8X12 quality from an FZ and other superzooms... (1 Viewer)

Hi all,
From my "jumping in with both feet" post you know how new I am to photography above point and shoot. Researching superzooms is one thing but adding DSLR and all its lense variations is mind boggling. I would someday like to do "pro quality" or "fine art" photography up to the 8X12 size. I have a form of framed photography in mind, sort of a collage of prints in one frame, the biggest being perhaps 8X12 with smaller surrounding prints, which tell sort of a story. You might think of an 8X12 photo of a particular bird, with smaller prints showing the bird in different poses or situations, matted and framed. I want to do this with landscapes as well. (Think of an 8X12 of a beautiful wildflower meadow with snow capped Rockies behind surrounded by smaller macros of all the wildflowers visible in the meadow.) I am interested in the new Kodak Pro 1400 dye sub printer which does prints up to 8.27X12. What I want to find out is will an FZ5 or 20 or 30 produce 8X12's of professional quality? I realize a D70 or 20D, with quality lense, is far superior overall, but will the quality from an FZ be good enough at this smaller print size that I wouldn't be an embarrassment at the local photography fair? Would they be good enough to sell my work? Is it doable only with lots of help from Photoshop and numerous plug-ins? I realize that the capabilities of the FZ are limited but if I worked within those limitations could I achieve some satisfaction or is what I'm describing beyond a $400-600 camera? This Kodak printer is $499 and 50 sheets (glossy or matte) plus print media is $99. The amount of print media is matched to the number of sheets. (Anyone with dye sub vs. inkjet experience please give your thoughts.) Thanks for your help!

Fuzz

Fuzz,
The standard rule of thumb for printing is that you should not print with less than 200 dpi (dots - pixels per inch). Therefore, you can figure out the max size that a particular camera can successfully print by just doing the math, dividing the size of thie images produced by the camera by 200. For example, for the FZ20, a 5MP camera, it produces images with a max resolution of 2560 x 1920. So, 2590/200 = approx 13 wide. 1920/200 = approx 9.5. Thus, the max size print you can get is about 13x9.5 inches.

Of course, this is assuming you don't want to crop the images. After cropping, see how large the resulting image is and do the math again. Simple!

By the way, you set the dpi for the image in your image editor. Straight out of the camera, it will be 72 dpi, which looks like it can produce a huge print. In your image program, either in its resize dialog, or print setup dialog (depends on the program), you set the dpi to 200, or whatever will give you the size you want, without going below about 200. Do NOT use "resample" when you do this - note, DO NOT use resample. You don't want to resize the actual image, you just want to resize how it prints.

Thanks RAH!
I looked up the specs on the Kodak printer and it prints "301 dpi (continuous tone)". So using your math it looks like I would want something in the 8MP range to get an 8X12 taking full advantage of the 301 dpi. And since the 8MP is actually a little more than I need then that would allow for some cropping. So its the FZ30 or one of its superzoom mates. The upcoming Sony DSC-R1 looks really interesting quality wise but its not a superzoom and $300 more. I hope FZ30 reviews reveal noise controlled well enough for great 8X12's. If you have any other suggestions I'm all ears and eyes. I have read that John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide is an excellent resource so I'm going to get that. Much to learn.

Fuzz

Fuzz said:

Thanks RAH!
I looked up the specs on the Kodak printer and it prints "301 dpi (continuous tone)". So using your math it looks like I would want something in the 8MP range to get an 8X12 taking full advantage of the 301 dpi.
Fuzz

Click to expand...

Fuzz,
Well, not exactly. The math I gave you concerns the image dimensions and the dpi of the IMAGE (set as I explained with an image editor). It does not directly relate to the dpi of the printer. With the printer, you would just set it according to the way the driver describes its settings - e.g. "normal," "high quality," "photo," "best photo," etc, etc, depending on the printer you are using. So, don't worry too much about the dpi of the printer. Assuming you are using a "photo quality" printer, set it to high quality, and also set it to the type of paper you are using, and it should be OK.

So, yes, as I explained earlier, the FZ20 should easily be able to print an 8x12, using the math I showed before.

By the way, I don't think it is such a good idea to get a dye sub printer. Most folks use inkjet printers. I think you are very limited in the types of paper you can use with dye sub printers, and I believe that they are expensive to use, and don't produce as good results as a good, photo-quality inkjet, like those from Canon and Epson. Just my opinion, based on what I've read.

Fuzz,
I wouldn't get too obssesed with megapixels. The most important thing is the quality of the lens. When you're printing pictures a lot depends on how sharp the picture is originally. I occasionally achieved great results printing A4 (that's pretty close to 8 x 12 I think) pictures from our old 2 megapixel Samsung which shouldn't really be possible technically.
Of course to do that you have to use resampling. The same applies to severely cropped pictures taken with my FZ20. But I agree with RAH that you should avoid resampling if possible. What happens as I understand it is that the programme inserts extra pixels into the image based on intelligent guesswork. If the original picture is sharp enough then the result can be very good. If it's not it can sometimes fail miserably.
I've got a Canon i865 inkjet printer that gives good results but I must confess I usually send off my pictures, via the Internet, to a commercial lab. Basically because it's much cheaper and saves time. The one I use has a programme you can download that "improves" the images but I avoid that like the plague and use Photoshop instead.
The results are much better than I've ever achieved with any camera previously but I have to admit that my analogue camera is a Minolta 505si with a Sigma zoom so it's not exactly the best quality. I'm also fairly proficient in Photoshop which helps a lot.
I usually set the dpi of the image to 300. As I understand it the printer will automatically double that so you shouldn't try to match the dpi of the printer.
Graham

Decisions Decisions! ...and then I read this: http://www.photographyreview.com/ca...-and-higher/panasonic/PRD_341741_5648crx.aspx Those 2 user reviews sound like big problems with FZ30 noise. At this point I am more inclined toward the FZ5. I've been reading reviews of tele lenses thinking I might go with the Canon 20D with lense route and the prime vs tele discussions leave me even more undecided. Vastly higher cost too. Considering my inexperience, I have become very interested in the upcoming Sony DSC-R1. If you read this review of a pre-production model the quality of the shots sound very appealing: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/R1/R1A.HTM It's not a superzoom and has a fixed lense but because I want to do landscape photography as well as birds I'm tempted to try this one to learn advanced techniques. Because of this review I also checked out the Canon i9900 printer and I don't think I've ever read about any device that was so highly rated by its users, from novice to pro. The drawback to it sounds like non-archival inks although I don't know how long the photos are supposed to last. Maybe I should use the Sony to learn techniques and Photoshop. But I haven't given up on the FZ yet. (Ironically, the FZ5 has been faulted for being slightly TOO sharp, something the man at dpreview said was unfixable in software.) I also have found a local camera club so I'm joining that too. I appreciated all your help!

Fuzz

My warning about resampling is many intended to prevent folks from REMOVING pixels from their images. A common situation with an inexperienced user goes like this - they take a 72 dpi image from a digital camera and open it in say Elements or Paint SHop Pro. They see that such an image will print really large (at 72 dpi, a 2560 image can print like 30 inches), so they modify the print size down to say 8" x 10" in the resize dialog. Sounds good right? Well, if resample is checked, the program THROWS AWAY enough pixels to get the image to print at 8x10 at 72 dpi. This is a disaster, and it's like you took your photos with a 1 MP camera.

IF resample is not checked, no pixels are thrown away, and the program just increases the dpi setting of the unmodified image to produce the print size of 8x10. Completely safe and benign.

What Macswede is talking about is doing a pixel increase enlargement of an image - for example, make a 2560x1920 into say a 3500 x whatever image. For this, you'll have to use resample and then the program does indeed add pixels to try to do it (this is also kind of like what "digital zoom" does). Of course, you can then print such an image at a larger size, but the quality will suffer, because, as Macswede said, pixes are inserted into the image and how can the program really know what to insert?

Thanks RAH,
That was a much better explanation than I would have managed.
Graham