IT happens to all of us: the moment when one finds out that more megapixels and better photographs aren’t always the same thing. To be disabused of the Megapixel Myth — this decade’s analog of the Megahertz Myth — can lead to an existential buyer’s crisis in miniature.
Disbelief, at first, gives way to a sort of embarrassing self-questioning: You mean, 15 megapixels isn’t three times better than 5 megapixels? This year’s model isn’t better than last year’s? I spent all that money upgrading — for nothing?
The panicky consumer is then faced with the choice of dumping digital electronics and becoming a Luddite, or learning about camera technology and taking control of purchasing decisions.
Just consider Alex Majoli, an award-winning Magnum photographer, who is known for shooting images of war and other dramatic scenes for publications like National Geographic and Newsweek — with compact point-and-shoot digital cameras.
Or consider the more critical words of Ansel Adams.
