6 Megapixels vs 8

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