How to choose a new camera?

This article is a dump of several conversations I have had with some of my friends along the years and it is not intended to be a black-and-white selection guide but more an article that covers some of the ideas that we have touched on and in some cases my own, personal opinion.

The Megapixel Race

Let’s set the record clear. A new generation, wide-screen monitor is 1680 pixels wide and 1050 high. If you do the math, that is a bit above 1.7 Megapixels. If we do the same calculation for a 8”x10” print, printed at 300dpi, that is 2,400 dots wide by 3,000 high; that’s 7.2 Megapixels.

On top of this, most of us look at pictures on our phones or on facebook, and the typical size there is even smaller, 800x600 at the most.

The conclusion here is that most commercially available cameras have plenty enough resolution to satisfy our needs.

There is no doubt though that there is a place for hi-resolution images, but these are most of the time limited to the commercial photography world and for situations like:

- Very large prints (billboards, banners, etc.)

- Aggressive cropping to repurpose images or to make them fit in a particular format

- Extensive editing of models and/or products

So, if the Megapixel count is not an issue anymore, What else should be looking for?

DOWNLOAD THE FULL ARTICLE IN PDF