With Digital SLR’s now reaching 36 Mega Pixels, even phones over 10 MP, and Medium Format Backs reaching 80 MP, the question is often asked, how many MP do you need.
Recently someone asked me if a 10 MP camera would be sufficient for taking pictures for a web site. Well I try and keep my images down to a 100kb for web use, to help keep the page loading fast, so any modern camera would do the job.
Thom Hogan recently published a stunning Landscape picture taken with the Nikon D1X, this was a 5.4 MP camera. While a little lacking in the dynamic range compared to modern cameras it did and still does do a tremendous job.
The question is what will be the end result be used for. Many fashion editors want good looking images for the web but then will also want the same image blown up to suit a billboard, in their situation, only Medium Format is good enough to give the detail, the dynamic range and the Mega Pixels to print big.
For home use, or people who never want to print bigger then A4, six Mega Pixels is enough.
