What size digital picture did people find worked best for a thru hike? I only plan on printing regular pictures and uploading, not blowing anything up. Not sure if I should use the 3 megapixel setting anyways, or go with a smaller picture size.
Amanda
I took my web pics with a 1 megapixel camera, sometimes set on half that resolution - it is great for web posts, which may get compressed some more anyway, and a small (3x5 or 4x6) pic looks fine, much bigger and the grain starts to show more. You could look at my web pics to see what I got - if I am going to print I use the “original” file because it has better res.
scuba
My camera didn’t have a real (optical) zoom, so I found that a lot of pictures only had one relatively small part that was interesting. The problem is that if you crop your image to that size and zoom enough to fill a print, it will really bring out any quality defects. So, it might be a good idea to go ahead and shoot at high-res, especially since it’s hard to predict exactly what other people might be interested in doing with your pictures.
Skittles 03
I took all hi-res pics with my 4-megapixel camera last year and have tremendous flexibility to crop them or blow them up. The way I look at it, a 512MB CF card costs about $40 now. It holds about 250 3-megapixel images at hi-res. Even if your camera uses more expensive memory, you may as well go big. You’ll appreciate it when you go home
Squish
Go 4 or 5 MP if you can. If you have a 3MP… Well, set it to 3MP. Believe me, even with smaller (3x5, 4x6, 5x7) pictures, you’ll get a much better photo printout with a higher resolution. Highest detail too (lowest compression) is what I would recommend. There is A LOT of detail in nature photos. It’ll look blurred and washed out if you make the quality (not just the resolution) low. High EVERYTHING! You’ll thank us at the end.
Dave and Miranda
Amanda go for all the high-res you can get (3 Mp if that’s all it will do). When you get back you will thank yourself when you put your favorite pic up as computer wallpaper. In fact, you will wish you had even more resolution! It’s a never-ending quest…
RockyTrail
Thank you for the advice. For once almost everyone seems to agree on the answer. Now when my pictures turn out great it will be due to you guys!
Amanda
i took all my pictures at 4MP and lowest compresion and love the quality. the one drawback is that it is a little more difficult to share that pictures and post them on the web because they take up a significantly larger chunck of memory. Unless you know how to reduce all your pictures easily, which i can’t seem to figure out how to do on my mac and iphoto, then be prepared to have a little trouble posting them on the web.
good luck, take more pictures than you think you should. no one ever takes enough.
CAMEL