Camera Help Please.
 

This large format inkjet printer was given to me by my 71 year old Christian friend that is retiring. This printer is in great operating order and I plan to use it for making most of my real estate signs. The savings in material will be substantial. Anyways, I was thinking about going to the local dirt track and offering to make large banners of the winning drivers and their cars. I was wanting to know what, and if I needed a special camera to capture the resolution I would need for that large of photo to look good on a banner. Thanks in advance. Here is a pic of the new machine. :)

How large is the max width? Remember that people won't be viewing the banners close up. I'd say that 10 mp would be enough -- it's about 4 ft by 3 ft at 72 dpi.

Take a look at the Canon sx160is which can be found on eBay for $100. 16MP with a 16x optical zoom, runs on 2AA batteries, has nice features and is quite durable. I use it for all my Engineering report work and frequently have to print individual images at 11x17 inches and the quality is extremely good. no pixilation of the edges of lines, good clarity and color rendition.

I have the older sx100is.

It's hackable via custom firmware to allow for more features than Canon sold it with.

CHDK Wiki

On the minus side, if you use normal alkalines, it seems to eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'd suggest keeping a spare set of NiMH rechargables and a charger around for longer shoots.

about 10 feet would be the max. :)

Look for a camera with sweep panorama capability. I have no experience with it but it seems logical.

Sony Alpha a3000 Compact System Camera with 1855mm Lens Black ILCE3000KB - Best Buy

72 dpi is typical for most LCD/CRT displays. For print there is no hard and fast rule for the dpi count, and it depends heavily on the type of image and how far away the viewer is when viewing. Most foto printers will produce at least 300x300 dpi and that produces good results when a suitable image is used.

Newer high rez printers can produce up to 2400x2400 dpi. You can also buy software now a days that do a fine job of up-rezzing digital images (increase the dpi of the base image).

A key element is the type of base digital image file you use and ideally you would print with a 16-bit image such as a .tif or a photoshop .psd image file. 8-bit images, which are typical of .jpg and .bmp images don’t have a lot of color/tone gradients and they tend to look crappy. Some jpg images are set in the camera at 72 dpi and that’s okay for al little print, like a 5” x 7” or something but produces terrible results with 3’ x 5’ or even 1/4 of that.

I agree that a 10 mega-pixel sensor based camera will be minimally okay for 3’ x 5’ size, but a higher mega-pixel count sensor is better. Also use a camera that produces so-called RAW images and use some software to convert the images to 300 dpi .tiff or .psd or similar.

You can get some pretty awesome cameras now-a-days for not a lot of money from pawn shops and camera stores which sell used cameras. Go to a nearby store that sells used equipment and tell them what you're trying to do. Many permit you to buy and test.

The lens is infinitely more important than the megapixels-I've printed 2MP 8"x10" photos that are much better than a cheapo 8MP point&shoot.

A used DSLR is your best bet, I can't recommend a model but make sure it has a short fat lens that can be swapped out.

I recently had WalMart make a 20X30 print of an old business sign that was my Dad's. He was in business as a Contractor in the late 1950s. There was only one sign left, and I wanted to give my brother as close a duplicate as i could. The sign and the print are both 20X30, and the print--after I mounted it on rigid foam board is virtually indistinguishable from the original sign. Photo was shot with a DSL mounted on a HEAVY tripod.

I was impressed that there was no pixilation in the print. ( If that is a word)

The Christian man that gave me this printer is a published author, here is a link to one of his books. index