When Megapixels Are Handy

Digital cameras have come a long way over the past several years. One interesting aspect to track has been the megapixel count. I thought my 5 MP point and shoot was awesome when I started shooting digital eight years ago. Now, camera phones have higher resolutions than that. Many DSLRs now are pushing 14 MP, and Phase One just came out with an 80 MP medium format camera. Now who on earth needs that much? I have no idea. Maybe people who shoot for billboards?

Anyway, I bring up the issue of MP on this blog because it can be valuable tool for photographers when it comes to cropping. I have been shooting a lot of surf photos recently, and my 80-200 has nowhere close to the reach that I would like when shooting surfers. How do I solve this? I crop aggressively, and as a result, I've come to appreciate the 12 MP on my D300. The image above was a crop of the image below that I shot at Pipeline last week. What does this all mean? Cropping gives you a ton of creative compositions and possibilities, so take advantage of those megapixels!