Super zoom cameras are an interesting category. You can do lots of cool things with small sensors and you get a lot of reach with a very compact lens. (If you o

Super zoom cameras are an interesting category. You can do lots of cool things with small sensors and you get a lot of reach with a very compact lens. (If you only have to focus the image on a very small area you don’t need a lot of glass to make far things appear close.) Super zooms are in a way embracing the positive traits of small sensors. But there is more than one kind of camera. Small sensors will still have trouble in low light (since their area is smaller they capture less light) or resolution (if you want to make them capture more light you could make the pixels larger, trading off resolution, but potential noise in low light also reduces resolution). Cameras are and always have been about capturing light and the tradeoffs involved with that. As such it is absurd to claim that “optical zoom” is what it’s all about. It was and always will be a delicate interplay of optics, light and technology (whether film emulsion or digital sensors) and there is more than one way too solve this problem. The sensor this camera used to have was widely hailed as excellent and had moderate 16MP. 24MP isn’t such a great jump (and really not that special for an APS-C sensor), but this sensor could conceivably deliver that additional resolution with no cost in low light performance. And that would be brilliant. (But there is more than one camera in this category.) But in a way I agree with you. Not about super zooms, that’s just silly. But about tools fit for the job. I have the X-T100 (no weather proofing, fewer control points, less solid build, identical 16MP sensor as the X-T1, cheaper) and if the X-T2 had ditched the control scheme of the X-T1/T100 I don’t think I would even consider it, even if it had 48MP. Or 96MP. I don’t need that. I need a camera that’s pleasant to use and that delivers great photos. I don’t need a megapixel monster. I need a camera I love to take in my hand. Handling, to me, is much more important than nearly anything else, beyond a certain baseline of image quality and performance.