**Correction 🤦🏼‍♂️ I made a mistake in my explanation at 3:09. When detailing the cropping ability of 16MP and 12MP I used a crop factor of 2x and 1.5x respectively to get to the 8MP resolution - this is incorrect. To achieve 8MP on the 16MP would only require a crop factor of 1.4x. On 12MP only a crop factor is 1.2x is required. The reason for this is I had mistakenly calculated (4992x3328)/2 to achieve 8MP from 16MP. In fact this should be calculated with division preceding multiplication: (4992/1.4)X(3328/1.4). Apologies for the mistake, it doesn't change the ability of an 8MP image - only the variable crop factors to get there! 😂 And a thank you to Bjørn Friese for emailing to notify me of the mistake!

As film wedding photographer, it took years for me to realize that the average client probably has a 5-10 year old computer at home, more than likely it's a laptop at best, most have smart phones, primarily Androids. And the only people who care about resolution.... is us, photographers.

There is an obsession with gear & tech and easy to forget about the ART of...

You’re right - I used to edit an image-lead fairly glossy / heavy paper magazine (you could buy in newsagents) and as long as the base image was good (I mean sharp, well exposed) we could usually get a double-page spread out of a 3mp image without any noticeable artefacts - and 6mp was never a problem.

If you get a chance, check out Magnum Photographer Alex Majoli, who took a 5mp Olympus point and shoot and shot the presidential elections and the Iraq war for Newsweek -- those images won him several awards, including the award for international photographer of the year.

If you dont crop a lot, megapixels don’t mean a lot. You only need 90,000 pixels per inch of printing. You need a little less than 9 megapixels to make. 8x12 print. So if you own a ten megapixel camera youre fine. It’s the dynamic range and color depth of the sensor that matters.

Apparently, you don't shoot wildlife. Most of the times, one cannot get closer to wildlife, and 50 Mp or so do come very handy. Also, pixel size is not important for noise performance. With 48 Mp sensor, you can just reduce the resolution in post to 12 Mp by combining 4 pixels into one, and get the same performance as if you were using 12 Mp sensor to start with. It's the whole sensor size, not the pixel size, that matters.

I've always had a pet peeve regarding tech. And that is the notion that yesterday's state of the art is today's trash. Yesterday's "state of the art" cameras were capable of producing perfectly fine images. But, people, in general, are always looking for something bigger and better. They want the next big thing whether it's megapixels or whatever. In fact, companies depend on this to stay in business. But, how much is enough? Many years ago a friend of mine owned a very high end audio company. And he was telling me about the specs of the equipment. In particular how it was good that the equipment produced sound that you couldn't hear. At some point I stopped him and said, "I don't need the best equipment. It just has to be good enough for me." And that's pretty much where I am with lots of things in life these days.

You can generate a fairly good-sized print from lower mega-pixel (6-12MP) cameras as well. Plus, AI optimization programs can easily boost resolution (through interpolation) by 200% that you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference when compared with native resolution. Very few people view A3 or A2 prints hanging on the wall up close.

George, you had me laugh out loud when describing the screen resolutions versus the actual megapixel size! I DIDN"T KNOW THAT!!! I have been reviewing old photos that I took on my Nikon Coolpix 990 back in the early 2000s. This camera cost me over a grand in January 2000 (just after launch) and was state-of-the-art at that time. It has a 3.3 Megapixel sensor and on my 33" LG or HP monitors (I run them side-by-side off my MacBook Pro) the pics are still stunning. I found your video by accident and I'm so glad I did as I am fed up with listening to 'photographers' telling me I need the latest squillion megapixels to get a good photograph. I cut my teeth on film, had my own darkroom at home and learned that photography is about 'SEEING' not about the number of megapixels you have. Well done for a great video... absolutely love it!

'If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough' - Robert Capa I'm using 16MP M43 Panasonics and the image quality is great. Years ago I used a Fujifilm Finepix F200 EXR (12 or 6 MP according to mode), a Canon Powershot S70 (7.1MP) and a Konica Minolta Dynax 7D (6.1MP) and before that a Canon Powershot G2 (4MP) . They were good too! I couldn't care less about megapixels for most purposes. Really, as you say, on screen it hardly matters. It's when you print that it matters more. What more moderns sensors give you is much better dynamic range and truly excellent low light performance. Older digital cameras produced some very horrible low light results.

That 4mp shot of the beach at 1:13 is gorgeous! Just goes to show it's not about having the flashiest gear

Cameras don't take photos, People do. Many folks still don't get the concept of photography. You don't simply replicate great image just by getting that particular camera without having an eye of that particular photographer who took it. Learn composition, color theory, light, etc which actually helps to take great photos despite the camera being used

Old cameras downside isn’t that they are low res, its that they’re slow and a lot of them have bad autofocus that misses a lot of shots

I loved your video! I have developed practically all of my original work with digital cameras from the late 90s to the early 2000s. I find the resolution sufficient for my experiments and, even when I have to deal with just 1MP, I see it as an aesthetic challenge.

Your videos are great George, keep on doing what you're doing!

Loved this and your whole style of presenting. Thank you!

This will depend on what sort of images you are trying to capture. I use my a7r3 for nature photography along with family event photos. Its a hobby for me so I can't justify the cost of some of the best telephoto lenses. My 42mp images let me go for a sharp image with the lenses that I have and really crop in to get that little bird up in the tree or the hawk or eagle that won't let me get close.

All good stuff George. Enjoyable and informative video as usual.

I found the same myself. 16MP is plenty and there are some great 16-24MP cameras out there. Focus is far more important - less throw always. And composition and subject matter the most important of all.

I worked many years in advertising and in 3d graphic and established for myself that it's enough to have a picture about 3500 x 2500 pixels and it will be enough for printing the picture of any size starting from a piece of paper and up to the big banner. You can have a little more pixels for cropping and that's it.

I have 3MP shots from a canon Powershot A30 (the early 2000s ) - the colours and sharpness are simply beautiful. And if you need more MP then there are plenty of apps that will boost it 2x or 4x with very good quality.

brooooo this video is incredible and so motivating for me to shoot more with what i have instead of always trying to upgrade my gear. THANK YOU!!

Love this video, very informative! Thank you for sharing!

I've been carrying around a Sony Cybershot DSC-T10 a friend gave me and I actually just genuinely love how "2006" it makes everything look. It's kind of like a time warp camera regardless of the results which look really nicely detailed and exposed on the little LCD screen but I have a memorystick duo card reader on the way so will have to wait and see how things look on a bigger screen. Certainly good enough for instagram!! Thanks for the explanation it helped a lot.

You make some great points in this video. And I'm already on board with you, I mostly shoot with older M4/3 cameras featuring 16 & 20 sensors. And I'm good with the image quality. Great video thanks for sharing.

Excellent video, you make a lot of sense here. I like using older cameras as well, been doing some reviews on my channel about older cameras and they are proving very popular, more so than newer cameras.

It is easy. High MP crop is really useful when using prime lens and you don't have the reach (or even maxed out zoom). If you have the zoomies to churn out, just use zoom to do the work. It's just choosing how lazy or restricted you want to be. Because essence of doing crop with enough MP is legitimately backed up by birding or sports people

I love the way you think and present these notions. I have a Canon G1x that I love for the size and quality. Only downside is focussing but because it can go fully manual, that is not even an excuse. We should apply your way of thinking to all aspects of life!

I was a wedding and portrait photographer back in the film and early digital days. The cameras I had back then (Nikon D1X, D100, Fujifilm S-3 Pro) were 5.7 to 6 megapixel cameras. From those cameras I printed images up to 20x24 inches for my clients. Now days I just shoot for fun using everything from a 10MP point and shoot to 24MP Nikon and Fuji. I really don't think that I need anything more than that.

love the content, love the graphical explanations, love the bits, subscribe! xD

Exceptionally good video! Thanks.

I have a Canon 80D, a Canon 6D, and a sony a7iv...yet my 12mp drone has taken my favorite shots this year because it can simply get shots the others can't. And they look great alongside shots from cameras with 3x the resolution and sensor size.

Very informative. Thanks!

My digital camera journey started with a Canon Ixus (2 MB resolution). The image quality of my photos from that era is still a sort of OK (watched on a 27" 2K screen) and there are some photos which I really like despite the low resolution. The best camera is that what inspires and enables you to take great shots. Some years ago I purchased a Sony A7R III. Factually it did not inspire me the same way like my ancient A7. Consequently I sold it without any regret because I was/am using primarily vintage lenses so that many features of the A7R III did not translate into a real-life advantage for me.

amazing video! Very motivated!

Love your vids, it get rid of my stress.. this is now my comfort zone 😁

OK. That one got me! Subscribed! 👏🏻

Great video. My first DSLR was the Nikon D50 with about 5MP. At the time I had a part time engagement as a freelance journalist for a hifi magazine. One of my pictures could cover a full page, looking great.

Thank you, great video.

Amen! One of the best videos I ever shot indoors was inside a museum in Alaska -low light-with a Panasonic Lumix Leica Lens 16 mega pixels. Images were extremely clear. 😎😎

This videos has completely blown my mind

As an artist, all my life i've tried to make the most of the least possible, as a necessity at times, but always as a principle. I've never seen anyone explain why I love shooting with my Lumix cameras, and why I've been so eager to get friends and partners into them, as much as you have in this video. Well done, subscribed.

very good points many digital photographers, especially pixel peeper bunch, don't quite realize ... those having come from film photography backgrounds get this quite easily and quickly when transitioning from the 'old' film medium into the 'new' digital one ... but those born and grown into the digital system, might find it hard at first to grasp the notions of resolution, definition, image clarity and so on ... here's what i have been saying all along about digital sensor size vs resolution 'ideal' number of pixels for a long time: APS-C 8MP (12MP max!) FF 20MP (30MP max!) MF 40MP (60MP max!) and by "max!" above, i mean only if the sensor is of high quality (say back-illuminated for example) then it can have that many pixels with minimal to no noise ...

My first camera was a Nikon entry level thing that was 6MP. 12MP is good enough for most prints to probably 18”, you can certainly push that to twice that - you are never going to be that close to a 36” print It’s worth noting that lens sharpness becomes more important when you are pushing the size of your prints. If you’re viewing stuff on a phone then 6MP is totally cool

Great video and too true. Ive been shooting fashion/portraits professionally for 20 years now. Owned and shot with dozens of cameras from tiny sensor point and shoots to medium format and everything in between. I am no longer shooting for publications or in store ads where you needed more resolution. These days, mostly everything I shoot is for social media and people are viewing them on 5-6 inch smartphone screens. Zero use for high resolution cameras. In fact, I have grown tired of the over-sharpened, digital look with zero character that pretty much every modern mirrorless camera and lens produce these days. I have mostly gone back to shooting older CCD sensor cameras that have a much more filmic look and lots of character to the photos. Funny thing is, Ive had a lot more people ask me how I got that look or what camera I shot with then I ever did when using modern mirrorless cameras. Fun stuff.

I’m just a hobbyist photographer, but this made me realize there is more to the MP marketing than I was aware. Now to try and wrap my head around that math and cropping explanation you gave. 🤔

The sales gimmick thrown at photographers is "Are you ready for the next level in photography?" implying your camera is restricting you. My Canon S95 10MP, released in 2010, offers A4 prints at 300 dpi. Gimmickry aside, a camera is a light-tight box, and no amount of technology will improve your composition skills.

, 100% agree. I realized the same thing about megapixels a while back,.Our monitors and daily screens are not even close to using what our cameras can produce, nowhere near. I looked up IG resolution and it was 600x600 at the time. I think they have increased it but only by a small amount. But ever since then I started caring less about MPs and more about composition. And my $20 or less old point and shoot collection grew from there, no need to raise my shutter counts on my DSLRs for daily shooting. Anything above 5 MP is enough for 4x6 prints and enough for even a 4k monitor. Obviously if the screen is bigger the more flaws you notice, but even then its not a big deal, just move onto the next image. What really made me stop caring so much is knowing that the majority of people will view my images on a phone. That also why IG doesn't care to make higher MP images the standard, view time, screen size and viewing distance doesn't justify going bigger. For online sharing I make my images 1600 or 1200 at max with 240 dpi, dpi goes a lomg way in preserving image quality. Files come out to 800kb -1mb and still look good on all my screens. Less MP on a camera does limit cropping though, thats about it, so just don't crop, problem solved lol.

I used an A7iii with a 24MP sensor for many years. I found that to be a great resolution with plenty of options for cropping, but file sizes that were still manageable. With my iPhone 13 and its 12MP camera, on the other hand, I have definitely run into limitations with how much I could crop. That being said, I still take way more photos on my iPhone than on the Sony, because it’s so much more convenient to carry. And 12MP is fine most of the time. But if I’m going to carry around a separate camera in 2024, I probably want at least 20MP. And even smartphones now are going higher than that.

Great observation!. Not only that, I can get cinematic photographs on my old Canon G9 vs my Leica Q. If your a lens-based artist like me, what matters most is the art within the shot taken…and where it’s displayed. Thanks from Newfoundland.

Thanks for this video. It's exactly why my D700 is my tool and probably continues until eternity.

Artists can produce stunning photos with any camera. The problem especially nowadays is that few low-pixel-count camera have the functional niceties offered by high-pixel-count cameras. One high-end video-centric exception is the A7SIII at 12MP. Professionnal photographers don't need high-pixel-count cameras because they use the right lens to compose perfectly every time. But many leisure photographers lust for 40MP at least. And camera makers thrive largely by them.

My Nikon D700 is 12M and it still happily shoots great pics. I have been in photography for 40 years or so and I was shooting 35mm before and never had issues in enlarging. Unfortunately the marketing and social media hype in higher resolution has ruined photography in general. If you are a good photographer and have a creative talent, you can shoot with a "pinhole" camera and get great images, so the idea of higher resolution is better, is a myth for general photography. But, if you want to do architectural photography or other photography that requires more res that is fine, that is why in the film days you had and still have medium and large format films. Cheers

Great video, cool to see the math sitting under the surface of the images we make with our older, funkier cameras. I’ll walk a bit taller next time I choose the EP3, GF1 or G9 for my random walk over my state of the art 40mp beast :-)

I have a mft camera with 20 mp. In lightroom, under photo, enhance, the program fixes the image. After that, I can print the image in 100*70 cm format with excellent quality. Yes, even pictures taken with the iPhone 11 can be printed in large format. So, better invest in some rammine for the computer. This editing doesn't take long and goes smoothly. Thanks for highlighting this.

So true 😄 I have a 5d classic and I tend to choose that over my newer nikon, just for the enjoyment I get shooting with it and the images it produces! Plus being only 12 megapixel you would never tell I only tend to take the newer nikon if I know there's fast moving subjects or for surf photography etc Cheers mate good video 😁

Yep this is hilarious,the gear really isn’t that important, don’t get seduced by shiny new things! Spend the cash saved on travel and experiences.

6.3mp Fuji Super CCD is the sweet spot for older CCD cameras!

Spot on video and conclusion! In a perfect world - one where we could have gigapixel pocket-sized cameras with virtually no noise at ISO 1 billion, then we'd have nothing to talk about. But, in reality, digital cameras have been more than good enough for a vast amount of general photography for many, many years. When you start chasing the new tech bleeding edge you can convince yourself that nothing less than the new new thing is worth using - but really that's seldom true. There is no free lunch in digital camera tech. At any point in time there are tradeoffs between sensor size (i.e. resulting camera and lens size), resolution, noise (high ISO), and dynamic range. My first DSLR was an 8Mp Olympus E-300 Four Thirds camera. I try to get in close so don't need to crop much, and to this day the photos I shot with that way back when still stand up.

Great video George. I agree it's really important to consider your output. I shoot mainly street and documentary style, my output besides web and social media is, books, prints for exhibitions, and if I am lucky print magazines. 16 by 20 is plenty big enough for exhibitions. 8 by 10 covers most books and magazines. Nat Geo only requires a 8 MP file so there you go.....just won an award with a 16 by 20 print in art exhibit, taken with a 16 MP Lumix.

Excellent video and good fun :)

My first digital camera was a 3.2mp point and shoot. I took some lovely photos on that. Granted you're not making posters out of those shots but for sharing online or standard small prints it was fine. I'm only shooting 20mp these days (Canon 6D). Unless you're a crop monster or want to cover the size of a football pitch with a picture then resolution is bottom on my list of considerations when buying a camera

This is why I love my Olympus/OM System Cameras and won't be changing systems anytime soon, 20 megapixels is more than enough and the auto focus & image stabilisation is among the best

I have taken photos since the day's of the Ilford Box Camera, I know nothing of the technicalities of modern photography but I do understand what you say, I just rely on what my eye sees, If I like what I see I just keep going, I have Cameras from the beginning of Digital but never ever paid thousands for Camera or Lenses.

Nice video and advices! I am now more motivated to use old cameras (canon S90, fuji X10, fuji xf1 and many more still hibernating in the drawer) waiting to be waken up! Thanks George!

All these years (over 25) I've shot professionally on 16mp, 12mp, 6mp, and yes 2.7mp. In fact, I shot for 7 years on the Nikon D1, a 2.7mp camera during my newspaper days. It's amazing what you can do with lower resolution cameras. Today, I shoot on 24mp, and I can't imagine a scenario that it couldn't handle. Unless I was doing heavy cropping and needed extreme detail.

In grad school I used a Canon 5d classic. For my thesis show I made 20x30in prints. And even with the 12 megapixel sensor, they look stunning. I'll be it with a little bit of tweaking the sharpness and adding a touch of noise after enlarging, final image is were perfect.

Currently I'm using 24Mb and that is enough for me. Big res may use to change landscape orientation to portrait and vice versa. That is extremely useful for publishing series images with different original orientation. Also big res allow u to replace zoom lens with prime and crop image in post production. One more: resizing image to lower resolution working like a sharp filter. And this effect is natural, without artifacts (adobe photoshop does this job very well). I see only one disadvantage for me in big res: slower post production. Yes, u have to get expensive workstation to process big images in lightroom/photoshop. P.S. My first camera was only 3Mp. Then upgraded to 6Mp, then 16Mp... all of them were quite good at one time, but now there is no point to using these cameras. But in case of using JPG only without RAW, without any correction, cropping... Yes, that makes sense to get low res camera or reduce image size directly in settings :-)

I like having some "extra" MP at my disposal (namely for potential printing) but I literally shop with the intention of not going past like 24mp if possible. For day to day photography 12-16 is all I would need, it's just that I sometimes need to print 24 inches wide (wedding albums for clients) and if we go by the 300dpi standard even 24mp falls just a bit short of achieving it, and that's with no cropping. But it still prints just fine.

Thank you for that very interesting and fact filled video George ! The actual numbers regarding display resolution was a shocker ! One can really wonder who has been driving the resolution hype !? Is it the manufacturers or the photo nerds ? I have been using a Canon G5x for the last 7 years for just about all my snaps and it produces the most amazing pin sharp images from just a tiny little sensor ! Keep up the good work!

After a while away I’m back to my photography and joined the digital revolution, finally. Having had a lot of satisfaction from 35mm film I realised that chasing massive megapixels didn’t make sense. The maths of megapixels to dpi and print size spoke volumes about camera sales talk vs actual use. My focus turned to getting the best camera with megapixels being the compromise variable. Very happy owner of an 18mp dslr that left money to spare for very nice glass. I can’t see me printing larger than A4 so I should avoid any megapixel-envy😂

Yep. That Sony A7s sensor is just a beast, especially paired with old vintage manual focus lenses. Great gigging setup. Just got to use your feet more :)

Great video, thanks :)

My first pro camera was the A7R IV for wildlife. I discarded so many photos because they were slightly soft from hand holding at slower shutter speeds, it's taken me a few years to realise that if I had taken those same photos on a 24mp sensor they would have been sharp because there is less fine detail at a 500% crop to see any micro movements effecting image quality. So now I will downsize any low detail 61mp file and see where I start losing detail, quite surprising a lot of them work out to be 12mp, ISO effects how much detail I'm allowed to capture as well.

I started photography because of you. Actually, after watching your Canon G9 video, I started hunting for one and ended up with a G10. Now I'm in a CCD rabbit hole and have been collecting cameras 🤣

Got some really nice shots from my 10mpxl Nikon 1J1, and my 16mpxl Sony SLT-A57, and even a 5.1 mpxl Sony DSC-H1 that takes surprisingly nice photos. And since I only post to social media sites and don't print anything larger than A4, they all work for me.

It really depends what you do later, if all what matters is picture for social media then of course you don’t need extra detail of extra resolution, but on the other hand. after nice holiday you look back on some old photos, you like to check in the background for example name of restaurant or look closer at the flowers on the table then its amazing to have that big sensor and hi resolution. Its all about attention to detail

I've been using a camera from 2004 for almost a decade now. I'm the only person who even notices the grain at high isos and low resolution. Everyone else loves the photos. Old tech is fun and cool

Last year I was getting a new camera after shooting for 15+ years as a pro. I was debating the R6 II (24 MP) or R5 (45 MP). I had sample raws from both using the same lenses (best RF lenses you could buy) and compared them by upscaling the R6 files in Adobe Camera Raw (you can set output resolution) to 45 MP. Most of the time I couldn't tell the difference, even zoomed to 100% on a 27" 5k monitor. Then I tried upscaling the R6 II files using Adobe Camera Raw's built in "Super Resolution" feature then placing over top the R5 files (at 45 MP output). 9/10 times the R6 II files looked better than the native R5 files. I also had a friend who has 15 years photo/design experience look at them, unlabelled, and he picked the R6 II files as being sharper and more detailed 9 out of 10 times. I then tried AI upscale from various online free sites, and the images looked even better. I saved $1500 buying the R6 II and have smaller files and better AF than if I bought the R5. I've printed 8 MP 1D IIN files at billboard sizes (for a radio station) and they looked excellent. 24 MP is actually large compared to anything I was used to prior and will print any size needed... the same also applies to cropping. Lens sharpness and AF accuracy will make a bigger difference than going from 24 MP to 45 MP (in my tests). But MP is great for marketing and helps to sell new cams.

My photos taken in 2006 with my trusty Nikon D50 (6mp on a CCD sensor) on my 5K Apple monitor look excellent. You made some very good points which confirmed my own observations. There is a lot of marketing fluff going on in the photo industry and people often fall into the megapixel trap. It's the pixel quality (size) not quantity that matters. Printing very big and high quality requires bigger sensors with more bigger pixels. 40mp's on a smartphone sensor look like sh!t to me.

Nice video! I myself use 16 mp MFT camera, and I used 24 mp Nikon DSLR before, and while old camera had some advantages, like bigger sensor and more resolution, my skill didn't get worse when I switched to Lumix camera, in fact, I think that I got better at photography because my current camera suits me and my needs much better despite smaller resolution And also thanks for Ukrainian subtitles, that's really nice to see people adding them)

this video is such an enlightment 😮

Big truth! We are completely fooled by the camera market, which makes its customers believe that the more megapixels you have, the better the photo will come out! So most photographers remain trapped in this vortex and always chase the next camera instead of dedicating themselves to the study and passion of composition, which is the most important thing. I was also one of these, but one day luckily I stopped and thought about it, and I realized that I was wasting my time, so I started to focus on photography and composition, improving and continuing to improve and this is what I recommend to everyone. Forget the cameras, get one and start shooting, read books, study the photos of great photographers and practice a lot, the results will come!!

Resolution is measured in dpi, while MP (megapixels) refer to size: 16MP is the result of multiplying the number of pixels contained on the larger side of the image, by those on the smaller side. Example, If you have a picture with 1,200 pixels on one side and 800 on the other side, it will be 960,000, roughly 1MP. But you can have two copies of the same 15x10 cm image, one at resolution low-res 72 dpi, and the other at higher resolution with 300 dpi. Again: Megapixels MP = size. Resolution dpi = quality of image.

I have mft, apsc, and full frame cameras, and all of them are on jpeg medium for casual photos since i dont need anything above 13 MP. I've had restaurant shoots where i forgot to switch it back, and edited over jpegs. If i hadn't noticed the megapixel count, i wouldn't have known they were lower resolution

Wonderful video George! I absolutely love how you communicated this concept, i couldn't agree with you more. I used a Fujifilm XT-5 for my wedding business for a full year. The resolution was overall a hindrance to me. The buffer was slower when shooting burst, my computer was slightly slower when working with the files, i had to spend more on storage because the files were massive. The low light performance was significantly worse than a lower resolution sensor as well. Theoretically my images were sharper, however nobody other than me would notice this. I could crop the images more, however that's a skill issue more so than a feature imo. Unless you're a professional photographer in a niche that demands high resolution, anything over 24 is overkill. If you're a hobbyist, resolution matters even less. It's just marketing.

Great Video

I still use my canon xt for random street pictures, and my point and shoot, Canon powershot elphi 135, and i love seeing the pictures through my laptop. Such underestimated cameras.

I think a high resolution camera (something like 36 MP or bigger) is definitely nice for making huge prints, like the ones you see on art galleries. Well.... usually landscape or fine art folks. Most of us hobbyists rarely do it. And usually post on social medias/websites. 24 MP or 16 MP is still very usable. Remember, processing big RAW files (e.g GFX 100 RAW file is around 400 MB) takes more computing power and storage :p

Yep dead right. My favourite camera for landscape, Sony DSCR1 , 2005 model, 10mp, Zeiss lens APSC. Stunning 20x30 prints.

Great post 👍

I rarely use digital cameras now and find modern very high resolution irritating on the eye compared with film. I do have a 45mp camera and I use it to ‘scan’ my film negatives. But my older digital cameras are now a joy to use without any competitive expectations. I’ve recently bought a Panasonic GF1 m43 converted to IR and the images are a joy to behold.

Resolution isn't just down to pixels though. It's more subject matter and the lens being used. A close up portrait will look fine on any sensor with a good lens as the amount of detail needed to be rendered is close together. I shoot for large Edinburgh posters and my closeups taken with 16mp m43 looked far sharper and more detailed than others who would have been still using DSLRs in 2013. Group shots and landscapes do need larger pixel counts and better lenses however. Not just for print but also the benefits are seen on screen. In terms of low light that also rings true. Yes the low pixel count helps gather more light for video on the A7S but the higher pixel count of the A7R downsampled will improve noise and retain more detail. Live shots from my 24mp or 42mp cameras get squeezed to 16mp for this very reason. Clients will still be able to get a good poster image should they want to use a live shot.

This was great! I have been saying this for years. Although I do have a 60 megapixel Leica M11 and a 24 megapixel Nikon D750, I have been extremely happy with all my 16 megapixel and below cameras. You should do a follow-up on printing images and the various sizes. It will blow your mind the size of useable print you can get from a 6-10 megapixel sensor.

the most important is the camera sensor size but if have a large mega pixels its a strength to the resault of the picture,more flexible and good for zooming in the devices screen.more size of the sensor and pixel the resault is more goodness

I subscribed, I feel happy about this decision.

This varies by genre though. Megapixels are essential when you are photographing small birds, for example; they won't let you get close, and in order to get appreciable detail you almost always must crop. Bird photographers generally find even 24 MP to be too little (which is why the Canon R3 never made it as a competitor for the Sony A1 or the Nikon X8 and X9 as a bird photography camera; the Canon gold standard for bird photography still is the R5, precisely because of its higher resolution). In addition, seeing pictures on a screen is one thing; printing them out is another game altogether, and megapixels make a huge difference.

I wish what I had known at the beginning was to buy the best and most expensive, highest IQ and widest aperture lens possible for what I want to shoot, and whatever camera was over 12mp for it.

having a Fujifilm X-T5 with a line of prime lenses, I find myself using most of the time either the X10 or the very first model of the X100. If you are having problems with the quality of the pictures taken with this two cameras, the problem lies behind the camera! Camera's companies need something to make you replace your existing gear with a new one. So more technical evolution and then put the marketing people at work, whose job is to make you unsatisfied about something you were very satisfied just a few days ago.