Yesterday I told you about how I broke my Nikon D700 again via a tethering accident. What I didn't mention was that I still had another shoot to do while the D700 was being repaired. I went to my backup body, which is a D7000. I love my D7000, but this was the first time that I actually used it during a studio shoot. I had no real issues with the camera or setup, but what I quickly realized was that there is a disadvantage to having more megapixels. The D7000 is a 16.2 MP camera, while my D700 is a 12.1 MP camera. If you do the math (it's not hard) there's a 4 MP increase in the image captured. What this translates to is that my RAW files on the D700 are about 10.4MB (average) in size and my D7000 DNGs are about 16MB (average) in size. This means that every shot is going be roughly about 6MBs larger than the ones coming from the D700.
Why is a larger file/higher megapixel image a bad thing?
The first thing I noticed that shooting tethered was taking longer. It makes sense. I'm used to a certain rhythm from the time I fire the shutter till the time image is displayed in Lightroom. There was a noticeable lag. The second problem was that my drive was running low on space and during the shoot I got a warning from the OS that I was basically out of space. I had to make some room right then and there. My shoots can range anywhere from 300-1,000 images. While I could have run out of space with either camera, the point is I probably ran out of space faster with the larger files coming from the D7000.
The Bottom Line
I'm not saying that camera manufacturers shouldn't build cameras capable of capturing more megapixels. What I am saying is that more megapixels no longer influences my buying decision. While I await the rumored Nikon D800 and D4, I cringe at the rumored specs of 38 Megapixels! Imagine having every photo you take be significantly larger in size whether you need it or not. I would much rather these guys build a 38MP camera (one model) for the guys that really need it and leave the rest of the line at a more reasonable/manageable MP number.
Less is more 🙂
Added note for clarification: I would welcome the larger MP images if the camera manufactures would also add the faster transfer technologies (ie. USB 3, 802.11n, Thunderbolt, etc.) into the bodies as well. What I'm saying above is that I don't just want more megapixels and nothing else. If you're going to make the files bigger then also make the transfers faster too!