This is a basic comparison test to address the question ‘ Do pixels really count?’
All three cameras were tripod mounted, set to daylight, aperture priority, matrix metering and focus set to centre.
Images recorded as NEF (the Nikon version of RAW), the reason for this was to eliminate any tweaks that the camera software might apply to a jpeg file by default.
The cameras cover a 9 year period, the D70 being produced from 2004, D90 from 2008 and D3200 from 2012. ( Expect to see a D3300 at some point in 2014.)
Mega pixel count is 6mp, 12mp and 24mp respectively.
The first thing that shows is the way the cameras reproduce their images, being that all 3 cameras were set to aperture priority it would be expected that the overall brightness of the photograph would be similar, wrong! The D70 produces an image ¾ stop darker.
Full frame image from each camera.
D70
D90
D3200
The difference in sharpness only starts to show once you go above 100%.
All the cameras are capable of producing a photograph up to A4, however double this size and the D70 image starts showing a break up of image, the D90 image is still fine as is that of the D3200.
Images cropped to same area at 200%.
D70 – 200% crop
D90 – 200% crop
D3200 – 200% crop
Although not seen through the above reduced for website images, the D3200 image at the same crop has 4x the number of pixels in it.
It was always said that to make any noticeable difference in an image the number of mega pixels would have to be quadrupled, this seems to have been proved.
The conclusion is quite straightforward, if you are producing photographs for a website or printing no bigger than A4 and without excess cropping, then the number of pixels is not such a major issue.