Let’s talk Megapixels
Posted: December 10th, 2008 | Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »Here’s a topic I’ve been asked about a good bit recently, so I thought it would be a good idea to briefly address what this mysterious megapixel is and how it effects your pictures. Digital images are made up tiny squares pieced together, called pixels. Literally, a megapixel is equivalent to one million pixels. So naturally, the more megapixels your camera has, the higher the quality of your image (this is called resolution).
Now, you’re probably thinking that all of this technical mumbo jumbo is great and all, but how does it effect me and how many megapixels does my camera need? Well, it depends on how you want to use your images. If you’re only planning on storing and viewing your pictures on a computer screen, then you won’t need a camera with as many megapixels as someone that wanted to blow up their images poster-sized.
There is a great chart over at digicamhelp.com that shows you the minimum megapixel count to get a certain print size. Here’s another similar chart for those that are a little more technically savvy. So if you’re never going to print anything larger than an 8″ x 10″, you don’t necessarily need a 10 megapixel camera. Another thing to consider is that the higher the megapixel count, the larger the images will be when you download them to your computer (and the more hard drive space the images are going to take up).
So, in short, don’t get glossy eyed when the sales person pitches you a 25 megapixel camera swearing that it’s the biggest, best and it’s exactly what you ought to have. Choose a camera that has a megapixel count that will suit your needs.
Some further reading:
- Digicamhelp: What is a megapixel?
- Breaking the Myth of Megapixels
- Pixels, on Wikipedia
- Why the Megapixel Race Needs to End
