Something that seems to be seldom discussed online is that most images on web pages are only 300 – 500px wide. Or that most photos are viewed on platforms like Facebook, and the maximum image size on Facebook is only 720px wide.
But most people don’t even click on the images on their FB timeline anyway, they just view the thumbnail – which is only 470px wide. And beyond that, most people are now viewing the entire internet on their squinty little phones. So the vast majority of photos are viewed online at less than 470 px wide, and in that size, just about any resolution would do the job.
On this blog my photos are mostly web copies saved at either 750px or 1000px wide, but if you would like a really big copy of anything, just ask me nice and send some nekid pichers ov yerself in exchange.
After five years and over 10 000 photos taken with the Ixus 330, I did eventually get around to getting something more bling – a Canon Ixus 960 Titanium, which I used to take thousands more photos for another five years.
It eventually met an unfortunate and wet demise, so I bought an Ixus 500HS in a styling blue colour. Smaller, with better specs in theory, it was an OK camera for a surprisingly cheap price, but the image quality wasn’t as good as the Ixus 960, and I didn’t stick with it for long.
Still having a soft spot for the 960 Titanium (A classic IMHO), I bought a replacement one in mint condition on Trade Me for a bargain $100, including a waterproof case. (The original retail on this combination would have been around $1200, but cameras are not appreciating investments)
In 2015 I upgraded to a Canon SX600, which was a dirt cheap NZ$200 on sale. And it was a good camera. It fitted in my pocket, even with an 18x zoom, and with 16 megapixels and a 3 inch hi-res screens it seemed pretty awesome for a pocket camera. At that point it was both the cheapest and the best camera I’d ever owned.
Then in 2018 I upgraded to a Canon SX720 with an awesome 40x zoom lens, and 20 megapixels. To this day it’s still the best camera I’ve ever owned and it blows me away how far these little cameras have developed. I actually prefer it to the newer models and later bought a back up one second hand.
I'm still using my seven year old SX270 daily in 2025 and have no real desire to replace it. If it ever stops working I'll probably just switch to my backup one and continue on.
My take on cameras is that for what I want to use my photos for – mainly posting on websites and often edited with art filters, what matters is not high resolution but always having one in my pocket ready for action, and to be able to use it rapidly without having to look at it.
Taking shit loads of photos also helps me to get some I like. Each picture is raw material for the almost unlimited enhancements available in my favorite programs.
Over
the years
I’ve downloaded copies of lots of image editing programs and tried them
out, starting with Photoshop 4 in 1998, and my all time favourite
version of Photoshop was Photoshop CS6 from 2012. That was
the one I stuck with for 12 years, because hell could freeze over
before I would ever pay Adobe a monthly subscription.
But Photoshop doesn't run on Linux, so since switching full-time to using Linux at the start of 2025, I've also switched over to using GIMP, starting out with Gimp 2 at first, and then upgrading to Gimp 3 when it was released in March 2025.
I'm slowly learning to use GIMP 3 and it's a very good program, but after using Photoshop for the past 27 years I had become stuck in my ways, and I still have lots to learn.
On Android I mostly use Snapseed, Cartoon Pro, Mirror Lab, and Chroma Lab for doing my photo edits. Despite hating Google I really like Snapseed and find it the fastest and easiest to use image editor for all basic stuff.
This is a photo I took on my Canon SX270 that has been lightly edited in Snapseed. It's not high res enough for serious photographers, but I took it from inside a bus anyway, and I like it, as it captures chemtrails, a gay building, a masktard, and a phone zombie, all at once, in Manners St Wellington NZ:
.JPG)