[thxbb12]

I'm just wondering ... how many MP do you need?

 

This is a very valid question.

I'd be interested in an honest answer to this question from everyone.

 

More is better, isn't it? After all, it's not that surprising. When you look at camera ads the first thing you see after the brand name is pixel count. It's been relentlessly advertised for the past 15 years or so. No wonder it's ingrained in people's minds.

 

Sure, 40-50MP sounds great in theory, but in practice, what real and tangible difference will it make in your photography versus say 16 or 24mp?

In my case I shoot 16MP and I can say this in all honesty: it won't make the slight difference in 99% of my shooting.

 

Sure, I could crop more with more MP. But how often do I massively crop and print very large (a cropped picture) and display it on my wall? Almost never. And if I do, how far away will I look at the poster on my wall? 10cm? a few meters? More likely the latter.

On the other hand, I print A3 photo books quite often and for this purpose 16MP is more than enough.

 

I believe most people are in the same boat but have a hard time admitting it ;-)