9mp and 12mp photos

[garshva]

Hi, i am new... so can anyone explain me how to set 12megapixels photos instead 9mp ? Uploaded photos to my iMac and find out that some photos are 9 and some 12 megapixels... i did not make any changes in camera settings, looks like automatically it changes for some reason... i would like to know the reason... thnx guys!

 

[jwt873]

If you check, I think you'll find that your 9 Megapixel images are in 16:9 format and the 12 Megapixel images are 4:3 format.

The camera's sensor has a physical 4:3 aspect ratio and can only produce 4000 x 3000 pixel images. (4000 X 3000 = 12 MP)

When you switch to 16:9, you need to crop a little bit off the top and bottom of the 4:3 image to get to the 16:9 wide format. You wind up with a 4000 x 2250 pixel image. (4000 x 2250 = 9 MP). So, when you're shooting 16:9, you're discarding pixels.

It's generally better to always shoot 4:3 and crop to your desired aspect ratio when post processing.

 

[garshva]

Jwt873, first of all THANK YOU, your answer is worth 100€ at least... was looking for answer for a last 4 hours and nothing found... and yeah i did change that one, but did not think that it can affect photo quality, thnx again.