> When I went from Nikkormat to OM-1 to ME-Super to LX to PZ-1p to LX to MZ-S, I never got an increase in MP for my money. But I bought anyway because I did get an increase in metering reliability, improvements in focusing, ease of handling, etc. I don't know off hand how many MP my K20D has, but I would not hesitate to buy a newer model with the same MP if I could get better low-light performance, particularly WRT AF. > > I take the general point you and others are making: many/most purchasers > don't know what they are doing, and they will be overly impressed by whatever > facts and figures the advertisers and sales persons are throwing out. But the > MP arms race will peak soon, if it hasn't already. > > stan
You likely did get some increase in resolution though because film quality continued to improve throughout its history. Of course the big jump was to go to a larger format. When I got my first SLR, an MX, and got more serious about photography, as opposed to just taking pictures, I studied the yearly film catalog/magazines that rated and listed the specs of each kind of film. That's what led me to the $7 and $8 rolls of Velvia, Provia and Reala, and away from the grocery store variety films. It was also apparent (and suspicious) that Kodak refused to rate their films using the same system as all other mfrs., so not being able to compare apples to apples, I moved away from Kodak, for the most part. In many respects we've benefited from the digital camera treadmill. Assuming Pentax does come out with a 24MP body that satisfies in other important ways, a person upgrading from a 6MP *ist D to that would have a 4X increase in base resolution. Even jumping from 14MP to 24MP is close to 2X. It's like jumping to a larger film format. I'm not sure when it'll peak. I sense, like you, that as far as APS-C goes, it's close to the limit. But then again... Tom C. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
