Digital Cameras. The Great Mega Pixel Frenzy.

Digital Cameras. The Great Mega Pixel Frenzy.

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What a day yeasterday was! I awoke feeling like some vicious elf had spent the whole night burnishing my pharynx with emery cloth whilst brutally swapping my brain with lime green glue... yup I had man flu. The morning didn't get that much better as I then spent what felt like an eternity driving around Northampton General Hospital desperately striving to park so that my 5 year old could arrive at his hearing test consultation on time. Still I had at least one aspect of my day to look forward too, attending my local universities photography course open day, more explicitly I'd been assured a hands on demonstration by Hasselblad's area sales team of their fresh drool inducing digital camera range, the H4D series.

Well I'll overtly accept what a beautiful piece of gear this camera is, as with all previous Hasselbads (I've been fortunate enough to own a few) the build quality and ergonomics are just excellent, a bench mark for all other companies to follow etc etc etc... but this isn't a review article. What has been bugging me and by all accounts numerous other photographers, judging by the ones I spoke to the other night, is this unmistakable mega pixel mania. This crazy and down right deceptive obsession with the pixel count as a measure of the caliber of a camera and subsequently the photographer.

I've no desire to slag off any particular camera maker, Hasselblad understand their market place is in high end image making where such photographers may possibly need such humongous pixel counts in order to reproduce onto massive billboards etc, nevertheless all camera makers are at it! Without sounding dismissive, few enthusiasts down the local camera club are ever likely to be asked to photograph a major advertising campaign. The fact is very few will ever create anything much bigger than an A3 print. And in fact numerous will never print their pictures at all rather preferring to view/present their images on a computer or projector screen.

I have shot both billboard campaigns and also createdmade big exhibition prints while working with in the strict requirements of the advertising industry. Since taking a step back from the advertising world but still continuing to work in a professional environment where expectations are high I have hardly ever shot anything that the client expected to be printed greater than A4. As a matter of fact after reviewing last years projects I can culminate that at least 75% of this commercial work will ever go near a printing press, instead they will continue to be firmly in the virtual world such as a customers web-site or email marketing campaign!

I have photographed on all camera formats from 35mm SLRs through to large format view cameras but now prefer to predominantly shoot on a 12 mega pixel camera system unless the brief especially needs larger files, and I have not once had a client complain about image quality. Sure I have to utilise many of my skills and photographic understanding in capturing files that are of a specific quality but the point I'm aiming to make is that these shots would have been no superior if shot on say a 22 mega pixel back, just bigger!

I frequently flick through my camera journals and indeed fantasize over owning the newest and greatest camera gizmo, but I strive to withstand the temptation to upgrade purely on the idea of acquiring better picture quality. Image quality is not dictated by pixel count or more precisely file size, that is the truth. There are endless concerns that control the quality of an image from the quality of the idea, the command and quality of light, exposure, post productio and of course all this depends on the capability of the guy behind the lense. If you take a moment to really think about past shots that have really had an impact then I doubt very much whether many of those shots were taken using what we would now call a high end camera, even a fairly modest modern digital camera is capable of truly quite astonishing image quality.

Digital cameras have grown to be quite amazing in the amount of bang you get for your buck and have served as a great leveller in the way that photography is no longer just a rich mans past time. Chose your camera system (don't agonize), invest in a couple of reasonable books and then get out there and play with it. Try to dismiss those highbrow camera nerds you'll discover on any online forum and definitely forget the self serving camera manufacturers pleas that bigger is better, its not!

About the Author:
Northamptonshire studio photographer Andy Nickerson, specialises in Product and Packshot photography from his studio in Northamptonshire. Check out http://www.bramptonvalleyphotography.co.uk/about.htm
 for more information.



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