I know it is that everyone thinks the more the better when it comes to your digital camera features. This theory is especially true in the case of mega pixels. I myself have been guilty of sizing up the number of mega pixels from camera to camera in the electronics store, but is this really necessary do we really need more pixels? To answer this, you must first know what you are going to do with the images. Before we address that issue, let’s make sure we know what a megapixel is by reading these Tips For Digital Photography:-
Megapixel is a fancy term for “million pixels”. A single pixel is the smallest unit of color that a camera’s sensor is able to capture. The more pixels the sensor can capture the sharper the image the camera can replicate. When comparing cameras, mega pixels can be abbreviated as “MP”.
So how exactly do we know how many pixels we need from our camera? The first step is to have in mind what your intent is for your images. This is important when the purpose for the images require a high resolution digital photo. Photos for only the computer screen need only a low resolution image, making any camera adequate if that is your only need from your photos. High resolution photos are most frequently needed for printing or developing pictures. Using this example, lets use the goal of printing photos to address our question about mega pixels.
Now we need to decide on the largest print size we would like of our photo. Although pictures can be printed into poster-size images, the expense comes bigger also. Since most of us will not be using this size, we will consider poster prints a rarity. Since we have eliminated posters, next we find the three most common photo sizes to choose from. Online photo labs have specified that the following minimum resolutions are enough to generate high quality prints:
4 x 6″: 640 x 480 pixels (0.3 megapixels) 5 x 7″: 1024 x 768 pixels (0.8 megapixels) 8 x 10″: 1536 x 1024 pixels (1.6 megapixels)
I know from personal experience that my 3 megapixel camera is as low as I want to go for an 8 x 10″ print; any less would start showing pixilation at close examination. Based on this experience, I suggest doubling the above megapixel recommendations when buying a camera. This exercise has taught us that if we only want 4 x 6″ prints, then 0.6 megapixels are sufficient. Most digital cameras start at 2 megapixels, which is sufficient to produce quality prints up to 5 x 7″.
Now that we know the minimum megapixel requirements for our needs, we are free to focus on other important features of the camera such as lens quality, color reproduction, optical zoom, body size, etc.
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