The old question of how many MP you need - right?
You can answer this very easily, consider 300dpi as the standard print resolution for high quality and then you can do the math yourself. With the H3DII and 50MP back you get 6132 x 8176 Pixel. This means with 300 dpi you can get up to 20.44 inch x 27.25 inch or 51.91 cm x 69.22 cm output size in print without any SW manipulation and upsampling.
If you are happy with 150dpi, you can double this. Now one can argue, you easily can do upsampling in whatever SW (RIP, PS, etc) but any of these upsampling processes are adding artificial calculations to the image, so you finally do not get what you really took as photo. So at least for Fine Art Photography (and I assume the word ART implies real art) this is not the way to go - maybe for normal PR or advertising work this might be ok, although if I am the client and pay the photo, then I would ask for the highest quality if I belief I need it.
Thus higher resolutions are always welcome and we currently see the trend towards the 6 micron sensors and 50 - 60MP backs. And this will not be the end of course as we will see further enhanced sensors with maybe 80 or even 90MP for MF. And then take into account that we are still working with rectangle not square, so if good old 6x6 is supported by sensors, we will then be in the range of 100 to 120MP.
Too much, too high data volumes? Just think back 5-10 years and the computers we used to have then and not being able to think about today's file sizes and storage needs. But today Terabyte storage is nothing and thus in 5-10 years from now we will be in the range of Exabyte and then these data volumes produced by 100MP backs or cameras will be just a joke.
So what is Leica doing? They today limit themselves to a format which can capture 37MP on 30 mm x 45 mm, using current 6 micro sensor technologies. Although the current evolution already points clearly ahead of this! I call this not very wise at least and it ensures that their S system - however great it will finally be - will be a "only mee too" systm because of these limitations. Which might be the perfect system for many, despite of the high price tag of course
I for myself better jump on the real MF train with a 39MF promotion from Hasselblad, or maybe even a 50MP back if I can bring the money together, be happy for the next 3-4 years with that solution and then upgrade to the next technology level in MF with maybe 120MP :bugeyes: And this is what I have learned from the past digital photography years - you need to be ready for a major upgrade every 3 - 5 years if you want to use the state of the art product line.
We have an exciting future in front of us