I am relatively new to digital photography. I have three digital cameras, a Nikon Coolpix S7000 point and shoot and two Olympus Micro 4/3 mirrorless cameras, both fairly recent models. All three cameras have 16 megapixels but the point and shoot has a sensor just slightly bigger than a smartphone. The point and shoot photos do not look that good on the camera but when I send them to my phone by WiFi, they look almost (but not quite) as good as the larger format photos. Is there any explanation for this? This suggests to me that sensor size may not be as important as some say it is. The Micro 4/3 photos look great also and are a bit better than those from the point and shoot but the difference is not dramatic. This makes me wonder what the advantage would be for going up to full-frame. Maybe, this has to do with the fact that there is still not a very large image size on the smartphone. I have been on UH for three and a half years and have never posted a topic before. So, thank you for your patience.

The only way to tell how much resolution you have actually captured is to view the images at 100% resolution on a computer screen, using software like Hornil Photo viewer or any software that will zoom into 100% resolution. Another way is to view a pic on UHH with the download option and press the "+" to see it at 100% resolution. In my experience I do not get a clear resolution at 100% with a bridge camera but do with a camera with a 1" sensor or higher. But unless you are going to crop your images it most likely wouldn't be possible to notice the difference on a cell phone.

What differences do you expect to see relative to sensor sizes?

Advantages going up to full-frame? Better noise performance in low light conditions is probably the biggest sensor size dependent difference. The FF cameras are typically higher resolution but for the most part we already have enough so the value there is often muted by overkill. There are DOF differences but the advantage can tip either way in that case (less DOF with the larger sensors).

Here's an image from a point and shoot camera with a tiny sensor that is only 10 megapixels and the image is cropped. It would easily hold up printed to 16 x 20.

Joe

What differences do you expect to see relative to sensor sizes?

Advantages going up to full-frame? Better noise performance in low light conditions is probably the biggest sensor size dependent difference. The FF cameras are typically higher resolution but for the most part we already have enough so the value there is often muted by overkill. There are DOF differences but the advantage can tip either way in that case (less DOF with the larger sensors).

Here's an image from a point and shoot camera with a tiny sensor that is only 10 megapixels and the image is cropped. It would easily hold up printed to 16 x 20.

Of course it also depends on your expectations.

Joe