photos n MPs

Digital cameras have always used megapixels as a primary statistic for marketing. It's been a good one. It's a simple number that represents how many million pixels can be recorded per photograph. But as MPs get higher and higher, their change in value decreases.

So I put together this chart to show how much height of a printed photograph (300 dpi) you'd get per megapixel for a 4:3 ratio image:

When cameras used to sell with lower MPs (2-5 MP), the difference was significant. Nowadays, the difference is more constant per increase in MP.

Here's another, showing a photograph's height per MP. Keep in mind that you can double these heights (150 dpi) and still have a very good photograph.


I wanted to put these charts out here 1) because I was playing with Google's spreadsheet charts, and 2) to show that the average camera nowadays (I'll go out on a limb and guess it's around 7 MP) is more than enough to print big photos. Additionally, I'd like to further discount MPs' marketing privileges by pointing out that as MPs increase in cameras, the lenses are more or less staying the same: small and compact. Just because you're throwing more MPs behind the lens doesn't mean the lens is letting in better light.

gd

Dear Rockbox, take a graphic design lesson from Apple. Your new looks are fun, but you can't read shit.

I downloaded this a few weeks ago and was plenty skeptical: Cooliris. It's surprisingly simple and feeds me lots of images and videos with minimal clicking and intuitive scrolling. Oh, and it looks cool, which is always a nice bonus.

A new laptop came my way a few weeks ago, and it's been treating me well. I'll probably do a mini review of it when I get a chance and want to record my thoughts in that department.

Anyone have any news on 32gb iPhones?