Photographing weapons - the details

[David]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

David, please comment on the quality of the picture - I mean the pixels and the RAW format. I think this may confuse some.

Well, this might just confuse matters more.
The pixel count of your camera is an important factor, but it must be remembered that it is relative to the size of your sensor. Therefore you might find that a 6mp SLR camera with a larger sensor might well out perform a 10mp point-and-shoot with a much small sensor because they have to make the pixels so much small to fit them into the smaller sensor, thereby diminishing their resolving power. Most consumer and prosumer digital SLRs are clocking in at around 10-12mp which will provide far more resolving power then is needed in most situations.
As a photojournalist i rarely use raw file shooting because it just isn't practical. Ideally it is the "best" way to shoot because it preserves all you data in an uncompressed form, but it also requires far more post-production work and file conversions to upload unto the internet. I think it is a great thing in some contexts, but for our purposes it might be easier to stick to shooting in jpegs.