Poor Image Resolution w/ Canon Digital Rebel xti (auto mode, large fine setting)

[xlaw]

Newbie here. Have had a Canon Powershot Pro1 for a couple of years and recently got a Canon Digital Rebel xti. Looking at photos taken from both cameras (shooting in automatic mode, highest quality resolution on both), the pictures from the Pro1 appear superior in both resolution and quality. When I view the Image Size of the photos in Photoshop. the Pro1 photos are 22.9M pixels with a document size of 18.13 x 13.6 at 180 pixels/inch resolution. The Rebel photos are 28.8M pixels with a document size of 54 x 36 at 72 pixels/inch resolution. It seems like the photos taken with the Digital Rebel xti should be of higher quality and resolution than those taken with the Pro1. What am I missing? Can I make an adjustment on the Rebel to shoot smaller documents (in order to cram more pixels into a smaller area and achieve something more like the Pro1's 180 pixels/inch resolution)? Any help would be very much appreciated.

[Rhys]

Newbie here. Have had a Canon Powershot Pro1 for a couple of years and recently got a Canon Digital Rebel xti. Looking at photos taken from both cameras (shooting in automatic mode, highest quality resolution on both), the pictures from the Pro1 appear superior in both resolution and quality. When I view the Image Size of the photos in Photoshop. the Pro1 photos are 22.9M pixels with a document size of 18.13 x 13.6 at 180 pixels/inch resolution. The Rebel photos are 28.8M pixels with a document size of 54 x 36 at 72 pixels/inch resolution. It seems like the photos taken with the Digital Rebel xti should be of higher quality and resolution than those taken with the Pro1. What am I missing? Can I make an adjustment on the Rebel to shoot smaller documents (in order to cram more pixels into a smaller area and achieve something more like the Pro1's 180 pixels/inch resolution)? Any help would be very much appreciated.

But the XTi is 10 megapixels...

[David Metsky]

18.13" x 180 dpi = 3263.4 pixels
54" x 72 dpi = 3888 pixels

Ignore DPI in the computer, it means nothing. What is important is the number of pixels, and the XTi has more. The choice of 72dpi for the display is meaningless, you can change that any time you want and it won't make a difference; the pixels are still there. It only matters when you get ready to print, and then you can pick any DPI you like.

DPI has nothing to do with the quality of the image, it's the ratio between number of pixels and the printed page. When displaying on a computer monitor (with a dpi of 72) there's not much point worrying about it. Why the XTi tells the software to display at 72 dpi and the Pro tells it to use 180 dpi is not very important. You can change those all you want and the pixels will still be exactly the same as they were coming out of the camera.

Quality is another matter. You'll have to post samples for that.

[raven15]

Nothing to do with pixels, but it is possible the lens on the Pro1 was better than the lens you are using on the XTi.

[Rhys]

He could be using the kit lens

[Spookonthe8ball]

My first suggestion is to loose the auto mode. Check out your picture style settings and adjust as needed to suit. If you don't understand this, maybe shoot in aperture mode around f6.3 to f8 in raw with the kit lens. Make sure the iso is set to 100 or perhaps 200 on a cloudy day. Use your digital photo professional software and view the various images you shoot. Take note of what looks best to you. Run the contrast up and down, light and color saturation levels. Transfer the picture style you choose with the lighting, contrast, color saturation, sharpness to the camera. Your jpeg files will shoot that way all the time. Raw is best because of the easy ability to adjust white balance plus you can change the picture style no matter what mode you shot the image in.
Spook