Greg Campbell wrote:

David P. Summers wrote:

I went and looked at the Nikon D50 and the Canon Rebel XT. The view
finder ont he Nikon was better. On the Nikon I could tell if the
picture was in focus easier and it took more care to manually focus
with the Canon (at first I thought I couldn't focus it all, but it
turned out part of that was that I needed to adjust the diopter
setting). I know I'll be manually focuses most of the time, but I will
want to check the autofocus, if I have time, and there may be few
cases were I need to manually focus. Now clearly this is subjective,
but the trade-off is versus the 6 Megapixels for the Nikon vis-a-vis 8
on the Canon. So....

I've not had a lot of experience (looking at pictures from friend is
all) with pictures of that resolution. How significant do most people
think having 8 megapixels is?


You're looking at 15% greater linear resolution. With all the other
variables that affect image sharpness, that doesn't amount to much...

People get all hung up on dpi and MP while forgetting about lens
quality, 'sweet spot' aperture, camera shake, focusing error, etc. - all
of which have a much greater impact on image clarity.
(IMO, 'upgrading' from 6 to 8 has more to do with bragging rights and
'gotta keep up" insecurity than image quality.)

If all other things are equal, sure get the 8MP. If the extra cost
means you'll need to get a cheaper lens, or cut back on required
accesories, get the 6MP and don't look back.

-Greg
You will be able to crop a little more with 8MP but my theory is if you
have to crop very often and very much you are probably shooting it wrong
in the first place. I have an XT and went with the Canon 28-105 3.5-4.5
USMII lens and didn't get the kit lens. So far a pretty nice
combination. I got a good deal on the camera and lens for under $1000,
three months ago.