0

I am trying to determine at what DPI a certain camera can shoot, namely this model, however the technical specs at the official site do not give any details about it.

Is there a way to calculate the maximum possible DPI a given camera can shoot provided we have the sensor type and its number of pixels (just as the in the link above) ?

Hayk
  • 101
  • 1

1 Answers1

1

This will get rapidly closed against the duplicate, but just to set this out in as simple a way as possible…

DPI has no meaning whatsoever until you need to print an image.
At that point, the image's printed size will depend on the DPI set at the moment it is sent to the printer. This is a variable.

All an image has before that is a size, dimensions in pixels.
Nothing else.

Tetsujin
  • 23,252
  • 3
  • 46
  • 97
  • The EXIF "dpi" tag also has meaning if an image is imported into page setting software or even some text/document editors. – Michael C Sep 16 '19 at 09:28
  • @Tetsujin, thanks for your comments, but about your note "all the image has before that is a size, dimension in pixels" , isn't the physical resolution at which the camera can capture an image a parameter of the camera ( the optical dpi ) ? – Hayk Sep 16 '19 at 09:50
  • 1
    @Hayk You are linking to an article about optical resolution, not optical dpi. That is only a term you just invented. The article uses dpi in connection with scanners, where it makes sense, but not when it comes to cameras. – jarnbjo Sep 16 '19 at 09:55
  • 3
    The 'DPI' of the sensor isn't related to the DPI of the image. The camera captures a number of pixels. If it does that on a full frame or crop frame will affect the "DPI" of the camera, but if they're both 24 MP, the resulting image will be the same 'size'. EXIF tagging being read by DTP software is merely a precursor to its being printed. Change the DPI number in the EXIF, the DTP will think it should be printed at a different size. The image, however, does not change at all. – Tetsujin Sep 16 '19 at 09:56
  • @MichaelC If the image comes from a camera, the EXIF tag value for dpi does not have a meaning, even if a reading software tries to interpret it. Trying to use the dpi values in an image file makes only sense if the image comes from a capturing device, which knows the relationship between the pixel pitch and the physical size of the pictured object, e.g. when scanning a paper. In that case, the DPI values can e.g. be used to reproduce the image at the same size as the original. – jarnbjo Sep 16 '19 at 09:59
  • It still has meaning, just not the same meaning as the dpi attached to a scanned image has. It's still a meaningful instruction regarding how the image should be printed, even if that instruction was assigned with very little or no thought on the part of who assigned it. It is meaningful because it will affect how the image appears in page setting applications and how large the image will print if the printing application/printer follows the embedded instructions. – Michael C Sep 16 '19 at 10:12
  • 2
    @MichaelC In which case it is merely a printing instruction. The property still has no meaning related to, nor does it describe any inherent feature or trait of the image itself. – jarnbjo Sep 16 '19 at 10:34
  • @jarnbjo I never said it has any meaning related to any inherent feature or trait of the image itself. I said that it has meaning that affects how it will be displayed in certain circumstances, and it does. – Michael C Sep 16 '19 at 10:44