and low rolling shutter by the way if you want to get my ebook on shooting in backlit situations go to my website and join my mailing list and you can download it for free there's a link below if you found this video deserving give it a like and YouTube will show it to even more photographers helping them grow and learn new skills but remember choosing the right megapixel camera is not going to make you a better photographer go out there and get some photos I hope you can go out and put this info to good use the next time you're buying a camera and help make sure you're getting the right tool for the right job I know you can do it

Channel: Simon d'Entremont

Views: 162,410

Keywords: photography, photography tips, photography tutorial, digital photography, photography tips for beginners, photography tips and tricks, mirrorless, photography for beginners, how to take better photos, learn photography, photography tutorials, photography tutorial using phone, photography tutorials for advanced, camera settings, low megapixel, low megapixel vs high megapixel, low megapixel camera, high megapixel low light, how many megapixels, how many megapixels do i need

Id: QW_Q8YMex_w

Length: 9min 48sec (588 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 29 2023