Who needs more pixels?

Fido

Fido

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Location
New Forest, England.
These days the vast majority of my photos are displayed only on computer or TV screens. I occasionally print a 6x4 or at most, a 7x5.

I now use a 6mp Nikon D40 and a 13.5mp Nikon Coolpix. And I'm happy with both.

But.

I see the Nikon D3100 14.5mp at £261 on Amazon, and the D3200 24.2mp at £338 ( both body only - I have two zooms to go with them.

I'd get about £85 for my D40 body.

So old scrooge here is asking himself if it's worth the effort and extra cost of upping the pixels on the DSLR. I know the benefits of giving more scope for cropping, but are there any other features likely to make a significant difference to my enjoyment of photography. I don't do anything serious these days just landscapes and interesting town and village scenes, and family stuff.
 
Apart from the obvious improvement in the ability to crop images there really is no advantage until you start printing big.
If landscape photography is your thing a full frame DSLR would be worth investing in.
 
No point at all if your current camera is suitable. The only real advantage of a modern sensor is they can handle low light much better. Your D40 is probably only good up to ISO 800, whereas a modern sensor will go to 3200 quite happily with very little noise. The more expensive pro bodies will go a lot higher than that.

I have never really understood why Full Frame is preferred for Landscape photography, especially not these days with the quality of the crop sensors.
 
England speaks sense and I hope that this little guide will help you to decide how many pixels you really need:

Viewing On Megapixels Needed
Computer Monitor / Online 1-3 megapixels
6×4 prints 2 megapixels
10×8 inch prints 5 megapixels
14×11 inch prints or larger 7+ megapixels

The other main reason apart from cropping is for the times when you take a photo you are really proud of. You want to print it as large as possible to display it for all to see! This is where having taken the shot with a 6 megapixels camera and over can really help!
 
It's really not that important pixels, If you have between 8 and 10 million pixels this will be more than good enough for most photographers, what's very important is your lens and sensor and unless you have a sensor the size of a true 35mm film I personally don't see the advantage, If I set my 10 million pixel Nikon D80 on the optimum settings took a landscape portrait or still life I could print way above anything I or the average photographer could ever want, and nearly all digital forum or photography online is no more than 800 x 600 picels, would I want a full size sensor definitely, but would I see the benefits for my general photography no.

Jamie
 
A lot depends on what you are going to do with the camera and what photos you are going to take.
Ive had some truly excellent pictures from an old Fuji S5500 with a whole 6MP they only fall down when you crop or go higher than a 10x8 print. Ive recently switched to a 16MP Sony just to keep in my pocket, and its good, but I can still get a nicer shot off the Fuji when doing urban landscapes. Ive even had some good pictures out of a 5MP Nokia N73 phone taken outside (which were good up to about 6x8 prints).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/micrashed/sets/72157632461543561/
A few of these have been grabbed on the Sony at just 16MP
 
If you are happy with the results and happy using the cameras don't bother changing. You always get the best results from gear you are comfortable with. Don't be pressured by the lure of the latest and greatest, it won't be either for long!
 
Lose the beard said:
No point at all if your current camera is suitable. The only real advantage of a modern sensor is they can handle low light much better. Your D40 is probably only good up to ISO 800, whereas a modern sensor will go to 3200 quite happily with very little noise. The more expensive pro bodies will go a lot higher than that.

I have never really understood why Full Frame is preferred for Landscape photography, especially not these days with the quality of the crop sensors.
Click to expand...

A full frame is better for landscape simply because you get more of the landscape in the picture.
i.e. if you put a 10mm lens on a full frame camera you will get a fair bit more width in the shot than the same lens on a crop sensor camera.
It has nothing to do with quality.
 
Digressing now, I did a three year City and Guilds course in the pre digital age of film and dark room. No doubt they still do them. One of the best things I ever did with my evenings during a busy career.
 
Re: RE: Who needs more pixels?

England said:
A full frame is better for landscape simply because you get more of the landscape in the picture.
i.e. if you put a 10mm lens on a full frame camera you will get a fair bit more width in the shot than the same lens on a crop sensor camera.
It has nothing to do with quality.
Click to expand...

That is of course assuming you want a really really wide angle shot.

Finding a 10mm lens to fit a full frame camera is the first problem, they normally start at 17mm, Any wider and its a Fish Eye lens, and the distortion becomes horrendous, whereas you can get a 10mm lens to fit a crop sensor quite easily. a 10 mm lens on a crop sensor will give a fuller photo than a 17mm on a Full Frame camera.

As much as your analogy is correct, it really boils down to what lenses you pair with the camera body. You can achieve exactly the same on a cropped sensor camera as you can on a Full Frame so long as you pair it with the correct lenses.

In the early days of digital Full Frame was very much preferred as the larger sensor was required to fit a decent amount of megapixels on. The advent of the Full Frame EOS 5D in 2005 with at the time a massive 12.8 Mp was a revelation and a lot of landscapers jumped on it. At the time the most you got in a cropped sensor was 8 Mp. Nowadays you can get 18 Mp on a cropped sensor which is more than adequate to produce some massive prints, combine that with the wide angle lenses designed specifically for the cropped sensor cameras and you have an ideal set up.
 
All the pictures on your blogs look great to me - really professional. Certainly as good as anything else I've seen on here but then I'm a total camera novice with my first and only camera sitting in a drawer gathering dust because I'm crap at taking pictures and the whole experience of trying to get a decent shot stresses me out.
 
Just to say we have a D3100 and find the pictures are great. Really easy to use and play around with, not too heavy. It is our first dslr and at the price you've seen it seems rather a bargain.
 
I had a D3100 for a while, for the money it was pretty good, tried a D3200 for a while and wasn't impressed, especially with the color cast on many photos. The D3200 has 24 MP on the same sized sensor as the D3100, and I found that this certainly showed some flaws in picture quality especially in low light.
I use a Pentax K5 and love it, great build quality and excellent picture quality even in low light, plus its weather sealed.
As with all DSLR's, regardless of the camera body, the quality of the lens used can make or break a good photo. Personally I would look at the overall picture quality and not get to hung up on pixel count.
 
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