<quote>...do you know of an easy to use formula which works out equivalent viewing distance?</quote>
Yes. Find out the ppi of your monitor and use it to work out the size of monitor (or print) which would show the whole picture. So for instance, when you view a 5D2 image on a 100 ppi monitor, remember that you are examining a 56 inch print.
cameron12x wrote:
Gawd, I hope my 7D arrives before the page count in this thread reaches 100!
Maybe I'll be able to contribute something then...
as long it isnt a brickwall,batteries,charts,wine bottles,ect....
as long it is shot correctly something at 1/15th of sec not a good indicator
as long as you take a picture of an interesting subject cat,dog,kid
as long as you dont use any lenses that are less than a 9 from the FM reviews...
as long you dont try to out think the camera like many armchair pros do here
python2000 wrote:
/snip/...........do you know of an easy to use formula that works out equivalent viewing distances. For example, to be able to say "If you view a 18.1 MP sensor at 100% on your monitor at 2 feet, it is equivalent to viewing a X by Y print viewed at 2 feet." /snip/
A standard 24" screen is around 100ppi. If you say that a very good quality print can be made at 300 dpi, then you're looking at a 3x enlargement of that print. And the print would be [camera resolution width / 100] inches in the wide dimension. For the 7D that's [5150/100] = a print 51.5" wide.
And if you want to see the noise structure as in "real size print at 300dpi", you need to back off to 72" from the screen (3x magnification > 3x viewing distance).
theSuede wrote:
A standard 24" screen is around 100ppi. If you say that a very good quality print can be made at 300 dpi, then you're looking at a 3x enlargement of that print. And the print would be [camera resolution width / 100] inches in the wide dimension. For the 7D that's [5150/100] = a print 51.5" wide.
And if you want to see the noise structure as in "real size print at 300dpi", you need to back off to 72" from the screen (3x magnification > 3x viewing distance).
:-)
Another way of thinking about it...
If you are printing at 300dpi, your "full size" print on a 5DII or 7D will be about 17 inches wide by 12 inches tall. If you view that picture at 2 feet, you would need to stand back 6 feet from your monitor to get the same "perspective" - if viewing at 100%.
However, I'd bet that many people buying 7Ds are only printing something closer to 8x10 which is less than half the area of 12x17. Therefore they'd need to stand back further than 6 feet from their monitor to view it as it will look for an 8x10 print viewed at 2 feet.
How many now evaluating the noise levels on the 7D are standing back 6 feet or further from their monitor?
I've always thought monitor viewing was never such a good way to judge final output. You can certainly see flaws much easier, but it isn't a great indicator of what something will look like printed. I've been surprised at prints (say 8X10) that came from ISO 3200 files with my Mk2 that looked bad on the monitor and looked pretty good in print. "Pretty good" is always very subjective of course, but to my average customer, they are still very pleased with the product.
Seems like you are looking much closer at an 18MP file than you are at a lesser file, say 8 mp. If I open a mk2 file and a 7D file in PS and hit CTL 0 to make it fit the screen, the Mk2 file is at 35% and the 7D file is at 23% on my system. When you look at both at 100%, obviously you are looking a lot closer at the 7D file. I have no clue what all that means in technical terms. What my eye sees is the smaller it is, the sharper and cleaner the files look, no matter what camera shot them.
It's been beaten to death earlier about resizing to compare properly, but it's true. As has also been said earlier, the best way to compare is make some prints and judge those. Then hang them on your wall and enjoy.
Many people do not make prints. I certainly do not have enough wall space to print all my images. So what an image looks like on a website or the monitor is what matters.
Even in 2009 I do not conider ISO 1600 / 3200 / or above an ISO setting for serious use. Maybe for the grainy high speed film look.
This is a test of the 7D @ 3200 ISO. It had some white specks I thnk due to sharpening. DPP seems to add white specks from sharpening. I easily removed them with Photoshop dust and scratches.
abqnmusa wrote:
Many people do not make prints. I certainly do not have enough wall space to prints all my images. So what an image looks like on a website or the monitor is what matters.
Who has a 5,184 x 3,456 resolution monitor? No one will view a full 7D image at 100% on any current monitor. It will be much, much smaller, and it will in effect be similar to viewing a printed image in that respect. It means one will not so easily see noise and other artifacts.
rscheffler wrote:
Who has a 5,184 x 3,456 resolution monitor? No one will view a full 7D image at 100% on any current monitor. It will be much, much smaller, and it will in effect be similar to viewing a printed image in that respect. It means one will not so easily see noise and other artifacts.
Ron
not yet, although lots of 1920x1200 and 2560x around now. I do sometimes like to scroll around images, at least landscape ones.
Anyway, that said, not fair to COMPARE cameras that way, since the cam with more MP could always be reduced and when you print it wouldn't seem like that either, although you may want to see under what conditions you can actually pull out more detail.
abqnmusa wrote:
Many people do not make prints. I certainly do not have enough wall space to print all my images. So what an image looks like on a website or the monitor is what matters.
That is true. I hear my mate continiously complain that print sales are heavily reduced since the digital age (he owns a commercial lab). Also, when I look at my own personal printing behaviour (apart from the prints I sell for a living), I see them reduced as well. That's the digital age for you. Younger generations with cell phone cameras don't print either... they rather share on the internet or view on their cell phones/tv's/PS/whatevers.
BUT... The big advantage is that you really have to give it your best to make images look worse at these kind of media. The resolutions used are so small in comparison to the output of modern day DSLR's (and even P&S's). So noise considerations in relation to this argument are kind of BS, since the noise will hardly be visible anyway. Unless you view photos on your monitor at 100%... which is something only real pros do
Even in 2009 I do not conider ISO 1600 / 3200 / or above an ISO setting for serious use. Maybe for the grainy high speed film look.
