Canon EOS R6 Mark III Resolution Increase?

[MikeGalos]

While I do agree that plenty of pros are well-served by current pro cameras (unless they are all masochists), Quack has implied openly, more than once, that there is no merit in wanting more than 24mp, by calling the ones who do "wannabes" and "idiots" and other terms of endearment.
If he doesn't believe that, he has a strange way of expressing himself.

Thanks for the correction. In that case, @Quack is also making statements with the intelligence of a duck.

I do not believe that viewpoint is representative of this forum, but as with many debates there are level-headed people and those making asinine statements on both sides.

@MikeGalos that reply was manifestly in response to a silly troll post. But sure, take it seriously and believe that @Quack meant that 24 MP is as much as every professional photographer would ever need. Whatever gets you through the day.

Inferred but unstated apology to me accepted.

 

[Michael Clark]

Your straw men just keep getting more pathetic. Who, besides you, is saying that?

Those stating that, “People on this forum are saying no one and especially no pro photographer can possibly use a camera with as few as 24 MP,” need remedial education in reading comprehension. Oh, that’s not what you’re saying, @MikeGalos? Yes, I know…because I can comprehend what I read.

It’s obvious to anyone with a modicum of intelligence, though perhaps not to you, that 24 MP is an appropriate number of pixels for a very large number photographers, including pros. The alternative possibilities that Canon and Sony are stupid companies ignoring the needs of their customers by releasing 24 MP pro-level cameras is simply asinine (and that you seem to think that’s the case is unsurprising).

Well Canon listens to their Pro customers and they've dominated the pro market for decades so possibly they chose 24 MP for a reason?
They also listen to their other customers and give them plenty of choices including a 45 MP pro body and a 32 MP crop sensor body and oddly enough their best selling full frame camera is the R6ii and they dominate this segment too.

Or, since they've dominated the pro market for decades they don't need to listen to their pro customers because their pro customers have decades of investment and are locked in. Oddly, Nikon and Sony also listen to their pro customers and those pros seem to be telling them a different message.

This entire argument, on all sides, is based on straw men.

There is no singular "what a pro wants in a camera". There is no singular "pro" who wants the exact same thing in a camera as every other "pro".

Not all pros shoot the same things. Not all pros want the same things. Not all pros decide what they shoot with, either. (Though that number is far less than it once was, when there were many more photojournalists working staff jobs for publications that provided equipment, often with minimal input from the photographers and often more influence from the bean counters.)

I know working PJs who barely make mid-5 figures shooting Canon & Nikon because they work for publications that have been Canon shops or Nikon shops forever. I also know a PJ who works for a newspaper owned by a large conglomerate that is in the process of switching all of their various units, whom they've bought over the past decade or so who were mostly either Canon or Nikon shops, over to Sony. The decision to go with Sony was made by the bean counters, who couldn't resist Sony practically giving them gear to be seen being used at high profile sporting and political events. The AP switched to Sony a few years ago because Canon balked at giving them deeply reduced pricing when Sony offered to do so.

I also know working pros who shoot portraits with what many would consider 'amateur' bodies and lights who make low six figures because they're very good marketers and have total control of the light they're using. They don't need speed because their subjects are more or less static and their lights take a second or two to cycle. They don't need high ISO-low noise performance because they never shoot at high ISO.

So who is more "pro"? The PJ making $40-45K shooting high visibility sports, hard news, and 'features' with a Z9 or α1? Or the freelance portraitist making $120K in obscurity shooting with a 6D Mark II, Godox lights, and "post-processing" via VSCO presets? The commercial photographer who flies all over the world, rents specific gear (cameras, lenses. lights, and modifiers) for each job based on what they need for that specific job and bills the rental to the corporate customer?

 

[Michael Clark]

If you're not shooting action just stick with your current excellent camera and buy a new lens instead

Or don't buy anything if your current lenses are working for you. Take more money home instead.

 

[Michael Clark]

You may be right of course, but if that’s the case Canon must have been asleep at the wheel, which I think is unlikely.
Nikon had introduced the D800 and D800e in March / April 2012, three years before the 5DS/sr with the latter having the same cancelled AA filter as the later 5Dsr. The D800e also carried a price premium, and at least judging by the used market was much more popular than the straight D800, with a significant price premium, to the extent that people were fitting “D800e” top plates with the model badge on the D800 to charge a fraudulent higher price.
On the other hand, Canon do (rightly IMO) believe in the AA filter so maybe they felt the customer had to too.

Canon's philosophy has always seemed to be based on not giving the user anything they can misuse to screw things up and then blame Canon for making a crappy camera.

The other manufacturers, playing catch up to Canon's dominant place in the market for years and years, had less to risk and lose by giving their users enough rope to accidentally hang themselves by misusing certain options if some of those users would leverage it to make "better" images. That's how Sony got away with releasing half-baked cameras with what amounted to beta firmware for the first two generations of the α7 series: the spec sheets looked better, even if the things were buggy as all get out. They were not the market leader "who didn't care" when they released a clunker, but rather the underdog "trying harder" and sometimes succeeding, sometimes not.

 

[Chig]

What about printing?
I shoot mostly small birds and I crop very frequently. I still use a 5D Mrk IV. 30MP still delivers, but I would appreciate maybe an extra 5MP.

You don't need high MP for printing: the highest resolution used for printing is magazines which use 300 PPI
2 MP is enough for an 8"x10" print at 300 PPI and normally 150 PPI is often used.
For larger prints less PPI is needed and less MP: the larger the print the further the viewer has to move away to comfortably view it and even with perfect vision the less details can be distinguished.
Higher MP allows you to crop your image more but even 24 MP can be cropped very heavily if the image is well captured with lots of detail.
My preference is to use more focal length if possible.
This image was taken with my R6ii at 800mm and heavily cropped but you could print it any size you like

 

[neuroanatomist]

Inferred but unstated apology to me accepted.

As intended. I should have been more explicit.

 

[neuroanatomist]

This entire argument, on all sides, is based on straw men.

There is no singular "what a pro wants in a camera". There is no singular "pro" who wants the exact same thing in a camera as every other "pro".

My argument is that Canon’s objective is to please a plurality of their target market.

Not only is there not just one type of ‘pro’, the target market for the 1-series is not limited to pros.

 

[MikeGalos]

Not only is there not just one type of ‘pro’, the target market for the 1-series is not limited to pros.

And what a pro needs can change from day to day depending on the type of pro and the needs for each specific assignment.

 

[Sporgon]

2 MP is enough for an 8"x10" print at 300 PPI and normally 150 PPI is often used.
For larger prints less PPI is needed and less MP: the larger the print the further the viewer has to move away to comfortably view it and even with perfect vision the less details can be distinguished.

As someone who does a fair amount of printing I agree that for even large, high resolution prints you don’t need what most now consider to be ‘high mp’ cameras.
However, for a 10x8” print at 300 dpi you require 7.2 million mp, not 2.
Extrapolate this up and you can see why 24 million mp really is more than enough for the vast majority of general uses.

 

[EricN]

You don't need high MP for printing: the highest resolution used for printing is magazines which use 300 PPI
2 MP is enough for an 8"x10" print at 300 PPI and normally 150 PPI is often used.
For larger prints less PPI is needed and less MP: the larger the print the further the viewer has to move away to comfortably view it and even with perfect vision the less details can be distinguished.
Higher MP allows you to crop your image more but even 24 MP can be cropped very heavily if the image is well captured with lots of detail.
My preference is to use more focal length if possible.
This image was taken with my R6ii at 800mm and heavily cropped but you could print it any size you like

Don't be silly, millions of people were delighted with about 1/7th of a megapixel for decades

 

[MikeGalos]

As someone who does a fair amount of printing I agree that for even large, high resolution prints you don’t need what most now consider to be ‘high mp’ cameras.
However, for a 10x8” print at 300 dpi you require 7.2 million mp, not 2.
Extrapolate this up and you can see why 24 million mp really is more than enough for the vast majority of general uses.

At 300 dpi the maximum print size for a 24MP image would be 13" x 20" so an 8x10 would be fine, an 11x14 would be fine but not a 16x20.

 

[neuroanatomist]

At 300 dpi the maximum print size for a 24MP image would be 13" x 20" so an 8x10 would be fine, an 11x14 would be fine but not a 16x20.

Not that 300 dpi is a hard limit, by any means.

 

[MikeGalos]

Not that 300 dpi is a hard limit, by any means.

Nor 16x20 a maximum. Surprisingly, one of the biggest markets for needing really high resolution are advertising posters (the kind you see in bus stops and other transportation hubs) since they tend to be a couple of dozen square feet and people view them at a close distance. That's, right now, a medium format only market from what I hear from pros in that market.

 

[AlanF]

You don't need high MP for printing: the highest resolution used for printing is magazines which use 300 PPI
2 MP is enough for an 8"x10" print at 300 PPI and normally 150 PPI is often used.
For larger prints less PPI is needed and less MP: the larger the print the further the viewer has to move away to comfortably view it and even with perfect vision the less details can be distinguished.
Higher MP allows you to crop your image more but even 24 MP can be cropped very heavily if the image is well captured with lots of detail.
My preference is to use more focal length if possible.
This image was taken with my R6ii at 800mm and heavily cropped but you could print it any size you like

It's not just a question of how many pixels you need to print at 300 dpi, it's also a question of whether you have enough pixels to resolve the details you wish to see, which is an entirely different goal altogether. There are occasions where the resolution of a 24mpx isn't good enough to resolve them whereas the 37% more resolution of a 45mpx will tease it out. It's the same when sometimes the 40% extra resolution given by a 1.4xTC squeezes out the detail or a 700mm lens gives you the extra resolution over a 500mm lens. You might as well tell people to bin their 1.4xTCs or tell Canon not to incorporate a 1.4xTC into their lenses because you can still print an 8"x10" without them. My preference is to use more focal length and higher mpx.

 

[Chig]

At 300 dpi the maximum print size for a 24MP image would be 13" x 20" so an 8x10 would be fine, an 11x14 would be fine but not a 16x20.

But at 16x20 you need less PPI anyway: 150 PPI is plenty and as you print larger proportionally less is needed because the comfortable viewing distance increases and the limitations of human eyesight.
Magazine size is the apex of where detail is needed

 

[Chig]

It's not just a question of how many pixels you need to print at 300 dpi, it's also a question of whether you have enough pixels to resolve the details you wish to see, which is an entirely different goal altogether. There are occasions where the resolution of a 24mpx isn't good enough to resolve them whereas the 37% more resolution of a 45mpx will tease it out. It's the same when sometimes the 40% extra resolution given by a 1.4xTC squeezes out the detail or a 700mm lens gives you the extra resolution over a 500mm lens. You might as well tell people to bin their 1.4xTCs or tell Canon not to incorporate a 1.4xTC into their lenses because you can still print an 8"x10" without them. My preference is to use more focal length and higher mpx.

Good points Alan but there are trade offs with higher MP especially low light/high ISO performance as well as read out speed which is why the R6ii and R1 often outperforms the R5ii in situations I find important and why I personally would prefer a R6iii with 24 MP and if I could afford it I'd buy an R1 and I'm not interested in an R5ii even though I could afford one and would never buy an R7 or any crop body

 

[AlanF]

Good points Alan but there are trade offs with higher MP especially low light/high ISO performance as well as read out speed which is why the R6ii and R1 often outperforms the R5ii in situations I find important and why I personally would prefer a R6iii with 24 MP and if I could afford it I'd buy an R1 and I'm not interested in an R5ii even though I could afford one and would never buy an R7 or any crop body

In low light/high iso situations, a high Mpx sensor image (eg from an R5) viewed at the same physical size as one from a low Mpx sensor (eg R6ii) has the same signal/noise. Or, put another way, downresolved to the same resolution they have the same S/N. That’s true in theory and also in practice as you can see from Photonstophotos charts. The low Mpx sensor has the advantage in individual pixels that are larger but not in the overall image viewed at the same physical size. The readout time for the R6ii is 14.5ms and for the R5ii is less than half at 6.3ms.

 

[neuroanatomist]

In low light/high iso situations, a high Mpx sensor image (eg from an R5) viewed at the same physical size as one from a low Mpx sensor (eg R6ii) has the same signal/noise.

Everyone knows that bigger pixels are better.

Everyone except those who actually understand the relevant technical principles, that is.

 

[Quack]

Or pros don't hate it enough to jump systems and spend tens of thousands of dollars to do so. Declaring that pros use the available pro bodies and anyone finding fault in them is a "photographer wannabe" is, frankly, pretty silly.

There may be numerous things wrong with a camera, but enough MPs is not one of them - at least for most, as is clearly evident in that every brand makes a 24 mp camera that is enormously popular. And that many pros use. That was my point. Saying that a 24 mp camera in 2025 is ridiculous is a foolish statement made by a person ignorant of the camera market. That should be obvious to everyone here. Even those who feel the need to over-analyze people's comments.

 

[MikeGalos]

There may be numerous things wrong with a camera, but enough MPs is not one of them

So now you're tripling down and saying no camera has too few megapixels.

OK...