Scary, really scary.

I have known about Digital Photography Review web site for a long time now. My previous two camera purchases were found through it. A few days back I picked up a story featuring something from the site in my Google Reader. This gave me the idea to just add the site as a subscription to Google Reader itself.

Today THIS scary story popped up. Kodak now has a 50 mega pixel image sensor. Here I was thinking that there is probably a 25MP camera out there. I guess I haven't been following the market too closely.

I don't see any normal person actually needing a sensor of this size. I am not saying there will not be some nut job Korea/Japanese/Taiwanese/Whomever walking around with this kind of over kill just to take photos of people on the street or their girlfriend in the coffee shop, but us normal people really don't need this. (My camera is not crap in any way, but I look inadequate when I walk in the streets of Seoul.)

Few human eyes can see more than a 5MP worth of detail, yet people insist on buying the current 10-15MP cameras. I don't blame the companies here because if people will buy it, then why should they not sell it?

I am currently looking for a "new" compact with an 8MP sensor, the extra 3MP just being for a bit of freedom to edit. The nice thing is that you can now get an 8MP or smaller on the cheap and still get great photos. My main camera is the Panasonic DMC-FZ50,10MP, but I actually edit my own photos and often use them for more than online photo albums. Most people have no idea how to do anything other than take the photos off the memory card and then email or save them. Also remember that a 10MP compact and a 10MP Super Zoom is nothing alike in terms of use and general quality.

"So, who then," you may ask, "will be using this?" "The professionals, the REAL professionals. With money to waste", I will say. If you print images on too huge posters and banners or Photoshop models for Cosmo, then you don't want any sort of pixilation, do you? Imagine a blurry Ee Hyo Ree on the side of a building. That will just not do at all, no it won't. She is worth the $40000, I would say.