sharad.medhavi wrote in post #17249285
Your logic is right in terms of math, and that is what motivated me to be on this thread. In the past we have seen that enough pixel density on the subject is required, but is not enough by itself. To be able to crop better, we also need picture quality. To me, a closer cropped 5d3 picture looked almost as good as a lesser cropped 7d picture. I have high hopes from the 7d mark 2, but only photographers who have both the bodies can confirm if it adds enough value in terms of reach over the 5d3, to qualify for an investment in an additional camera body just for the reach.
There is no one universal answer on this. A 5D3 does have less noise on subject in focal-length-limited situations than the original 7D at high ISOs (but not at base ISO), even less noise compared to a 20D or 50D, and far less than a 10D or a D60 or D30. The 7D2 has a full stop less pre-gain (high ISO) read noise than the 7D, however, so they (5D3 and 7D2) should be a lot closer, for the same sensor area. IMO, even a little bit more noise per unit of sensor area can be superior to a much lower pixel density, because you are left with more detail even after a bit of noise reduction.
There are always going to be people and "experts" who will always assume that the larger sensor and/or larger pixels collect more signal, even for focal-length-limited situations, and they fortress their illusions by creating an arbitrary rule that you should never examine an image at greater than 100% pixel magnification on their monitors, so their big-pixel captures never get magnified to the same level that the small-pixels captures get magnified to. If you suggest that you can downsample the smaller-pixel version to normalize displayed subject size, they will say something like, "see - the pixels are so bad you have to downsample". It is difficult reasoning with an irrational mind.
