When one of your clients seeks your help in supporting their decision to buy a new travel camera, you can describe how the number of megapixels in a new camera’s sensor plays a crucial role in determining the quality of their photos.
Image Detail and Resolution
Higher megapixel counts provide greater image detail and resolution. A sensor with more megapixels captures more information, resulting in sharper and more defined images. This is especially useful in travel photography when capturing intricate details of architecture, landscapes, cultural artifacts, or capturing scenes with a lot of small elements. Higher megapixel counts allow for a more accurate representation of these details, providing a more immersive and visually appealing experience for viewers.
Enlargement and Print Quality
Sensors with more megapixels enable larger prints without sacrificing image quality. If your client wants to print their travel photos in larger sizes, having more megapixels ensures that the images remain sharp and detailed even when blown up. This is particularly true if your clients wish to showcase their work in galleries, slide shows, or create large-scale prints to show where they have been.
Cropping and Composition
More megapixels offer greater flexibility for cropping and composition. While composing a photo, it’s not always possible to frame the perfect shot in-camera. With higher megapixel counts, they have more pixels, allowing them to crop and reframe the images while maintaining sufficient detail and resolution. This gives your travel photographers the freedom to experiment with different compositions and create a stronger visual impact.
Low-Light Performance:
The size of individual pixels on a sensor can impact its low-light performance. In general, larger pixels are more light-sensitive and can produce cleaner images in low-light conditions than the smaller sensor in a smartphone. However, as sensor technology improves, even these lower megapixel counts can still provide good low-light performance by utilizing advanced noise reduction algorithms and other techniques.
Also, smartphone sensors are getting larger. Already in Japan and China, top-tier smartphones are moving to one-inch sensors with higher megapixel counts that until now have been only available in high-quality cameras. Over time, expect smartphone sensors to reach the same performance level as many of today’s top cameras.
Post-Processing Capabilities
Having more megapixels gives greater flexibility in post-processing. Your clients can edit the images, make selective adjustments, and—most important—crop their images without losing significant quality. This will permit travel photographers to carry fewer lenses to get similar results, reducing the cost of their camera outfits and the weight of their bags. While higher megapixels and larger sensors offer advantages, they are not the only factors determining image quality. Other factors also play significant roles; especially lens quality, dynamic range, image stabilization, and your clients’ skills.
How You Can Assist Your Clients?
For the past decade, the cost of nearly any camera body with a larger than 26-megapixel sensor has been around $5,000 without any lenses. The barrier was broken this year, when leading camera brands such as Sony, Canon, and Fujifilm introduced mirrorless cameras with sensors in the 36 to 60-megapixel range selling for as little as $1,600. These models also included other desirable features, including optical stabilization, a wide choice of lenses, and 4K video. You might inform your clients that a few months before their vacation is an ideal time to upgrade their equipment.
Take, for instance, the Fujifilm X-T5 whose camera body costs $1,595. It has a 40-megapixel APS-C sensor smaller than the more commonly used full-frame sensor. The smaller sensor increases a lens’s magnification by a factor of 1.5, meaning that a 50mm lens “normal” lens ends up with the same field of view as a 75mm “near telephoto” lens which is heavier and costs more.
This is true for any APS-C camera. But thanks to its 40-megabyte sensor, the Fujifilm X T-5 also has a Digital Teleconverter feature that permits its maximum magnification to be multiplied by a factor of 1.4 or 2.0, extending these lenses’ capabilities even further just by pressing a button. This results in the same lens (50mm or 75 mm equivalent) performing like a 105mm or a 150 mm lens, depending on whether your client presses the button once or twice. Since Fujinon lenses sell for about $800, your advice can save them a cool $1,600.
Is there a catch? Not really. At 1.4 magnification, the image quality is about the same as the non-magnified image. At 2.0 magnification, the difference will probably only be noticed if your clients print sizable enlargements.
Your clients can also buy a Fujifilm X-T5 equipped with the Fujinon 16-80mm F4 zoom lens. This combo is currently on sale for $2,199 at all Fujifilm dealers. The lens is stabilized and weather-resistant, making it my personal choice for the Cape Town-to-Cape Town cruise my wife and I will be taking on the Silversea Silver Spirit this December.
Thanks to the APS-C feature, this Fujinon 16-80mm F4 lens is really the full-frame equivalent of a 24-120 F4 lens; the same lens range that many Nikon fans are buying for their just-released full-frame Z8 cameras. The difference: The Nikon Z8 with the Nikon 24-120 lens goes for over twice the price ($4,700 vs. $2,200), and the Nikon combo weighs slightly more.
With its 45-megapixel full-frame sensor vs. the X-T5’s 40-megapixel APS-C smaller sensor, don’t get caught in the trap of suggesting which is the better buy. What is a sure bet is that both of these cameras break new ground by providing sensors in the 40–45-megabyte range for much less money than ever before.
Also, we haven’t paid much attention to smartphones. Within a year or so, US models will benefit from 40-megabyte sensors that are already available in Japan and China. If Samsung or Apple can develop a small electronic viewfinder that sits inside or on top of their smartphones, the market for all but high-megapixel cameras may tank completely. The top Leica and Sony cameras are already about 79 pixels. I would suspect 100-megapixel sensors are waiting in the wings for release in a year or two.
Feel free to pass this article on to any clients who love to take photos using the latest gear. They will thank you for your input and maybe schedule an additional vacation to test their new toys.
Dr. Steve Frankel and his wife have cruised on most of the Seabourn, Silversea, Crystal, Azamara, Oceania, Regent, and Windstar ships. Steve is the founder of Cruises & Cameras Travel Services, LLC. He has been recognized as a “2021 Top Travel Specialist” by Conde Nast Traveler magazine and a “Travel Expert Select “by the Signature Travel Network. His specialties are luxury small-ship cruises and COVID-19 safety measures, and has a doctorate in Educational Research with minors in Marketing and Quantitative Business Analysis. He’s also earned a Certificate in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University. Previously, he managed qualitative and quantitative research in the private & public sectors. He’s a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has written 13 books and hundreds of articles. His email address is steve@cruisesandcameras.com.
