Having more MP doesn't give you better shots

Very interesting site. Thanks for posting Roberto

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I'll be interested to see what Canon does to improve the 5D, besides the price!

The problem seems to be mainly on compact P&S cameras; in the DSLR world they're increasing the size of sensors; the latest sensors have a surface greater than a 35 mm film.

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I am not sure if they would really change the sensor sise. The APS-C resp. 35mm format sensors seem to be standard, changing the sensor size would imply to re-fit all the lenses to the new sensor size (like Canon EF-S lenses are specially fit for APS-C, normal EF fit for 35mm).

There are medium format digital cameras by Hasselblad et al., but they cost about as much as a small car (and are also the size and weight of a small car...). Besides, you don't need more than 6MP, except you want to crop really a lot (which usually means a bad picture and/or bad lens) or make a print the size of a house. So with the yet available 10MP you are already on the safe side :-)

Instead of more MP I would go for better lenses (if you don't have them already...)

This is correct.
But mainstream DSLR cameras as Canon 350D or Nikon D40 still have sensors smaller than a 35mm frame, as you said, and the same happens for the P&S.
In this respect, I think it's very interesting Don Andre's comment below

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You're right about noise, but there's also diffraction that is important to know about.

Diffraction occurs when a wave passes a small gap. The wave will magically expand behind that gap, reaching places that had no direct line to the center of the wave. (see this picture for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wave_Diffraction_4Lambda_Slit.png or take a look at this video: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4570787435193654614)

As light is also just a wave this also happens in photography, the gap there is also there and called aperture. The smaller this aperture gets the more the light will expand anew at the position of the aperture reaching much more places on the sensor. Usually this concentrates around the centre of the pixel it would normally hit creating what is called an airy disk. The smaller the aperture gets the larger these disks become and obviously the closer the pixel density the more overlapping you'll experience.
Naturally the overlapping of the airy disks leads to a drop of sharpness and resolution. Typical DSLRs currently are diffraction limited at about f/11, after which sharpness drops. At f/16 for example you'd have more in focus, but it will be less sharp than at f/11. Now don't search for f/16 in a compact camera, you wouldn't find it! Because of their small sensors and their small pixel gaps, these cameras never go beyond f/8 really and as the article says some are limited by f/5.6 already. That's also why resolution doesn't always increase if you just add more pixels.

Very interesting and technical point of view

i've always just looked at MP as how big you can print without it becoming a piece of crap. it's really a combination of things that make a good camera that makes a good quality image.

Absolutly. I love my old 2 MP - Cam (from 2001) cause in some situations it produce quite better photos than my actual one (with 5 MP). Mostly there is no reason for just looking at the MP - it's quite the same like speakers - the companies print "Max 50.000 Watt" on it and then it sounds like an blowing arsh...
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And with 6MP you are already at freaking huge prints you could do :-)

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there is a photo of my daughter hanging over my fathers fireplace... it's probably 36" long and it was taken with a 6MP point and shoot camera bought in 2000 for $150. no sign of pixelation.

thx !

thank you for posting this, i had no idea.