Interesting take on More MP's and why it's valid

An interesting take on why more megapixels is "better", even if you're not printing big or cropping severely.

The Bigger Reason Why Megapixels Matter for Photo Enthusiasts | The Luminescence of Nature Photography Blog

well,, I think the downsizing argument has been the primary strong point for a while now, and why the D800 scored so well compared to Canon, when the D800 images were downsized to the same size image. I think the camera should have a built in high quality downsizer has one of the file modes, with the intent on lowest noise/highest quality file.

good info... thank you

You can never have enough MP's...or at least that's what I'm told.

But I have a dumb question - exactly what does "downsizing" an image mean? How does one downsize vs. just making it smaller like we do when we post our images to Nikonites? It must be different, right?

i have used perfect resize 7 on a few files I have to double the size and then print small and have been pretty pleased with the results. Still waiting on the right photo to do a really big print of.

I think there's what I'll call "purposeful downsizing", which would be the deliberate resizing of an image for printing to a specific size, and the automatic downsizing that you get with posting here. I would assume that the software used here is less careful with the sampling method used (when I resize in Lightroom I have 3 or 4 resampling methods). Either way, a smaller image should contain reduced noise regardless of the method, but some are better than others.

Do some research on pixel density and sensor diffraction. There is always a trade-off.

Cambridge in color has some good info and calculators.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography-2.htm