[Hidden-tech] Digital camera recommendations?

[Charlton Wilbur]

On Jul 16, 2007, at 5:46 PM, Matt Lampiasi wrote:

> You made me realize an interesting thing and that is that I also  
> have no idea on the correlation between dpi and pixels.

A dot (the "d" in dpi) is a pixel.  Most cameras take pictures in 4x3  
proportions.  From this you can figure out what your requirements are.

Suppose you want to print 8 x 10 prints at 150 dpi.  This means you  
need 1200 x 1500 pixels -- 8 x 150 = 1200, 10 x 150 = 1500 --  1.8  
million.  So a 1.8 megapixel camera would get you there, and you can  
probably get a camera with twice that resolution for around $100.

Suppose you want to print 11 x 17 prints at 300 dpi.  (11 x 300) x  
(17 x 300) = 16.8 million.  So you'd need a 16.8 megapixel camera.   
That's going to cost you a pretty penny.

(On the other hand, printing 11 x 17 prints at 150 dpi works out to  
4.2 megapixels.)

And the cameras take pictures in a 4x3 proportion - if you wanted a  
strip 30 inches wide and 2 inches tall, such as for a brochure, these  
calculations wouldn't work well.  (You'd probably end up taking a  
collage of pictures and stitching them together in Photoshop.)

Charlton





-- 
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur at chromatico.net