Advice please

Ok I am looking to replace my mz7 (broken shutter wont fire). I have a limited budget, I would like to print up to 10 x 8. So I have been looking at the Pentax outlet, would you go for a 100d super (6MP) or wait for say a 200d, 10d or 20d to be put on the site.
Would 6MP be good enough for 10 x 8 ? Would waiting for a 10MP camera give me a noticeable difference? I guess about 20 - 30% of my output would be 10 x 8 the rest would be normal print size.
Any advice most welcome.

Hi, Pete.

I use the 10mp K10D, but take most shots at 6mp, mainly to save hard disk space. (I take a lot of photographs!) I notice little difference between 6mp and 10mp for normal family or hobby shots on the computer screen or in an A4 print, although if someone asked me to photograph their wedding, for example, obviously I would use 10mp to be on the safe side.

Where 10mp is really useful is when you need to enlarge a cropped portion of an image. I was out today photographing birds at a wildlife reserve and, although I was using a Pentax 55-300, shooting at 10mp enabled me to enlarge the centre of each image in Photoshop. It's amazing how quickly the pixels fall away when you crop an image.

6mp will give you reasonable results with a sharp well exposed shot at 10x8, but I would go for 10mp for the reasons stated. Hope this is useful.

Regards, John

The K10D and similar 10.2MP cameras are a definite step up in quality from 6.1MP but at 10" x 8" you might well be OK with the lower resolution. However, as mentioned, you might want to crop images and that makes the higher resolution attractive.

For A3 prints go for the K10D at least and the K20D if you can.

hi i had a k100d super before my k200d, and also a sony a350 14,2meg dslr, and the difference is not a great deal.
my k100d produced stunning pics better than the sony, but the k200 is the same as the k100d, on the k200 on photoshop you can zoom in once more than the k100d before you lose quality.
but i would say at iso 1600 the k100d has more control due to having the same size sensor but less pixels, which give the pixels more space so they dont interfear with each other,

Any Pentax DSLR will print up to A4 no problem but as others have said the higher res sensors allow you a bit more flexibility.

The question you should be asking is where is your photography going and what sort of camera will you need in the future, can you forsee buying SDM lenses for example, or perhaps you'd like take a step up to a more profesional body.

I still use a ds2. often. even when there are two k10's sitting around.
a 6.2 mp dslr will do fine for what you ask.


But eventually, you'll ask for more...

Pete,

I recently blew up a picture from the *istD (6MP) to 2 m high. So far I only have the print from the institute's poster printer (don't tell them :blush and that looks great already! When my friend, who wants to have this pic that big, gives her o.k. I will order from a poster printer. And I'm sure it will be well good enough quality.

I was a bit hesitant going from my *istD to the K20D as I think it already has too much resolution. It is quite nice on occasion to be able to freely crop into a picture but on most shots 6MP would have been enough.

Prieni

Since 1 TB drives go for as little as 80 Euro's I wouldn't thing about dropping the resolution of my K20D to a lower setting.
I have allways used a simple strategy, drive full, buy bigger one...
Storage is very cheap these days and there will be a day that you will be angry at yourself that you didn't take that picture at the full resolution of the sensor...

But to get back on-topic. For printing 8x10 the 6MP Pentax DSLR's will do the job but the higher resolution sensors give you some extra room when cropping.

On the point of memory cards, my philosophy is to buy lots of small-ish ones (e.g. 1 and 2Gb) as I don't take a huge number of shots. I had a bad experience with an Olympus card, where we lost 320 out of 400 holiday shots due to a corrupted memory card.

I might be just a bit paranoid here.

The other point to note is that these things do *eventually* wear out - they do have a finite life.

Many thanks for all your help. I think I will get the highest resolution I can within my budget. Incidentally would the autofocus zoom lens from my old mz7 work ok on a dslr?

Yes.

Nice to have a short answer for a change

Best wishes, Kris.

Sorry Kris but your answer should hve been "longer"

"Yes.....but multiply the focal length by 1.5X"

Sorry Alan but that's wrong since the focal length stays the same but because the sensor is smaller it crops the image to an image that looks like it's taken with a 1.5X longer focal length.
Things like the focal ratio (f-number) will stay the same.

I am interested, what do you mean by "the Pentax Outlet"? Is there a new and interesting supplier of out of date but still functional Pentax kit we should all know about?

Pentax UK have an 'oulet' shop on ebay where they sell refurbished stuff