Pål Jensen wrote: >How big enlargements can one expect to get out of a 10mp DSLR like the K10D? >A3 format?
A3 should be no problem at all. The size to which you can enlarge depends greatly on the subject matter. Subjects like portraits work very well in digital even at huge enlargement sizes - I've seen stunning 16 x 20 (40cm x 50cm) portraits from a 4-megapixel Canon 1D. Subjects where the viewer's impression relies greatly on the rendering of fine detail will withstand less enlargement. Mark Cassino summed it up better than I could in a post from a couple of years ago when he first got his 6-megapixel ist-D: >As Ansel noted, how an image is rendered depends on three primary factors - >acutance (edge definition), resolution (the ability to render fine detail) >and grain (noise). The ideal photographic system would be high acutance, >high resolution and low noise. > >My working hypothesis is that while digital has lower resolution than film, >it has higher acutance and lower noise. Good film has superior resolution, >but seemingly lower acutance and higher noise levels. > >For a lot of subjects, the trade offs that come with digital work better >than those in film. It depends on the visual cues in the image that the >viewer picks up. My *ist-D came too late for me to do any bug macros, but I >expect that it will produce close ups of insects as good or better than the >best film. I say this in part because I've been able to get excellent >closeups using a 3.3 megapixel digtal up to this point. For that kind of >work, higher acutance (at the cost of resolution) works. If you think about >the visual cues that define a bug, it generally is about edges. I expect >the *ist-D to really rock with snowflakes this winter - because snowflakes >are nothing but edges. > >On the flip side, things that are visually defined more by textures than >edges seem to suffer in digital. I haven't tested it (hope to soon) but >things like a forest floor covered with dried leaves I expect will do >better with film. With my old CP990, that sort of stuff broke up and >started to look weird if I tried to enlarge the image. Film seemed to hold >up much better, and a larger format of film would have been much better >still. When you look closely at how something like that is recorded on >film, it's a whole bunch of gradients and no real hard edges. That's where >resolution really becomes important - and the complexity of the visual >pattern also minimizes the impact of the grain in film. > >that's why I don't know if the air force test targets would help. Those are >really measuring both acutance and resolution. If you think about >resolution divorced from edge definition - as in being able to record the >subtle transitions of light in a gradient - then that gets more at what >film is doing better than digital. > >This all ignores some of the other advantages of digital. For me, the ISO >on the *ist-D is a real treat. Having shot ISO 50 or 100 slide film for so >long, shooting at ISO 200 is a whole lot easier - a lot fewer blurred >birds! And being able to pull up a histogram to check to exposure after >each shot is really the icing on the cake. -- Mark Roberts Photography & Multimedia www.robertstech.com 412-687-2835 -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
