Mr. Pogue, over at the Times, has a great must-read on something photoheads have long known—when it comes to megapixels, bigger doesn’t matter (too much.)
The way I see it, people love simplicity, especially when shopping. If there’s any easy-to-read stat that registers as “more is good,” it makes it a lot easier for companies to push their products, and to force obsolesence (your 5-megapixel cam is worthless now that there’s an 8-megapixel out). I very rarely take pics with the maximum sharpness—they fill up your hard drive, look no better on a computer screen and I almost never print pics.
Breaking the Myth of Megapixels [NY Times]
I have come to the same realization – now that I got my D40, I completely agree. Its the software behind the picture that makes the HUGE difference more then any megapixel this or that. The only advantage I can see towards additional megapixels is the software has more data to further optimize the image… and in this way, as long as the cpu can keep up, more is probably better although I am sure there is a law of diminishing returns regarding this as well.
Jon
“I very rarely take pics with the maximum sharpness—they fill up your hard drive, look no better on a computer screen and I almost never print pics.”
but what if you want to crop them? :)
The stat that makes the most difference for most people will be the lens speed. Ironically, a lot of sites (e.g. dealcamera.com) don’t even bother to list it. With a fast lens you can take pictures indoors without flash, take pictures on grey days without sensor noise, and so on. That makes a much bigger difference to image quality than either megapixels or the software you use.