Lets approach this question another way. What kind of pictures do you take -- action/sports; portrait; landscape; unusual lighting; macro; etc.? Don't be overly concerned about often v. seldom ... e.g. if your main use was action but also an occasional macro shot, you should consider a camera's abilities in both areas as being important. After all, the camera has to allow you to be proficient in all of your photographic goals. When considering pixel count -- yes, more is better -- but how many do you require to get the quality you want? e.g. if you shoot with tight framing (minimal crop) and want to get 8x10 prints, 4 MegaPixels is probably enough. OTOH if you expect to do heavy cropping, select/enlarge small areas of the image, and/or produce prints that are 11x14 or even larger, you would need higher resolution to meet your goals. Requirements v. features (if anyone has better ideas, or thinks my concerns are off-base, please chime in with your corrections/observations) action/sports -- zoom; always in focus; moderate DOF; automatic exposure or manual portrait -- good control of DOF; good control of exposure value landscape -- same as next ... unusual lighting -- select metering: overall v. center weighted v. choose a spot; handle back lighting; expose for shadow detail; expose for bright area; etc. macro == must have an easy way to fine tune DOF; ability to set exposure value is most important; remote release. MGD