The first commercial DSLR the Kodak DSC 100 which had a resolution of 1.3 megapixels (MP) and sold for $ 20 000 to 25 000 was launched in 1991. As of March 2023, Digital Camera World listed the Sony A7R as the full frame DSLR with the highest resolution of 61 MP and the Phase One XF IQ4 with 151 MP as the highest resolution camera.
Deciding on the resolution for a wildlife DSLR includes selecting a resolution in the range between 18 and 61 MP.
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Camera Resolution
The camera resolution affects many aspects of the photographic process.
A small resolution is advantageous because for example it uses a smaller file size which reduces storage needs, allows faster burst shooting, and speeds post-processing. However, this can be achieved in most DSLRs by setting the camera sensitivity and/or image size. The advantage that needs consideration is the lower cost of lower-resolution cameras and associated hardware such as storage cards, hard drives, and computers.
A high-resolution camera has the disadvantage of higher cost and greater post-processing demands including a focus on size reduction for most uses eg email. It however has two serious advantages in that its large images can be printed to larger sizes with better quality. It also allows more extensive cropping.
Resolution and Cropping
Cropping is mainly carried out with one of four workflows:
Cropping Not Allowed
The most illogical, says cropping should not be allowed, and what is exposed is the final say on the image. It’s not clear if this also disallows more than one exposure per subject
It seems the main reason for this “rule” is that it’s too easy and makes one lazy if cropping is allowed in postprocessing. So that leaf that wasn’t noticed in the bottom left of the photo can’t be cropped out.
Composing for the Crop
Here the practitioner composes the photograph in the camera to fit the cropping that is going to be applied in post-processing ensuring that they pay more attention to composition in the field.
Shooting for the Crop
This is different in that the shot is taken with the subject well separated from the edge of the frame to allow for any cropping that might be necessary.
To be able to Shoot for the Crop a larger megapixel camera is necessary as “pixels are wasted“ intentionally.
Post-processing Croping
The photo is taken with a composition that seems suitable, trying to avoid any distractions by moving in, out, and around, but planning to do post-process cropping to finalize the photograph.
Choosing Camera Resolution
Generally, it would seem to be the consensus that 20 megapixels is more than enough for any but the more obscure niches from a print quality point of view. This is borne out by the large number of cameras around 20MP and the small number above around 30MP.
It needs to be repeated that most if not all DSLRs have the facility to select smaller image resolutions so many of the claimed advantages of low-resolution DSLRs are available on a large-resolution camera.
For Wildlife Photography
Wildlife Photography with its active, often fast-moving, and unpredictable subjects puts special demands on the photographer and the camera.
It might be necessary in some circumstances to limit the image pixel size to allow more images while photographing a subject that needs high and long burst shooting.
On the other hand with lots of burst photography and following a fast-moving animal or group of animals, it could be most effective to zoom out from the subject. Thereby ensuring it’s always within the frame and in focus. Excessive empty areas can be easily cropped and/or possibly used to allow composition changes.
Shooting with space around the subject helps to correct those problems with the background where not enough attention was paid to framing because of the pressure of composing and shooting quickly.
It also gives more opportunities to introduce minimalization to your wildlife photography.
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What megapixel size
There is no doubt that a 20 Megapixel camera is big enough to give you the ability to make large prints, some even say of billboard size, if your photo quality is high enough. The quality depends on the camera quality, the lens quality, the exposure settings, the quality of the light used, and how well the subject fills the frame.
But Shoot to Crop should be routinely available in wildlife photography and therefore a larger megapixel camera should be the choice. The image size can be reduced in the camera if the benefits often claimed for small megapixel cameras are needed.
A resolution of around 40 megapixels would give great opportunities for active subjects with “Shoot for Crop” while giving the opportunity to produce much clearer and sharper prints for studies of static animals and other genres such as landscape, commercial, and architecture where detail is paramount,