Is 36MP excessive?

[Horatio]

I have a Nikon D700, which is 12MP. I'm thinking about buying a D800, which is 3x more resolution. I know I can make bigger, more detailed prints with the larger sensor, but would it help with scanning negatives?

 

[BMbikerider]

I am sure that someone somewhere will disagree, but I sometimes use a D800 and other times a D300s which is of course equipped with a cropped sensor and is 12MP the same as your D700. I rarely print larger than an A3. (cropped) By that I mean I print larger than A3 but only using part of the image. To be honest I doubt if you would be able to tell the difference if you used a very good macro lens and the camera on a tripod or other fixed support a flash or with a remote release.. Perhaps my standards are not as high as some, but there again I don't get my worry beads out when I try something new or a new process- I just to it!
I was told years ago when I hankered after a better lens and one of my mentors asked. 'Do you you use a tripod?' to which I replied that I didn't. I started to and the quality of my negatives improved without an expensive lens purchase.

I am intrigued as to why you need to scan another image, I am a little confused. Answers on a postcard please>

 

[F4U]

I'm a strong subscriber to The Law of Diminishing Returns. Some day they will have 36 trillion megapixels. Will it be of any more use to the average photographer? I doubt it.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Yup.

Back in the day I wouldn't upgrade unless the pixel count doubled. I'm still using a 5ds which is 50mp and see no real reason to upgrade with a newer Canon. In your case going from 12 to 36 is pretty much a no brainer. I am not familiar with Nikon but you may want to go to the last best SLR they made if it is better than the D800 since they will never make another. Food for thought.

 

[wiltw]

The typical 'best' resolution achieved with the 'excellent' film-era lenses on film would measure 84 ll/mm, and only very rarely could 120 ll/mm be achieved.
84 ll/mm with very fine grain film translates to (84*24*2)+1 or 4033 pixels vertically, so the D800 sensor has resolution that matches the typical 'excellent' lens on very high resolution (slow ISO) film. OTOH, your lens becomes the limiting factor in using a camera to convert analog image to digital.

Most film-era lenses rate no better on very fine grain film than 'VG' or about 64 ll/mm, or (64*24*2)+1 or 3073 pixels vertically, so your D70 would not be able to capture all that could be held on very fine grain film.

 

[koraks]

It depends on how big you want to print, in the end. For me, 12mpix maxes out at around 11x14". Beyond that, things start to break down. It's personal and depends on what you're looking for in your print; for me, detail and acutance are key, which means that resolution is an important factor. But not everyone's requirements or photographic approach is the same, so some will argue you can go way bigger at the same resolution.

I am not familiar with Nikon but you may want to go to the last best SLR they made if it is better than the D800 since they will never make another.

I'm not incredibly familiar with the Nikon ecosystem either, but AFAIK the D800 was succeeded by the 850 and the difference between the two in terms of sheer image quality isn't too big. I'm not really sure if anything followed with a significant quality gain within the dSLR ecosystem. Nikon like the others went over to mirrorless, investing their efforts into the Z-system.

I presently use a Nikon D800e which I have on loan side by side with a Canon 7D; so that's 36Mpix vs 18Mpix. The difference in sheer resolution to me is very real, but only for prints bigger than 11x14. Differences in dynamic range and color rendition are much more significant (again, for me). The D800 definitely outperforms the D700 in terms of dynamic range as well. I still consider dynamic range the Achilles heel of digital cameras (if your reference is negative film, which for me it is) so any gains in that area are welcome. For digitizing negatives this is less of an issue because you're not likely to exceed the capabilities of the digital capture device (for slides, this can be a different story).

Keep in mind that when it comes to digitizing film, native mpix isn't really what you end up with in terms of actual resolving power. Something is lost due to the inherent optical imperfections along the way. So would the higher pixel count of the D800 help? Depends - but it sure doesn't hurt any, either.

 

[bdial]

Based on my experience, yes. My first dive into camera digitization was with a Z6 (24 MP). Then I got a D850, using the same lenses, the D850 captures better details from 35mm originals.

 

[4season]

I never met a pixel I didn't like, and both of my primary cameras feature resolution-quadrupling pixel-shift, yielding 20/80 and 60/240 megapixels respectively. The latter is a particular favorite, as it omits the optical low pass filter, yet even with highly resolving lenses, moire is rarely a problem, but the more resolving the imaging sensor + optics, the more demanding it becomes of technique!

But for scanning film, eh, I mostly stick with my Epson V700 flatbed scanner. For color negative film, I have the sense that even 12 megapixels for a 24x36mm image would be plenty. Fujifilm's Velvia is a high-resolution film, but I never shot much of it. Kodak's Tmax is very good, but I still think ~20-24 megapixels (for a 35 mm image) works well.

Have also examined film under a microscope (both optical and digital) and came away thinking that there wasn't much point in higher-res scans.

 

[xkaes]

Based on my experience, yes. My first dive into camera digitization was with a Z6 (24 MP). Then I got a D850, using the same lenses, the D850 captures better details from 35mm originals.

That's to be expected since the D850 has twice the resolution/MP of the Z6.

 

[koraks]

But for scanning film, eh, I mostly stick with my Epson V700 flatbed scanner. For color negative film, I have the sense that even 12 megapixels for a 24x36mm image would be plenty.

Depends on a lot of factors, but IMO this only holds true with relatively low-resolving CN film and an excellent scanning/digitization system. In practice, there's a real benefit (as seen in the final print/the max print size with the imagine still holding up) of digitizing at significantly higher resolutions than this. And 12mpix from a flatbed is just a non-starter; I've done loads of flatbed scans and the main advantage is that this is a fast workflow. In terms of image quality, it's mediocre.