How much ... do I need?

Every now and then a question is asked with the pattern "How much of X do I need?": "How many pixels do I need?" or "How much zoom do I need?" or "How much ISO do I need?" There is only one valid answer to those questions. It is: "That depends".

There is basically no upper limit to what we could do, if we got a little more of everything.

Hasselblad just introduced a 50 million pixel camera. That is probably about 5 times as much as on any camera you ever held in your hands. Clearly you do not need that much to take a recognisable picture of auntie Kate. But equally clearly there are situation where you might want to crop down a picture to a level of detail, where you could use all those pixels. And if you had such a camera and you could take a highly detailed photo of Manhattan from the Empire State building, you would probably do it, and perhaps even print it out in large format and put it on your wall.

Nikon's D3 has ISO 6400. You would never use that if all the pictures you were taking were sunny beach pictures on the Seychelles. However, if you had it, you could take a lot of pictures you otherwise cannot take, like in badly lit streets late in the evening. Even on the Seychelles.

The weight in grams of your SLR may not feel disturbing. But if you are going on a long hike over several days, you usually want everything as light as possible. In the end you may select a simple pocket camera or just a phone camera, as carrying a sufficient amount of water into the dessert is more vital than a top notch camera.

The number of frames per second, the zoom factor, sensor size, there are always situations where you could use a little more.

That does not mean that it is worth the cost, of course. And even if it is worth the cost for your rich neighbour, it does not mean that it is worth the cost for you.

If someone says "I have all the... I want; I really do not want more," then there is a fairly good chance s/he lacks imagination. On the other hand if someone says "I absolutely need..." then there is a fairly good chance that he lacks the ability to adjust to reality and the size of his/her wallet.