Good camera for an 8 foot mural?

[Laugh O. Grams]

Hello Photography Board! Relative camera newbie here.

My wife has always been interested in getting into photgraphy, so I want to buy her a good quality camera, while not breaking the bank. She has often expressed interest in being about to blow up single shots into large 8' murals that she could use at trade shows. The pixilation doesn't have to be perfect, because people would get closer than 5-10' feet of the photo, but I would like to purchase the camera will the best quality available. I've seen a number of 14-15 MP cameras in the price range that I'm looking for (less than $1000), but I don't know if they will give her the results she's looking for.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[zackiedawg]

Don't look so much at the MP as the size of the sensor vs MP. High megapixel cameras with tiny sensors will still be far off on quality - though as you mentioned it's not that you need ultrasharp perfect photos viewed from 3 inches away to look good, you would still be suffering from smeared details, lost details, etc. The larger the sensor, the more it can handle lots of MP.

For the needs you express, with good viewability from 10 feet or so, I think the current crop of 16MP APS-C sensors would be solid choices - or any of those that go a bit higher. Possible choices would include:

Sony A580
Sony A55
Nikon D5100
Nikon D7000
Canon 60D
Canon T3i
Sony NEX-C3
Sony NEX-5N

An outside choice might also be the Fuji X100, which is a compact camera with a fixed lens (no zoom), but an APS-C sensor of high resolution and very good quality.

Some very different cameras there, ranging from $400 to well over $1000 - but they'd all have a good, strong sensor of 16MP or more, that would be APS-C size, and of very good quality including good low light performance, that could be blown up with proper resizing software to yield some nice murals. Each would be best to pair with a decent lens of good optical quality - which will also be a factor to consider. You could get some of the $400-800 bodies, and still have room for a very decent $200 prime lens of high quality and still be under $1,000...or you could probably get by well enough with the kit zoom, and know that in the future you could always save up to add a nicer lens down the road.

 

[Phil'sFrontier]

I agree with zack. I would also add if I was to do this I may try using photomerge in PS CS4, which is what I have to use, or some similar program. This way you can get a very high resolution image.

 

[zackiedawg]

Indeed - good suggestion - using these cameras' excellent resolution, and combining it with taking multiple shots and stitching them together, would allow for even higher mega-resolution photos. Autostitch, Photomerge, etc are programs that can allow stitching of photos not just for panoramas, but also in any direction. So taking a photo of a single subject, you could actually take 9 photos in a traditional tic-tac-toe board layout, 3 across in 3 rows, then stitch those together into one photo. 16MP becomes 120-130MP! That would certainly print big with very high quality. That's if you really want to go after serious mural prints, and have the computer drive space and memory to handle huge files like that.

 

[GrillMouster]

Any current camera can handle that...don't go looking for a particular megapixel count. I've had to get signs and banners that size and larger with older cameras that had half the resolution of modern ones, and the results came out spectacular. Print shops that print large format have their own software and RIP to for large printing and often ask the customers not to try to up-size the images themselves. Prints that large aren't meant to be viewed up close, like, say a 4x6 print would be. Because they're viewed at farther distances, they can get away with being printed at a lower DPI. If you get up close you'll see the colored dots, like a pointellist painting.

 

[GrumpyGoat]

If you have a few more dollars to spend, the Canon 5D MkII would be an excellent choice. The 5DII has a "full frame" sensor. In other words, the sensor is the same size as the traditional 35mm film frame. This camera would be able to do everything you ask and a lot more...

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

Thanks for the direction, guys! I'm so clueless about all of this, it's basically like learning a new language.

Way OT, but zackiedawg, if you're the Boca Raton-living, Disney-loving Justin Miller I think you are, I do believe we went to high school together. Small world-PM incoming.

 

[SrisonS]

You should definitely be fine with the current crop of DSLR's out there.

Here's a blown-up shot that was taken with an 8 MP, Canon Powershot S3 IS (non-dslr). You might not be able to really tell how great the details are; but at least you can see that it's not bad. (the guy who used my picture sent this to me, so this is the largest version I have of the display).


creationRexSW1 by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

And here's the original....


Star Wars Stormtroopers by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[photo_chick]

It's not so much the camera you use here as it is how the file is handled and how it's printed. When you're talking banners and billboards it is a different process and a different approach than we take with standard digital photos.

I made 4x5 banners from images shot with a 4MP point and shoot before. I had them printed at a traditional print house and they looked amazing, really better than the 16x20 prints I'd had made at my local photo lab of the same image, because it's a different printing process.

Speaking strictly in terms of the files you'll need, sensor size and mega pixels really aren't what you should look at in this case. Any camera from about 4MP on up can get you there pretty easily if you handle the file right. Find the camera that can perform the best when it comes to taking the shots you need.