- Location
- New Zealand
- Name
- Tímo
NOTE: Just sharing this as a side topic regarding printing so that I won’t saturate the other thread about printing issues.
Prints eliminated any threat of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) in my life just because sensor size, sharpness, noise and larger resolution do not matter to me, at all, as long as the exposures are uniform, meaning even if there is stacking, the exposures are of the same EV value. Rather, colour fidelity, tones, exposure as well as the control of highlights and shadow, smudge resistance, paper sheen, contrast, light-shadow transitions, etc. are some of the most important aspects to look at.
Sensor size doesn’t matter when printing. A 1” sensor has already too much resolution for printing. With a 16MP MFT sensor, I already feel like I have way too much resolution. Should I just stick with 10 to 16MP cameras? Well, it doesn’t matter as the resolution isn’t significant. The integrity of colours and tones do matter more as we look at RGB when editing/shooting with an EVF and then print in CMYK. Well, I shoot through an OVF so I am after the naturalness of my prints and Pentax cameras make it easier for me. Anyway, cameras do have different characteristics when printing and, oftentimes, cameras from the same manufacturer have a specific character when printed, regardless of the sensor size or resolution. Olympus cameras have that specific brightness in print and Canon ones have that warmth, regardless of the post-processing or colour science done. There is difference however between printing CCD and CMOS and within CMOS sensors, the sensors that came after the CCD era have warmer tones and higher contrast, similar to those produced by the CCDs that preceded them.
An increase in resolution may benefit the printout but it doesn’t really matter if colours (or tones in monochrome) are not averaged, or do not have a smoother transition, when printed. That means, in some prints, for example, if I wish to print 300DPI on borderless A4, I will only need 2480 x 3508 pixels or 8.7MP to preserve that pixel to dot relationship. Higher resolutions will have to have really good colour averaging so that the final prints do not look smudged. Our system cameras, even point-and-shoots, are usually good on this part. Smartphones, on the other hand, have too much HDR exposures, resulting in too much artifacts and really poor averaging in between colours and tones. They are only good for smaller displays, not for printing, and many print labs already know this.
By the way, we do not pixel- or “dot-peep” on printouts and we tend to look at the overall picture.
These are some aspects that I can share off the top of my head. With these, we can choose a system that can bring the most joy to us when printing. In my case, I shoot MFT and Pentax but Pentax gives me the most joy because my prints with the system are just like windows to the real images. Cheers.
Prints eliminated any threat of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) in my life just because sensor size, sharpness, noise and larger resolution do not matter to me, at all, as long as the exposures are uniform, meaning even if there is stacking, the exposures are of the same EV value. Rather, colour fidelity, tones, exposure as well as the control of highlights and shadow, smudge resistance, paper sheen, contrast, light-shadow transitions, etc. are some of the most important aspects to look at.
Sensor size doesn’t matter when printing. A 1” sensor has already too much resolution for printing. With a 16MP MFT sensor, I already feel like I have way too much resolution. Should I just stick with 10 to 16MP cameras? Well, it doesn’t matter as the resolution isn’t significant. The integrity of colours and tones do matter more as we look at RGB when editing/shooting with an EVF and then print in CMYK. Well, I shoot through an OVF so I am after the naturalness of my prints and Pentax cameras make it easier for me. Anyway, cameras do have different characteristics when printing and, oftentimes, cameras from the same manufacturer have a specific character when printed, regardless of the sensor size or resolution. Olympus cameras have that specific brightness in print and Canon ones have that warmth, regardless of the post-processing or colour science done. There is difference however between printing CCD and CMOS and within CMOS sensors, the sensors that came after the CCD era have warmer tones and higher contrast, similar to those produced by the CCDs that preceded them.
An increase in resolution may benefit the printout but it doesn’t really matter if colours (or tones in monochrome) are not averaged, or do not have a smoother transition, when printed. That means, in some prints, for example, if I wish to print 300DPI on borderless A4, I will only need 2480 x 3508 pixels or 8.7MP to preserve that pixel to dot relationship. Higher resolutions will have to have really good colour averaging so that the final prints do not look smudged. Our system cameras, even point-and-shoots, are usually good on this part. Smartphones, on the other hand, have too much HDR exposures, resulting in too much artifacts and really poor averaging in between colours and tones. They are only good for smaller displays, not for printing, and many print labs already know this.
By the way, we do not pixel- or “dot-peep” on printouts and we tend to look at the overall picture.
These are some aspects that I can share off the top of my head. With these, we can choose a system that can bring the most joy to us when printing. In my case, I shoot MFT and Pentax but Pentax gives me the most joy because my prints with the system are just like windows to the real images. Cheers.
