Fujifilm X-Trans Sensors – enough pixels?

I see some people are lamenting what they see as the X-Trans sensor’s lack of pixels and / or non full frame-ness (“I’m not getting one till they’re full frame – harumph!” etc.).

Not quite the same thing, but with DP Review’s very recent X100s review, there’s all that “These files suck” stuff going on in the comments too.*

Hmm…

There’s no denying it. In terms of actual photographic activity, as in, producing something you can hold in your hands or hang on a wall, pixel count is the single most important thing in digital photography.**

Without enough pixels, you simply can’t make a good print. End of story.

How many pixels are enough? Well, it depends on how large you want to print, expected viewing distances, etc.

The question here is, for typical uses, do the X-Trans sensors have large enough pixel counts?

The below photo is a jpeg version of an actual print work file. In other words, of a file worked up for printing from, with all the noise reduction, micro contrasting, resizing, output sharpening, etc. that this entails. Thus it probably looks a bit messy here, webified – it looks messy as a TIFF onscreen too. However, rest assured, it prints very very nicely at A3 nobi ( the Japanese term for A3 + / Super A3). It looks great too, well framed on a wall. I’ve sat back and watched people come up short while passing, to look long and hard at one where it hangs on a restaurant wall in New Zealand (he says, ever so smugly).

It was taken in March 2006 on a circa 2004 APS-C 6 megapixel sensor dSLR.

Now, does that answer the original question?

Typed while digesting the swirling semi-psychedelic Homemade Traditional Electric Jam of The Bevis Frond.

* Both quotes fictional representative approximates, not real, like say, this one: “I looked closely at every single sample image and they are terrible.”

** 😉