dSLR Practical Megapixel Limits?

Now that the D2x is out and flourishing in the hands of so many happy owners I have to wonder now that the 2 big guns of dSLRs are 12 and 16 megapixels where the practical limit is?

I can say for myself that I don't want nor need more resolution as its just not needed unless you are printing huge murals, bus billboards etc etc. Even those I think would be fine from a D2x image as they are usually viewed from such a distance that the details of higher megapixels would get lost. I think we are at the threshold of dimishing returns now with these big resolutions.

Certainly computers will get faster and memory will get cheaper so that's not necessarily too much of an issue.

The things I want to see in new dSLRs at this point are not bigger megapixels - I think 16 mp is the practical limit myself - maybe 22 at the outside of the envelope. Of course with larger megapixels we will have more cropping options and our longer lenses will be less and less necessary for the reach (but we'lll still need them for the good shallower DOF)

Some things I want in future cameras:

1) better and lower noise for higher sensitivities
2) more dynamic range
3) bigger and faster buffers
4) built in hard drives or flash memory
5) higher flash sync
6) full frame sensors
7) different size NEF options
8) 10 fps at full sensor size

What do you guys think?

 

Yes definitely Ron, any time increases are made to the detail of an imager and resolving power of a capture you increase the visibility of flaws in the lens to show as well as small mistakes in camera movement or slight mis-focuses.

I'm also wondering what percentage of D2x owners will be printing large enough to really use all that resolution. I think certainly the D2x is overkill for many professional applications and as the MP count goes up the more specialized the applications for it become.

digital photography is definitely at a sort of threshold now with this issue and the next 5 years will be very interesting in seeing what the companies turn out.

 

Yes thats why I said in my first message we will have more cropping options with more megapixels. Certainly a benefit. I also remember a thread from another board where I mentioned that theoretically megapixels could get so high you would only need a single wide angle lens and could crop down to any FOV you want and still print huge - of course I realize this isn't terribly realistic given todays limitations, but it brings up interesting questions about the future of photographic technology. In a regular 35mm camera in order to go from 50mm to 100mm FOV you had to change lenses - now we have a camera where you can do an increase in FOV without changing lenses at all.

This may be just the first step.