Why we've reached the end of the camera megapixel race

"If a customer wants more than 12 megapixels, he should go to the full-frame models,"

I think (hope) that the next arms race will be sensor size. I drool over a $35 k/50 megapixel/36x48 mm sensor Hasselblad -- http://www.hasselbladusa.com/products/h-system/h3dii-50.aspx

Never underestimate the ability of seemingly out-of-reach technology products to come down in price and go mainstream. Whenever I hear phrases like "for the casual user," or "most people" I think - there's a market that's ripe for disruption.

Although I can't find the article anymore (I'm almost certain that it was posted here) I remember reading that, as far as small handheld cameras are concerned, there appears to be a limit to the number of megapixels they can have without suffering from "digital noise". It appears to be around 6 MP. Above that "ideal" area noise reducing algorithms have to be employed to keep the quality relatively stable. This phenomenon is caused due to the small area of the lens (sorry if this term is not correct for digital cameras) and the electronic properties of the light sensitive board.

The above applies only to small handheld cameras, larger/more expensive models, ie DSLR's, do not suffer from this.

Storage will not be a major factor in the megapixel race. We're already seeing 16GB SD cards, and with the introduction of SDXC and the prevalence of high-capacity iPhones and other media devices that size will only go up. Megapixel increases are slowing, so they'll likely be surpassed by storage increases, making storage limits a minor consideration in the future.

I believe the focus on megapixels did the digital camera world a disservice. When mobile phone cameras were introduced, phone makers were able to cram in the pixels and market the phones as comparable with purpose-built cameras.

Had camera makers focussed on other measurables (like lens quality, perception depth) camera phones would have remained a novelty, or at best a useful phone app. More cameras would have been sold, and these could have been higher-end sales as well.

I don't think we've reached the end–at least not for consumers.

Fuji was making point-and-shoot cameras with lower megapixels but superior image quality since '05 ... they still got their butts kicked by canon, nikon, and others.

If Joe Consumer is looking at two equally priced cameras in Best Buy, he'll probably choose the one with more megapixels.

Megapixels is like the only thing users compare cameras by. So they won't be going away, even though 99% of those users will never shoot above the typical 640x480 pic size.