Mega pixels

[poider]

G'day, Just curious about Megapixel sizing on Sensors....
What is the primary reason for larger Mega pixel sensors?
I have a 16MP Nikon D7000 and am thinking of upgrading and have the choice of a newer 20MP or slightly older 24MP and am wondering just what is the purpose of the larger MP count, is it primarily for resolution?
Peter

[ameerat42]

The primary reason is probably just "because they can" make them cheaper.
There are other factors involved, like better processing engines in the later cameras.

Pure "extra megapixels" is nearly always presented as giving "better resolution", though
it is only one factor involved in that. Pixel size is also important. There's more that others
can explain.

I notice you use "upgrading", and perhaps it just means to a later model camera, but it carries
the expectation of "better" because of the higher MPx count.

In straight MPx terms, 16 (~4900x3270) to 20 would be marginal, and 24 (6000 x 4000 pixels) a little better.
Take the difference between 16 and 24 Mpx at 3:2 aspect ratio. The effective linear magnification would be
about 6000/4900 ~ 1.22X.

So the primary reason for getting a larger MPx camera would have to be that your present one has packed it
in, or you want another body.

[poider]

I am hearing a lot about the newer cameras having a much better processor and much faster, quieter auto focusing system, I also like the wifi option, so if I get the opportunity to upgrade I just don't want to go for one or the other for the wrong reason.
Peter

[Tannin]

G'day Poider.

Actually, you can take a perfectly good picture with an 8MP camera, one that no-one here is likely to even notice wasn't taken on a mega-expensive 32MP wallet-crusher. In fact you could probably get away with 6MP at a pinch.

For many types of photography, the extra resolution gains you little. However there are some things where extra resolution really does help. Bird photography is a good example: because you can seldom get as close as you would like, you tend to want to crop very hard, and that soon reduces your 20MP into something like 8MP. Cropping cuts your effective pixel count far more than you'd expect - an image half the size of the original has a quarter as many pixels. Another example is the type of landscape photography where you are trying to reproduce every single leaf. Here you don't crop much, but you still want lots of detail and that means plenty of pixels.

Nevertheless, for most purposes, the pixel count really doesn't matter a lot. It contributes perhaps a couple of percent of the final quality of your picture. Composition, subject selection, tonal balance, and above all else lighting is 98% of the task.

Does that mean you shouldn't bother with a "better" camera? Well, that's up to you. In general, it is a bad idea to do it just for more pixels. It is also a bad idea to upgrade a camera when you haven't got all the lenses you want - cameras wear out and are outdated by the march of time quite rapidly - who would buy a 10-year-old camera? - but good lenses can last a lifetime.

Possibly the most important feature a camera can have is its handling qualities. People rabbit on about "feels good in your hand" but that's not really the point. The important thing is that it has simple, logical controls so that you can use it without thinking about the details. You want to be thinking about framing and lighting and composition - thinking about the subject - and letting your fingers do the mechanical stuff without distracting you from the main job. Most people find that using a beautiful new camera leads to worse pictures for the first few weeks, simply because they are not used to it and waste time fiddling with it. For this reason, camera manufacturers (if they are any good) go to a lot of trouble making new models behave in the hand as much like the old ones as possible. But it still takes time to adjust. Even now, after having had my wonderful new 30MP 5D IV for six months or so, if you told me I had to take a perfect picture to save my life, I'd reach for my old faithful 16MP 1D IV without a second thought.

EDIT: better auto-focus tends to get a bit better with new models, and a LOT better with more money. The top models (we are talking $5000-odd here) from Nikon and Canon are simply amazing. But so are the prices. That said, the semi-pro ($1000-2000) Canons these days are extraordinarily good, and I'd be very surprised to find that the equivalent Nikons were not similar. Cheapies (of either brand) used to be ordinary at best, though than might have changed now too. (I haven't tried one in quite a while.)

[ricktas]

I will add to Tannin's wonderfully explained post, that you have to remember that with some lenses, the autofocus is controlled by the lens. Some lenses are able to focus faster than others. The same as some lenses are 'sharper' (a better focus on the subject and crisper image result) than others. Having a fast autofocus for good results, comes down to the camera, the lens and the photographer. Do not expect an upgrade (to a newer) camera is going to result in better photos. Because if you are having focus issues now, it could well be the lens used or the operator, not the camera body.

[swifty]

Hi Poider,
Speaking purely about MP count, what you want to do is look at things from the perspective of your output.
Where are your photos ending up? Is it on the web, social media, small prints, large prints (if so, how large)?
And you need to consider this from the perspective of your final completed image before publishing, which may include a heavy crop as mentioned by Tannin for eg. bird photography.
If you go through this exercise, then more often than not it happens that most of us have plenty of MP to work with in most situations.
And if you don't, can it be addressed more appropriately with other means, eg. a longer tele lens.
Are there enough situations where inadequate resolution warrants buying a new camera with a larger MP count?

Most of the times, the MP count alone won't be enough to warrant any upgrades based on output needs however the sum of all other camera improvements often push us over the edge to buy new gear.

[jjphoto]

Just yesterday an 'older' friend of mine inadvertently called pixels 'pixies'. From hence forth I'm sticking with 'Mega-pixies' as the terminology of choice.

I would add to the above conversation that the more Mega-pixies the more room to crop and this is something that comes in handy regardless of the desired output size. The cost could be slower processing and higher hard drive storage space.

[poider]

I am just a hobbyist, I try mt hand at a bit of everything, I like to dabble a bit in astrophotography, and almost enjoy getting frustrated by those stupid winged creatures that hide behind leaves until you take your finger off the shutter or untill you glance away before they do a merry dance and look straight at the camera and fly away before you can get your finger back in position, I also enjoy buildings and aircraft, but my biggest passion, if I have one, is documenting my travels I do a lot of cruises and a few land based holidays and really love to get good pictures of where I have been, I try to carry the lightest possible, to the point where I recently purchased an Olympus OMD EM10 Mark 3, which was pretty good, but they better lenses for reach are expensive, I often find my self snapping shots of faraway things from the ship and need to crop but my 150 - 500mm sigma is just too big to travel with, so I figure if I get better resolution and a faster lens perhaps the cropping would not be so punishing.
Currently I travel with my Nikon D7000 and a Nikkor 18 - 300mm f/3.5 -5.6 for general purpose, a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 for low light and a Sigma 10 - 20mm f/3.5 for interior.
I am debating between a nikon D7200 with my current lenses or micro 4/3 Olympus OMD EM1 Mark 2 with a 12 - 100mm f/4 and a panasonic 100 - 400mm f/4.8 - 6.3.
Of course I will never win lotto so probably will stick with the Nikon D7000 and my Current lenses and perhaps a faster all purpose lens
Peter

PS
My wife is enjoying her Anniversary present (Olympus OMD EM10 MARK 3 with 14 - 150mm lens

[arthurking83]

....
Of course I will never win lotto so probably will stick with the Nikon D7000 and my Current lenses and perhaps a faster all purpose lens
.....

You don't really need to 'win lotto' to get into a D7200 .. currently Nikon's best value for money APS-C camera body.

I've seen them for well under the 1K mark(on ebay) new... possibly from HK tho(can't remember).
I was thinking of getting one a short while back and noticed some refurbished models on ebay for about $800. I got a D5500 + 18-140mm lens instead.

Other than the reasons already given by others already, another reason for updating a camera body(forgetting that it has more pixels) is that the newer tech usually gives better overall image quality at the extremes of exposure situations.

I can't remember the exact specifics for each camera, but it goes something like this:
Your camera may have a base ISO of (say) 200, and a usable upper ISO setting of about ISO6400.
The next generation(for you that would be a D7100) would almost definitely offer an improvement in higher ISO settings, but may also offer lower base ISO settings as well. And any newer than 'next generation'(eg. D7200 or D7500) could also be an improvement over the next generation model again.
But you also have to be aware of any new limitations the manufacturer may have put into effect on those newer models too.

eg. The D7200 will undoubtedly have a few additional feature upgrades over the D7000 as well as hardware upgrades. hardware upgrades can be more pixels on the sensor, but stuff you don't normally think of such as image buffer speed/size(ie. internal memory upgrades)
Most folks don't think of those internal hardware upgrades but can make a massive difference to the 'handling' of the camera.

D7100 even tho was an upgrade on the D7000, was massively limited by it's slow-ish and small buffer, where the D7200 was improved on that again. D7500 improved much more significantly again over all three previous.
What that means is that you can shoot more frames faster and for longer at a fast rate.
But this kind of spec is for fairly specific needs .. liek Tannin gave an example .. birding is a genre that is specifically advantaged by that kind of hardware upgrade.

But then you get people like myself who tinker with 'ye olde worlde' lenses(manual lenses from 20-30 years ago) .. and while Nikon improved the D7500 over the D7200 in terms of most hardware, they also produced a massive backward step by removing aperture indexing in that model range.
That is, on the older D7200 you could mount an old classic manual lens(which can produce quite excellent images) and it could auto meter the scene due to it's ability to rear aperture values in that old lens, and set aperture on exposure too.
D7500 can't! It has to fully manually setup, metering 'guessed' at as it can't meter now through the lens as the D7200 could.

Going by your posts I'd dare say that manual lenses aren't the sort of thing you're going to be into, so the D7500 hardware downgrade is probably not a factor for you.
But as price seems to be important, then the D7200 .. as a hardware upgrade path from the D7000! .. seems to be a very logical progression.

For your situation tho, I think the pixel count could be a hardware upgrade for you. You probably don't need that, but it doesn't hurt to have it.
ISO hardware range, on the other hand, could be a bigger advantage for you.
Where the D7000 tops out at ISO6400 natively, the D7200 maxes out at ISO25600(natively)
With that tho you also get boosted ISO settings as well, while it can be handy there are some technical catches to those settings.

The other hardware advantage that the D7200 has that you would benefit from is the much improved autofocus system. You may not see it much with the 18-300 lens, but you may with the 50/1.8 lens, and a little bit with the Sigma lens.
Basically in lower light levels(eg. night in the city or similar conditions) the D7200 will be a bit faster and more positive in it's ability to lock onto a subject than the D7000 will be on the same subject.
I don't think you'll see much difference in focus speed with the 18-300(I don't know .. just a guess) but it may at the long end .. or at least at the longer end of the focal range it may at least be more positive to lock onto the right spot.

As for Wifi! On a Nikon .. basically don't bother
I recently got a D5500, and it's Wifi is pretty much hopeless! Admittedly it has it, a wifi remote could be used if needed, but for just about most other uses the Wifi system isn't really usable in a lot of ways.
Maybe uploading small res pics to Fb or something like that if you can get it to connect to wifi on your phone.
On the D5500 I found it only used up it's battery a lot faster!

[swifty]

Just a small addition and I’m not sure if I’m alone but most of my photos output on my computer only and no further.
Whilst I generally view the photos as a whole, I do enjoy zooming in to see the individual detail and to me this is not much different to printing and then going in up close to have a look.
Here’s where a high MP image can be a lot of fun (subject dependent of course) because you can enjoy it as a whole but smaller sections can be equally interesting.
It’s a bit like those gigapixel photo collages of eg. a city but you can zoom in to see individual walks of life with stunning detail. Or marveling at microscopic detail missed with the naked eye of an otherwise normal subject.
So I personally consider digital viewing just on my computer an important output and I do look forward to improvements to this aspect when I eventually upgrade to a higher pixel count camera. But note that, for this to be pleasureable experience your computer and software should be up to the task of handling the larger files.

- - - Updated - - -

Have you considered a Nikon P900 just for the ‘reach’ aspect. I’ve heard very good things about it though never handled one myself.

[ameerat42]

"Reach" - itself a questionable concept - is about all you'd get. - Oh, and probably a good
deal of dissatisfaction at the image quality. They squeeze 16 MPx into a 1/2.3 sensor!

[swifty]

"Reach" - itself a questionable concept - is about all you'd get. - Oh, and probably a good
deal of dissatisfaction at the image quality. They squeeze 16 MPx into a 1/2.3 sensor!

I guess it’s a question of output again whether IQ is adequate.
As for ‘reach’, maybe we’ll call it pixel density for available field of view then :P

[ameerat42]

That's right. Adequacy and other compromises.
- And throw in a few other variables. Ultimately, they (all camera makers and...)
want to maximise their markets. I find it hard to believe that someone with a D7000
should countenance also using [the likes of] a P900.

By itself, for the right user, sure!

[swifty]

Just putting it out there as an outside the box option. Whilst IQ might not be in the same league as D7200 class cameras, there’s a pretty remarkable lens on the P900 that can open up creative opportunities, not to mention focal length range convenience that isn’t really feasible on larger sensor cameras.
It’s just one option that people sometimes overlook.

[John King]

...

or micro 4/3 Olympus OMD EM1 Mark 2 with a 12 - 100mm f/4 and a panasonic 100 - 400mm f/4.8 - 6.3.
Of course I will never win lotto so probably will stick with the Nikon D7000 and my Current lenses and perhaps a faster all purpose lens
Peter

PS
My wife is enjoying her Anniversary present (Olympus OMD EM10 MARK 3 with 14 - 150mm lens

Peter, I can certainly recommend the E-M1 MkII plus 12-100. Stunning, both of them.

[Tannin]

Reach: the ability to produce a clear, sharp picture of a distant object.

It is generally achieved by an optimal combination of focal length, pixel density, stability and lens quality. The second two are absolute (more is better under all circumstances), the first two are balancing acts with an optimum value which is not at either extreme of the possible range. (For example, you will normally get less reach by stacking multiple 2.0X teleconverters than you get by using just one; neither a 6MP nor a 60MP APS-C sensor will give best reach with current technology.)

[poider]

It's a funny thing, I once owned the Nikon P510 and with a tripod took a picture of Saturn, It was the best defined picture of Saturn I have taken, better than anything i have tried with my D7000 and a telescope, But I found the camera not to be good for much else.
Peter

[poider]

Well there you go, I did it, I now own a Nikon D7200, ooooh ooooh better change my signature

[John King]

That's nice, Peter. Enjoy your new kit ... .

[Bear Dale]

I'll take as many megapixels as Nikon can squeeze into a sensor.

The D850 is wonderful for cropping with its 46 megapixels.

If they brought out a 100 megapixel DSLR body, would I want it .....Yes!