New York Times tech writer David Pogue was recently filming a TV episode on digital cameras for the Discovery network. In the episode Pogue visited several large electronics stores posing as someone who did not know much about digital cameras.
As Pogue points out, clerks were rather frank with him pointing out, for example, that five megapixels is more than enough for prints up to poster size.
Pogue goes on say every time he makes that statement in his columns he is inundated with furious comments from readers challenging the idea that five megapixels is sufficient for poster size prints.
The Test…
So for the Discovery network digital camera episode they conducted a test, a megapixel test.
They enlarged the same photograph to 16 x 20 inches in a professional photo lab, three times.
- One print had 13 megapixel resolution
- One had 8
- One had 5
Same picture - each printed to 16 x 20 inches!
Next Pogue hung the three prints side-by-side in Times Square and asked pedestrians if they could tell the difference.
Note: Pogue points out that even the technician at the pro photo lab told him he thought the whole idea was insane, that there would be a major difference between 5 megapixels and 13.
Off to Times Square and the prints were hung and Pogue challenge people as they walked by to see if they could see any difference.
Three quarters of an hour and dozens of people later 95 percent announced they could see no difference between the prints.
Except one…
A photogrpahy professor correctly ranked the photos in megapixel order. (Pogue thinks she was just lucky!)
Bottom Line:
Pogue declares, “I’m telling you, there was NO DIFFERENCE.”
In theory it makes no sense, you SHOULD be able to see a difference. But as the test clearly pint out, you can’t.
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