Pixelmania October 2017

LX100   9.9 Mpx.  This looks very nice printed up to 400x700mm, sharp and clear with all the faces clearly delineated.

Panasonic LX100 11.7 Mpx

Camera buyers are constantly bombarded by exhortations from sellers to trade up to the next greatest thing.

Reviewers routinely praise every new record for the number of pixels which can be crammed onto tiny sensors.

It's a wind up designed to part you from ever increasing amounts of cash.

In fact I would say the whole pixel push is a con job.

Those who make, sell and promote (in many cases under the guise of reviewing) cameras imply that you could make better pictures if only you had a camera with more pixels.  

They usually don't come right out and say this directly because they know it is simply not true. 

But as Marshall Mc Luhan so astutely observed  "The medium is the message".

The medium in this case is the endless talk about pixel counts by camera makers, sellers and reviewers.  If everybody is talking about it all the time it must be important, right ?  

Some users recruit themselves into this neurotic preoccupation with pixel counts and other forms of numerical evaluation of an elusive entity often referred to as "image quality".  They do this by bemoaning the failure by brand-x to incorporate more pixels in the latest model. 

All this happens without much reference to any actual pictures.

In fact cameras with pixel counts around the bottom end of the currently available range can make pictures which print up very well indeed.

The pictures which accompany this post look just fine when printed up very large with excellent clarity and detail  and strong presence on the wall.