Megapixel

Was listening to a podcast when a debate over the megapixel war began.

I think not many people will agree with me, but the number of megapixels are really unimportant. When you go to any consumer-orientated electronic store and ask about a specific camera model, the salesperson will almost definitely say "This camera has xx.x megapixels".

So what? Does the number of megapixels really determine how great your photo is? In order to fit the same number of megapixels on a sensor of equal size, the manufacturers essentially increase the number of individual sensor pixels while at the same time, shrinking them. This leads the less light being captured, forcing the camera to increase the voltage to the sensor.

At the end, all you have is a noisy photo.

Why do people think that resolution and picture quality are the same thing? And honestly, you will only need high resolution images if you want to print them. Even if you were printing images, a 3MP camera would produce beautiful A4 sized prints.

I would buy a point-and-shoot with a 3-4MP sensor, RAW capture, a hotshoe mount and ISO up to 3200, maybe even 6400. Just so that I can get beautiful, noise free images in the day, and usable pictures taken in the dark.

Stop the megapixel war and focus on other things that matter more like reducing noise at high ISO and improving the optics of consumer cameras.