How many Megapixels does One need for Great Photos?

There are plenty of articles on that subject with mostly the same essence, “megapixel don’t matter or do they?”.
The newest Nikon D800 seems to be the dream of every photographer. Eventually 36 megapixel for a reasonable price and the photos will be brilliant. If you are a fashion photographer and the images will be blown up to billboard size it matters, but are we all going that big? Besides that, the higher the number of megapixel the bigger the image files and the bigger and faster the memory cards need to be and the storage on computers and backup drives. It will take for ages to upload the images to the computer, the image software might slow down when dealing with the high amount of big files and the backup hard drive will be full quickly. For what all the trouble with the big files when the images will be in a family photo book? Not that the family photo book shouldn’t be of outstanding quality, but we won’t see the difference between 16 and 36 megapixels on this scale. Maybe its just the idea that we get more for less what let us being so excited, like 36 eggs for the price of 16. The D800 is a great camera with excellent technology, yet a great photo needs more than that and no megapixel can replace the skilled and intuitive photographer with the eye for composition and light. Team them up and the results are great, no matter 16 or 36 megapixel.
Happy snapping!

Ute Sonnenberg, www.rohoyachui.com