How important are megapixels?

I am looking into a DSLR as a gift for my wife. The Nikon D40 seems to be perfect for what we need, it is portable, relatively easy to use, and is the right price for us. All in all it seems like a good entry level camera for someone with a little photography experience.

My only question is the megapixels. It is a 6mp camera, our point and shoot is 5.1. Not a big jump but I have been told that 6mp is plenty because of the lenses involved and that it is a better camera than our old one.

Do I need to look at the D40x or is 6mp enough? MY wife really wants for pics of our daughter and maybe a little bit of a hobby. Any help is appreciated.

There is quantity & then there is quality.

5.1 in a P & S are pretty small individual pixels.....6 in a cropped 1.5 sensor are a much higher quality. This will allow for better low light shooting as well as better picture rendition.

6 MP is a good balance between resolution and quality.....especially if you are not blowing your pictures up and printing them extra large.

I had a D50 which also was 6 MP........I got some great pictures from that camera.

D40 will take as good a picture as the person behind the camera is capable of.

Len

Thanks for the response. It seemed like enough camera to me but everyone was screaming "more megapixels" and I just wanted to know.

Out of curiousity, how big could you make the picture from a 6mp camera? Thanks again!

Hi kp, welcome to PR. Here's 2 good articles for you:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/...ogues-posts-2/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/te...y/08pogue.html

Not sure how big of images you are looking to print but, I was doing 11x14's no problems when I had my D50. You'll be fine with the D40 and you'll have money left over afterwards to get her plenty of accessories (tripod, camera bag, memory cards, spare battery, etc)

Don't worry about it. I've got 13x19s from a 4-megapixel D2Hs. I've done the same from the D70 which is 6mp just like the D40. You can get fantastic prints from it up to about as big as I can imagine you wanting taking up space :)

More MP matters most when you're going to crop a lot or print simply enormous prints.

I own a D70. I believe that the same sensor is used on the D40 but I could be wrong.

Here is a picture that I took for a friend's restaurant that he had blown up to 24 X 36 inches. At that size it looks a little grainy but it still looks very good. He has it hanging on the wall in his restaurant. http://forums.photographyreview.com/...ad.php?t=41277

The picture was taken at the full 6.1 MP in JPG, not RAW. The image was printed full-frame without any cropping or manipulation of the image as far as I could tell except that they probably dialed out some of the yellow.
http://forums.photographyreview.com/...1&d=1204679456

I want to thank everyone for their input. I am convinced it is a good place to start and with the money saved we can pick up another lens, or a tripod, or flash, etc.....

I will go with the D40 and hope for the best. Thanks again!

Go for it. Just remember, post some pictures and have fun.

James

As far as I'm concerned, more megapixels is mainly important for shooting wildlife. It seems, you rarely have enough lens, so it's usually necessary to do a bunch of cropping.