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Is 6mp enough for this camera? Would the D70 beniit from higher mp's?

It just seems that Point and Shoots are doing 8mp, is 6mp low??

MATT

There is a lot more to good shots than megapixels such as the size of the sensor, lens etc etc.

Many pros are still using 4mp cameras for their professional work.

Take a read of this article.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

Purely depends on the endpoint of your images...

MP has ZERO to do with image quality (I take that back... keeping sensor size and technology constant and increasing MP decreases quality due to decreased signal to noise ratio)

However if you are planning to print bigger images you need more MP... I donated an image to the admin here at college who are going to get it profesionaly done poster size (not sure exactly how big this is) I am very interested to see the result!

Remember, there is always the software solution using interpolation that can make your image bigger... plugins and programs like Genuine Fractals' Print Pro and Extensis Pxl SmartScale are two such apps.

I listen to people at work recite exactly what the guy at Hardley Normal tells them.
"The bottom line is now 4.0mp nothing less will do."

They ask for my opinon, then argue the point.

SO now I tell them a point and shoot is no good must buy a D70!!

MHD keep us informed how the poster size turns out.

MATT

Like many things which have a range of attributes, it all depends what you want, how much you want to spend, and what you want to achieve.

If you stick more pixels on the same size sensor, there are benefits and costs.

If you want to take snapshots, 2Mb jpegs might not be ideal. I know a few people who have a devil of a time getting image files to an emaile-able size, notwithstanding my patient tuition.

(A friend of my sister was very proudly declaring that he could get some huge number of images on his 256 Mb card by taking 640x480 size shots. Lots and lots, although kinda blocky )

Sales people want to sell stuff, and a surprising number of people do far too little research. So the sales person says whatever will get the punter to buy whatever they want to sell.

It's just the way of things.

Matt, what you're asking is analogeous to:

"Is 6000RPM enough for my car?" Sometimes I like to rev the engine to 8000.

It's true that many of today's working pros are using 4MP adequately. Inspite of the rhetoric spouted by the supporters of the other camera company, that 8MP 'is the new black', I've witness many a media shooter carrying Canon 1D (not the mkII) and D1H/D2H. The Oly E1 and D70 are popular amongst this crowd too surprisingly.

The only time I wish I had more mp's is when I'm cropping down significantly. Otherwise you have to enlarge pretty big to get pixelation from 6mp's.

As far as compacts go, I shot with a 7 megapixel point and shoot and the images aren't nearly what my D70 puts out (not to mention the comparitive quality of my low light shots).