Difference between MP and resolution?

[QuantumBit]

Ok so I know these are probably noob questions, but whats the difference between MP and resolution? I know 1 MP is 1 million pixels, but I don't get why cameras aren't addressed by resolution instead of MP. Also why do some cameras have weird resolutions like 6000x4000? Why don't they just go to 4/5k so everything can be in the same aspect ratio?

 

Also with phone like the Nokia Lumina 1020 isn't how does the resolution amount to 41,000,000 pixels, but is only 1080??

 

Thank you, also sorry if this is poorly written.

[Electronics Wizardy]

most cameras use 3:2 aspect cause thats what most 35mm film uses.

 

video on most cameras is a much lower res due to data, and there are olten un used pixels.

 

 

[QuantumBit]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

most cameras use 3:2 aspect cause thats what most 35mm film uses.

 

Ohh ok thanks

 

But how can a the 1020 have such a high MP count when its 1080p??

 

EDIT: Nevermind just re-read. So its a high resolution but the phone doesn't store it as that because the file is too big?

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, QuantumBit said:

Ohh ok thanks

 

But how can a the 1020 have such a high MP count when its 1080p??

It captures photos at 41MP, but video it only captures at 1080p, probably by either applying a quick filter on the raw input to downsample it or picking the values at every other "pixel" in the photo sensor.

[QuantumBit]

Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

It captures photos at 41MP, but video it only captures at 1080p, probably by either applying a quick filter on the raw input to downsample it or picking the values at every other "pixel" in the photo sensor.

Ohh ok thank you

[AkiraDaarkst]

11 hours ago, QuantumBit said:

Ok so I know these are probably noob questions, but whats the difference between MP and resolution? I know 1 MP is 1 million pixels, but I don't get why cameras aren't addressed by resolution instead of MP. Also why do some cameras have weird resolutions like 6000x4000? Why don't they just go to 4/5k so everything can be in the same aspect ratio?

 

Also with phone like the Nokia Lumina 1020 isn't how does the resolution amount to 41,000,000 pixels, but is only 1080??

 

Thank you, also sorry if this is poorly written.

Don't confuse megapixels with aspect ratio.

 

Megapixels (MP) refer to the amount of pixels that the sensor has.  Though typically camera sensors tend to have slightly more pixels than advertised by the manufacturer.

But just because a camera comes with X megapixels doesn't mean that the camera is capable of recording videos of the same resolution as said amount of megapixels.  FHD (1920x1080) is roughly a 2.07 megapixel resolution image per frame while 4K UHD is roughly 8.3 megapixels.  Cameras that have higher megapixels than those video resolutions usually do some image scaling or cropping (depending on the mode and model).

 

Cameras inside mobile phones and photo cameras use sensors mainly with the 3:2 aspect ratio in terms of dimensions.  For video recording, those cameras scale and crop what the sensor sees.

Video cameras on the other hand can come with sensors that are as close to their highest recording resolution's aspect ratio.  Modern digital video cameras typically come with sensors close to 16:9/17:9 aspect ratios while older SD cameras might have sensors that are close to 4:3, if not exactly at those ratios.

 

So yeah there's nothing wrong with a camera like the Sony A6300 or A6500 having a sensor with 6000x4000 resolution.  The aspect ratio is 3:2 for photography.

[QuantumBit]

8 hours ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

snip

Thanks!