Hi,
I am looking to buy a camera to do professional marine\nautical photography. I am new to this so all recommendations and advice is appreciated.
I will be looking to process some of these photographs into fairly large prints 24X36 so I believe I will probably need a 12 Megapixel capable Camera.
Please Advise.
Chris..
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On the one hand you say you are a beginner, and on the other hand you are looking to make professional prints 24*36 inches. Are you new to photography or new to digital photographic processes? In either case there will be a substantial learning curve going from "beginner" to "professional". You will need to decide how much to spend on a camera at the outset of this process. Some people start with nothing but the best and wet their feet very well equipped. Others tread more gently and grow their expenditure with their expertise. This is largely a matter of personal preference and affordability.
Let us look at the size vs. megapixel relationships. You want your print dimensions to be 24*36 inches. Hence the aspect ratio (ratio of width to height) is 1.5 and the long dimension is the width at 36 inches. Given the normal viewing distance for prints this size, your minimum print resolution should be 180 pixels per inch (PPI). This means that your width should contain 36*180 = 6480 pixels. The highest pixel count for a DSLR now on the market is the Canon 1Ds3, which at 21.1 MP would give you a long dimension of 5616 pixels. (You can calculate this quite closely by taking the sqaure root of the number of MP * 1000 and multiply that by the square root of the aspect ratio). Hence for you print size you would still need to resample the image from 5616 to 6480 - not a big deal. With cameras having fewer MP, the amount of resampling would be greater. For example a Canon 1Ds at 11.1 MP has a large dimension of 4072 pixels. Image quality is generally better the less you need to resample, but within limits there is a range of resampling over which the perceptible differences of image quality would not be bothersome.
If you wish to start with the highest resolution a current DSLR will offer you, then you have one choice: a Canon 1Ds3 at USD 8000. Sony and Nikon we hear will both be offering competitive cameras later in the year. Much more than that we don't know. Sony has announced their's apparently at 24 MP which will give about 6% more resolution than the current Canon 1Ds3 - not a big deal different. If you wish to buy a high quality camera with at least 12 MP, full frame (1.5 aspect ratio) and a very much lower price, you could buy a Canon 5D (at 2000~2500USD an excellent camera), or wait a while and see what their successor to the 5D will be, which is rumoured to be 16MP. There will probably be good deals on the market for a Canon 1Ds2 at 16 MP. Remember that these prices are bodies only - lenses extra. If you wish to buy full-frame 12MP, your other option is the Nikon D3 at about USD5000 and in very short supply for now. It is newer technology than the Canon 5D and has features the Canon line lacks. You would have to evaluate whether those features are worth the price difference. As someone else mentioned, DPReview is a good place to go for feature-by-feature comparisons. Steve's Digicams is another useful site for that kind of research.
