I was reading a review of Sony DSC-V1 and the author made a claim of shooting in 3mp on the camera gives a resolution comparable to the native 5mp resolution. Of coz in my mind I tot that sounds really ridiculous, but the author had an image there to prove his point.
Curious, I downloaded the V1's resolution chart from dpreview and did a little experiment. The results are really quite amazing:
1. Load the resolution chart in Photoshop.
2. Resize to 3mp (2048 x 1536) bicubic.
3. Resize back to 5mp (2592 x 1944) bicubic.
Then I took a crop of both the original 5mp picture and the 5mp -> 3mp -> 5mp crop and put them into an animated gif for comparison of the amount of loss in resolution.
The result: the amount of loss in resolution is really quite minimal. This means that shooting in 3mp on the camera may be feasible if you need to save the space on the memory stick (since they are so freaking expensive). Of coz, purists would still want to shoot in 5mp.
Disclaimer: This does not show that 3mp cameras are comparable to 5mp cameras. When you shoot 3mp in a native 5mp camera, the downsizing done in camera produces a higher quality picture than a picture shot in a native 3mp camera. (Eh, can understand my poor wordings?? )
Curious, I downloaded the V1's resolution chart from dpreview and did a little experiment. The results are really quite amazing:
1. Load the resolution chart in Photoshop.
2. Resize to 3mp (2048 x 1536) bicubic.
3. Resize back to 5mp (2592 x 1944) bicubic.
Then I took a crop of both the original 5mp picture and the 5mp -> 3mp -> 5mp crop and put them into an animated gif for comparison of the amount of loss in resolution.
The result: the amount of loss in resolution is really quite minimal. This means that shooting in 3mp on the camera may be feasible if you need to save the space on the memory stick (since they are so freaking expensive). Of coz, purists would still want to shoot in 5mp.
Disclaimer: This does not show that 3mp cameras are comparable to 5mp cameras. When you shoot 3mp in a native 5mp camera, the downsizing done in camera produces a higher quality picture than a picture shot in a native 3mp camera. (Eh, can understand my poor wordings?? )