>>3170622>Shouldn't a full frame camera aim to have more megapixels than crop sensor? The norm seems to be around 24 for both of them. Am I missing something?Megapixels aren’t as important as you might think. They make for a good easy-to-compare number for marketing purposes, but anything over about 8MP is more than enough for the vast majority of photographers, even when making large prints.
So the advantage to having a camera with a larger sensor but the same overall resolution is that each photosite (ie, the actual physical light-sensing spots on the sensor, which isn’t quite the same thing as a pixel) can be bigger. Bigger photosites gather more light, which means less noise at high ISOs, and it also helps to improve dynamic range (ie, how far into the dark range and the bright range the camera can record useful image data from). Additionally, keeping the resolution relatively low means that the rest of the camera’s electronics can process the photo more quickly. So, faster FPS, faster writing to the card, bigger shot buffer, etc.
All that being said, there ARE full frame digital SLRs that do go for the higher resolutions. Eg, the Nikon D8x0 line and the Canon 5Ds/5Dsr. They’ve been making these in parallel with the lower resolution bodies so that buyers get the choice between high resolution of faster/low-noise/etc.
