I have a question about megapixels.

[LuckySe7en]

I'm sorry, we'll just point him off to newegg and tell him to search for a transfer thingy to get the photos off his cards.

I have a 21MP 5D MKII and it's not a "bich" to copy the images to my computer, but if you'd like I'll let you keep on spreading inaccurate information.

sounds like somebody needs to take a break from the internet. I highly doubt he's going to search for a "transfer thingy." Lighten up dude.

You're the one that got offended because I decided to post, dude. If you used a paper word thingy every once in a while or an electronic information transfer thingy, you could probably post accurate information that didn't need correction.

I didn't get offended about you correcting me. It became annoying when you corrected every single person that replied. But you win, now go pat yourself on the back.

 

[adichiru]

Megapixels means a lot or nothing; it depends, is the right answer.
Interesting: nobody care to discuss pixel density in its true meaning and importance here....

First and most important thing: megapixels should be evaluated in strict relation to sensor size (among many other things) - comparing cameras with sensors of different sizes is useless and stupid so we can't say MP means nothing based on the performance of a phone camera - that would be just illogical.

I'll give one example only: I shoot panoramas quite a lot as I print them huge, the largest one sold by me was 6 x 1 meters! I used a D7000 camera (with a prime sharp lens) which has "only" 16MP and shoot 21 images for that and then stitched them together, overlapping almost 40-50%. I end up with a 3.7 GB file in the end, after cropping and merging all layers etc. The file given to print was at 300dpi. In this case (I admit not many people do this probably) MP counts and counts a LOT!

Nikon is not just plain stupid putting on the market the D800 and they have proved already that there was absolutely no compromise in image quality, which is actually, obviously better than in lower MP cameras and neither in ISO which is just freaking impressive for such a sensor!

Nikon is not using this is as the main marketing tool for D800 and not many companies (especially relatively small companies like Nikon) has the courage to push like this the technology and the market.

 

[SCraig]

Tell you what ... Go take a photograph with a Nikon D1 (2.7mp) and then shoot the exact same scene with the exact same lens on, say, a D800 (24mp). Then take both images and crop everything except the center 10% of the image. Then tell me megapixels don't mean anything.

Admittedly that's an extreme example and it's still not really fair since it's comparing a 1999 body to a 2012 body, but the point is that megapixels (or more precisely , resolution) are very important UP TO A POINT. As others have mentioned that "Point" varies depending on needs, but to just dismiss sensor resolution as meaningless is as unfair as stating that it is the most important characteristic of a camera. The resolution has to go hand-in-hand with a person's needs and requirements. When shooting micro-photography where the best resolution attainable is important then a high resolution sensor is a big plus. When shooting a landscape it is far less important. For 99% of us it is frequently LESS important than other considerations but I think it's unfair to dismiss it as being completely irrelevant as some people choose to do. To that other 1% it is very important.

 

[Compaq]

I thought pixel size had some part in this as well?