Originally posted by GlennG Thanks for the great perspective. That matches what I've been led to believe by others - that the quality of the pixels also matters. Remarkably, photography can be such a diverse pursuit. So the right tools may be SO varied. So that may be the best way to look at it - is 16 MP enough to get the job done? If "yes", then the answer is "yes"; if "no", then "no". I don't print much, certainly not large. My 6 MP K100d Super has turned in some photos I am really happy with. For the most part, the 16 MP of my K5c is overkill, but the other great features of the K5c are very useful.
To be honest, this best tool for the job is a common argument but I find it strange.
For most it mostly concentrate to have a little more or little less pixels or to decide on APSC vs FF and things alike.
All of this isn't going to go for a dramatic difference anyway... There a dramatic differtence between most compacts and most DSLR. When you click to take a photo on a DSLR, it is almost instant (including in most case AF), the frame rate is quite good and the performance in high isos is also quite interresting. Lastly, it is possible to get real shallow deph of field, something most compact struggle to get.
Now between a D4s or another Nikon FF or between the big pixel K5 and smaller pixels K3 related to high iso performance, this is small. That less than what you can get by starting to use a good desnoising software, that's less than the APSC to FF and that's less than the CCD to CMOS change too.
Most of the offering in DSLR is really narrow in term of quality for what is currently sold. All features set are almost in a factor of 2: sensor surface, frames per second, image resolution. The biggest difference maybe is the AF that is really different between entry and pro level. There of course a few different bodies like 645Z but they are still in the same area.
Ibrid is just a little smaller and with EVF. You get more dust on your sensor, smaller wide angle and bigger teles.
I remember the buy shooting the olympics with a large format film camera. Not only he got good shoots out of it, but it got something really interresting and different. What we can call a differentiator. All the other play mostly in the same area meaning almost any good recent DSLR can do rougly the same kind of job as the others with the proper accessories and lenses.