300DPI....

[greenphotos]

If I need to take studio portrait photos that are good enough quality for a national magazine what megapixel should I use?

Apparently they need to be 300dpi but I can't work out if 8.2megapixel (Canon 20D will be enough. Or will I need to hire a EOS-1Ds Mark II with 16mp or a EOS-1DS Mark III with 21mp?


Thanks in advance

Mark

[Reanimator]

my 8mp olympus takes 314 dpi shots

open pic in any decent editor and it should tell u the dpi, photoshop tell u under image/size



Gary

[tclune]

greenphotos wrote:

If I need to take studio portrait photos that are good enough quality for a national magazine what megapixel should I use?

Apparently they need to be 300dpi but I can't work out if 8.2megapixel (Canon 20D will be enough. Or will I need to hire a EOS-1Ds Mark II with 16mp or a EOS-1DS Mark III with 21mp?


Thanks in advance

Mark

DPI means "dots per inch." So the number of pixels ("dots" in this context) determines how large the picture can be and still meet the 300 dpi requirement. Imagine, for example, that your image is 2400x3000 pixels. The maximum size you could print this image and still have the requisite 300dots/inch would be 8" (2400 dots/300 dots/inch) by 10" (3000 dots/300 dots/inch).

[Krusteh]

your camera should be fine depending on the size on the final image required.

[Greg Chappell]

greenphotos wrote:

If I need to take studio portrait photos that are good enough quality for a national magazine what megapixel should I use?

You sound in over your head, here. I would be afraid to take such a job not knowing any more than you do.

Apparently they need to be 300dpi but I can't work out if 8.2megapixel (Canon 20D will be enough. Or will I need to hire a EOS-1Ds Mark II with 16mp or a EOS-1DS Mark III with 21mp?

Up to letter-sized images, any of these cameras you have listed will produce files above 300 PIXELS PER INCH with no additional work on your part. How big do you need to go and stay at or above this resolution? What program will you be using if they want up to 11x14 or bigger, which will require some amount of file interpolation?

Again, this sounds like a type job where the photographer should probably be more knowledgeable than this.

[granthagen]

I agree that you should be okay with the 20D. With a target resolution of 300 pixels per inch (ppi), not dpi (dots per inch, which is a measure printers use for printed resolution), you could almost get a borderless 8x11. So, even if the image were printed full-page with no border, only a tiny bit of interpolation would be required to bring the picture up to spec.

It would be nice to know exactly what the published size would be ahead of time. Then you could display it at those dimensions in your editor while you were working on it. Some adjustments -- like sharpening -- might be better done working on the image at its ultimate viewing size.

Grant

[tclune]

granthagen wrote:

With a target resolution of 300 pixels per inch (ppi), not dpi (dots per inch, which is a measure printers use for printed resolution), you could almost get a borderless 8x11.

While I agree with your conclusion, I would not be at all surprised if the magazine had designated the required resolution as 300 DPI, meaning PPI. This is a very common usage. The meaning of DPI can only be disambiguated from the context in my experience.