>>4439339I used to think 24MP was enough, then I started actually producing professional prints.
The problem with 24MP is that few of the common professional print sizes are actually 3:2 aspect ratio like a FF sensor. Instead you get 3:4 and 4:5 aspect ratios, lke a 6x8 print or a 8x10 print or, 11x14 in particular because fuck photographers.
Now, those print sizes are just fine with 24mp. The problem is as you go to bigger print sizes, then your clients are complaining why the image is blurry up close. 24MP breaks down scarily quick under cropping and printing large. It wouldn't be an issue if you could just take photos intended for 3:2 and never crop it. Instead you need to have the foresight to take pictures with crops and relevant compositions in mind.
Higher megapixels makes it so much easier as I don't have to consider the aspect ratio I'm going to crop to when composing, I can just figure out which aspect ratio works best with the composition after the fact.
So I have arrived at 36MP. It's like 24MP with room for cropping.
24MP is fine if you're printing for yourself and/or are sure you're not going to have clients asking for big prints. That's hard doing family portraits because it always seems there's some rich aunt asking for a 30x24 print of the family together.
For web/social honestly 12MP is more than enough. 4K is like an 8MP image.
