Equipment Advice

Siiiigh.

YES THEY WILL.

Of course they will.

Why else would for example Nikon offer their most expensive camera, the D5, with a mere 20 Megapixel ? They do so because they sell those to professionals and those professionals want the best performance.

Or take the sensors scientists use in telescopes. The ones used for really large multimillion telescopes are cooled to very low temperatures and have HUGE pixels.
 
Siiiigh.

YES THEY WILL.

Of course they will.

Why else would for example Nikon offer their most expensive camera, the D5, with a mere 20 Megapixel ? They do so because they sell those to professionals and those professionals want the best performance.

Or take the sensors scientists use in telescopes. The ones used for really large multimillion telescopes are cooled to very low temperatures and have HUGE pixels.
We obviously have a failure to communicate. I was assuming smaller pixels, whereas you apparently were assuming larger pixels.

(Me) Same size sensor (area) with more pixels would necessarily mean a smaller pixel size.

(You) ?
 
We obviously have a failure to communicate. I was assuming smaller pixels, whereas you apparently were assuming larger pixels.

(Me) Same size sensor (area) with more pixels would necessarily mean a smaller pixel size.

(You) ?

Smaller pixels collect less photons, so you have less signal. This makes the noise more significant as @Solarflare was indicating.
 
Smaller pixels collect less photons, so you have less signal. This makes the noise more significant as @Solarflare was indicating.
Yes, I knew that, but thank you all the same.

Original post had this statement:

- 42 MP would give me cropping flexibility, but my impression is this will increase noise at higher ISOs, which I find needing often with condition and lens choices.

Conflating the argument is not helpful.
 
One really needs to consider the generation of sensor technology, and not just the pixel size. We now have a number of 24 megapixel sensors of aps-c size which have lower noise than the old full-frame Canon 5D 12.8 MP sensor from 15 years ago.

Regarding the Nikon D5 being only 20 megapixels or so, it's not so much about noise as it is about being adequate to the task, and about writing lots of files quickly and about being able to offer a deep, deep buffer. Sports, news, and action shooters do not need nearly as many megapixels as do people who specialize in Landscapes, or fashion, or portraiture, or product photography. Economy of file size for internet and phone transmission and for storage on real-world memory cards ending actual server archive places is important if I Sports Illustrated shooter covers a football game and shoots 1000 images, then 20 megapixels is actually better and more practical than is 36 megapixels. Nikon D800 had 36 megapixels and the D810 the same, and then a new center generation appeared, and 47 megapixels was considered the standard for a quote high-resolution quote camera within the past 6 months or so, high resolution in the 35 mm style camera has gone up to 60 megapixels, while in digital medium format 100 megapixels is now considered good, but of course there are cameras which offer even higher resolution numbers.
 
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