An Interesting Experiment; Making The Same Photographs With Cameras From 4mp to 40mp; Can You Tell The Difference?

Here are the cameras I used.  From left to right; Canon G2, Canon G9, Canon G11, OM-3,
Ricoh GRIIIx and Fujifilm XE-5. (click any image to enlarge)

The other day I was retrieving something from one of my bookcases.  In the bookcase, along with (of course) books, on a couple of  shelves I have a small display set up of old film and digital cameras, light meters, old film and other accessories from my past.  Just keepsakes from my earlier photography days all the way back to the first camera I received as a 10-12 year old.  That old gear reminds me from where I came, photographically, from a kid shooting family snapshots to a lot of professional work to still passionately enjoying my craft today.  As I glanced at my ‘photographic past,’ the thought hit me that it would be interesting to do some comparison photography using some of my old digital cameras.  How much difference could be seen when looking at almost identical images?  How would a 4mp image stack up against a 40mp image?  How would the sharpness, detail, colors, saturation, contrast, etc. look?  How much dynamic range would be present on a bright, sunny summer day?  It should be a fun exercise!

So, I pulled out the cameras you see above, charged up the batteries (which surprised me as the oldest camera is from 2001) and then set out to think my way through creating a non-scientific but (hopefully) fair comparison test.  My goal was to make a couple of different identical images with each camera, edit them, then post them in the blog for all to see.  There was one additional camera I wanted to test but the battery would not hold a charge.  That was a tiny Canon S90.  With the exception of the Ricoh GRIIIx, which I purchased last year, I bought each camera in the year it was released and as shown in the chart below: 2001-2025.

For each composition I tried to replicate the field of view as closely as possible but I found that very difficult with the old point-and-shoot cameras equipped with power zoom lenses.  Those were difficult to zoom to exact focal lengths. But they are pretty close. Close enough.  Since the Ricoh GRIIIx has a fixed 40mm lens (in full frame terms), that is the focal length I attempted to replicate.

I set the cameras for aperture priority, base ISO, single-point AF. AF-S and turned on IBIS if the camera had it.  All the images were shot in raw format.  All the lenses were stopped down one stop from their maximum aperture.  I edited each image as I normally would.  All images were exported from Lightroom Classic at 2732 pixels on the long side.  That downsampled all images except the 4mp image which needed to be slightly upsampled (from 2272 to 2732 pixels on the long side) to achieve the same size.  I then wondered if up sampling the 4mp image slightly would negatively affect it.  When viewing the native resolution image  and the upsampled resolution image on my monitor at 100%, I saw no differences.

When setting up the cameras I rediscovered the 2001 Canon G2 requires a Compact Flash card.  Luckily, I still have a few from years ago when my Nikons used them.  Great!  But I needed one more piece of luck—a CF card reader.  I still have one!  Perfect.  Into the older Canon cameras I put a couple of very old SDHC memory cards and, of course, the new SDXC cards in the Ricoh, OM and Fujifilm cameras.  Ready to go.

Just for reference, the only two interchangeable lens cameras are the OM-3 and the Fujifilm X-E5.  Attached to the OM-3 was the Olympus 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens and attached to the X-E5 was the Fujifilm 16-55mm f/2.8 II lens.

The chart below is interesting as Canon actually took a step back in sensor size in 2009 by equipping the G11 with a 10mp sensor while the existing 2-year older G9 had a 12mp sensor.  Very interesting.  Cameras are listed in ascending sensor resolution order.  I had originally bought the point and shoot cameras for my wife to use when traveling.  I also used them for some blog illustration images as well.  I always felt they produced some very pleasing files.

Camera	Year	MP	+% Prev	+% G2
Canon G2	2001	4.0	—	0%
Canon G11	2009	10.0	150%	150%
Canon G9	2007	12.1	21%	202.5%
OM-3	2025	20.4	68.6%	410%
Ricoh GR IIIx	2021	24.2	18.6%	505%
Fujifilm X-E5	2025	40.2	66.1%	905%

You most likely won't be able to tell much difference among the various images when looking at them on your phone, tablet or monitor.  But there are some differences that are clearly visible, as you would expect, when looking at them at 100% on my 27" monitor and before they are sent to Blogger. The differences are mostly in the lowest resolution cameras.  For example, the Canon G2 doesn't provide enough resolution so that you can read the words on the white sign on the back of the lifeguard stand.  The G11 shows the words but barely.  You can barely make them out.  The G9, with 12mp, is the first that shows the words clearly.  With the Ricoh, OM and Fujifilm the letters on the signs are easily distinguished and read. The came can be said with other small details throughout the images. 

The flower photos are much less distinguishable when looking at them in their entirety.  The only real difference that can be seen is a tiny bit more detail in the white blossoms in the higher magapixel cameras.  However, even in the Fujifilm 40mp image, no real detail shows up in some parts of the petals.  The images were exposed so no highlights were lost so no detail is lost to blown highlights.  They just don't have much highlight detail.  Otherwise, all the images look very similar.

I was easily able to match exposure, most colors, saturation, contrast, etc.  the blue skies render differently in some cameras.  To make the colors as uniform as possible, I set all the raw files to use Adobe Color.  

Here are the first set of photos.  They are shown from lowest resolution to highest.  The images were made on a clear blue sky, sunny day with lots of contrast.  Sunlight was coming from the left.  You’ll notice that on the back of the lifeguard stand, the sign changed.  The stand was unoccupied when I made my first exposures (white sign) and then a yellow sign once the lifeguard appeared.

Canon G2 (4mp)

Canon G11 (10mp)

Canon G9 (12mp)

OM-3 (20mp)

Ricoh GRIIIx (24mp)

Fujifilm X-E5 (40mp)

Below is the second set of images.  The bright sunlight was directly behind me.  Again, listed by resolution from 4mp to 40mp.

Canon G2 (4mp)

Canon G11 (10mp)

Canon G9 (12mp)

OM-3 (20mp)

Ricoh GRIIIx (24mp)

Fujifilm X-E5 (40mp)

I don't know how useful this is to you.  It has been an interesting experiment for me.  I don't suspect you can see any significant differences due to the size of the posted images as well as any degrading Blogger may do to the when processing them for the blog.  

I will say, IMHO, that if you only look at your images on your phone or tablet, post them to the internet, Facebook, Instagram, share them by email with family and friends, no one is going to tell the difference if you use a 10-12mp camera or a 40mp camera.  Save your money unless you may want to make the occasional large print, like to punch in to see and appreciate fine details in your photos or just like gear and want cameras with a lot of pixels!  Nothing wrong with that as great gear is part of the satisfaction many get from their photography. I know I do.  IMHO.

Comments? Questions?

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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