Hi mates,

I am not too sure if someone has asked this question already, but I really hope someone can give me some expert advice on this.

For example the Canon A70 is a 3.1MP camera with the following resolutions:

Large : 2048 x 1536 pixels
Medium 1 : 1600 x 1200 pixels
Medium 2 : 1024 x 768 pixels
Small : 640 x 480 pixels

If I take a picture using the Large mode, I am pretty sure it's a 3.1MP image because 2048x1536 = 3145728 which is approx 3.1million.

However if I chose to take a picture in medium mode
1024x768 = 786432
which is only 0.7Million pixels!!!!!

My question is " Is a 3.1 Mp pixel like the Canon A70 produces 3.1MP pictures even if it is in the medium mode??"



Please help!!!!

Thanks very much !!
:roll:

i may be all wrong on this but if it says 3.1 MP , it is 3.1MP. in the other modes with less resolution the camera may bin the pixels. that is they may cluster a few pixels together and create 1 larger
pixel out of the few. i know there are astovideo cameras that do this. so if you have 3.1 mp and cluster 3 pixels into 1 larger pixel then you would create a 1 mp image and it will have less resolution.

dennis

I don't have any answers, but I have wondered about this before. I have friends who buy 3mp consumer cameras, but then always shoot at the medium settings, giving them no greater resolution than they would have got by shooting at the high setting on the almost identical 2mp model of the same camera they could have bought for £100 less, and it makes me think that maybe they've paid out the extra cash for nothing by doing that.

The 3.1 rating is for the highest resolution settings and if you pick medium/low resolution, then the camera will not be using the maximum resolution.

Buying a 3mp camera and using a medium setting really is no better than a 2mp camera on the highest resolution.

The megapixel rating is the MAXIMUM size the camera will make. Any camera can produce a 640 X 480... Many folks with a lot of available megapixels available ask whether they should use the maximum resolution. The answer is that if they don't, they wasted their money on the higher resolution camera. You can always reduce the resolution of a file (to send it in an e-mail or post it on the Web), but going the other way is really hard to do... actually "rezzing up" a picture helps somewhat. It's nowhere near as good as taking the picture at maximum resolution in the first place.

Buying a Fuji 602 3.2/6Mpix (depending on how you look at it) means you can shoot 1Mpix and get 1600ASA!

So I might be able to get that pic you can't (even at 1Mpix) when your cam is flashing up the slow shutter warning.

Hi all ... thanks for all your prompt replies..

Now that I know the answer..

How about this Super Fine, Fine and Normal thing?

In my Canon A70, I can choose to select Image size like
Large, Medium1, Medium2 or Small as I have mentioned earlier in the first post.

Besides selecting that, at the same time, I can select SuperFine, Fine and Normal in addition to Large, Medium1, Medium2 and so on..


I guess Large & Superfine is 3.1MP since it's the maximum and the best setting available.

How about Large & Normal? or Large & Fine is it 3.1MP too?

Anyone got any idea? I can't seem to find anything in the manual regarding this!

Thanks for your expert advice again....

Sounds like Large/Superfine is the 3.1MP setting. The other ones would be lower size and resolution on other combinations.

Even when you 'upsize,' a small resolution picture with the best software you never see the detail that the picture would capture using the highest settings.

It's best to invest in a large flash card or a few, depending on how you shoot and always use the highest settings and edit down IMO.

Large, Medium and Small are image resolution settings. Fine, superfine, etc. are measures of JPG compression. The lower the compression, the less the losses when the file is compressed and the larger the finished file.

If your camera has RAW file capability, you should use it. It allows you to process the picture outside the camera. If not, always shoot at the largest available size (resolution) and the lowest compression. CF cards are really cheap now.

Hi...

It's a pity that there isn't a RAW mode in my camera the Canon A70 but however, from now on I know the proper way to configure my camera to utilise it's maximum resolution.

Yes a CF card is really cheap now. I am now looking at a 256 one, cool!

Thanks very much for all your advices!