larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I use both a 46 MP D850 and a 21 MP D500. I use them interchangeably, and the way they are set up, you would be very unlikely to able to identify which image came from which camera. I got the D850 first, and the D500 came a little bit later. Nowadays, the D500 does probably 75-80% of my photography.

The reason is that for many applications, 46 MP is really overkill. Fine/Large* JPEGs are just too large to email. Most people that I would send my images to just don't need that much resolution. But I also do night sky photography. And I print very large--as large as 20x30 inches. When capturing starscapes, no amount of resolution is really enough. There are literally millions of stars overhead. Hundreds of thousands of them are visible. It is impossible to render multiple stars in a single pixel. Every pixel is important.

There are certainly other areas that present this same problem and have this same need.. So it goes back to the old adage of having the proper tool for the job. I don't ever need a sledge hammer for the work at home. But I do use a good carpenter's hammer with a hickory handle quite frequently. And occasionally a rubber mallet.

Walt R Loc: eastern tn

Hey Jeff , my very close friend astrophotography and is every good at it , matter of fact he gave me one of his prints which now over my fire place of the Andromeda Galaxy ! Mat keeps trying to get me to start shooting astro but I tell him no , you are so good at it I'll stick to sports and other photography . But I do go out and watch the ISS go over .
As a kid rasied in NH with no light pollution to watch the skies and Northen Lights , no there is so much light pollution people can't see all the skies and it's beauty . Good talking to another sky person .
Happy shooting .
Walt

Walt R Loc: eastern tn

Hey Jeff , here's my fireplace with Matt's print over it . I'm sure these images are nothing like your images , I just like being out looking at the night sky .
Walt

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Just don't confuse astrophotography through a telescope or long telephoto and a tracking system with skyscapes using a wide angle lens and (usually) an ordinary tripod. Requirements are quite different for these two pursuits. Almost any camera can be used on a telescope.

Anyway, my mention of this was simply to point out that there are some situations where resolution really does matter. Others, perhaps not so much.

Walt R Loc: eastern tn

Jeff , yup . Now Matt has his camera on a tripod with a tracking system ( a lot of money tied up in it ) where he takes quite a few exosures , long time on each exposure then puts them in his computer in a program kind of like stacking images ending up with a combinded image , I myself just go out with a long lens and take an image , I'm not sure what lens he use's but he will set it hooked to his with tracking motor and heaters then go to bed and in the morning collect images . I might have not used the right terminoghy in my email , my bad . Shoot an finished image over sometime . I under stand in that case all the resolution you could get would make a difference .
Happy shooting .
Walt

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Image size in pixels - which is what you really should be comparing - on the D850 is 8,256 x 5,504 pixels, while the D5 is 5568 × 3712 pixels - so there is most definitely a difference in resolution and the corresponding file sizes. For a fair and a more informative comparison, downsample a D850 image to the same size as the D5 - then compare and tell us what you discover.

Spoiler: You probably won't be able to tell them apart.

Consider the D5 analogous to a McClaren 720S and the D850 is a Ford Expedition. Both will get you from point A to point B, but the McClaren with its 20 ft³ storage volume will only move at most 2 people and fraction of what can be moved in an Expedition which has 104.6 ft³ storage with the seats down.