Megapixels

How important are megapixels? 

Don't I want the most megapixels?

The answer is, it depends. Again, what do you plan on doing with your photos?

The number of pixels don't matter if you plan on printing your images through the convenience store (e.g. Walmart, Walgreens, etc.). Image clarity is based more on how you shoot than it is the camera's megapixel count. That goes for any camera you plan on purchasing. In this case, you're planning on printing these photos at the convenience store. One megapixel represents one million pixels. A pixel is a picture element. It can only be one color at a time. Think of the pixel making up the photo like a mosaic to create the bigger picture. At 6-8 megapixels, a camera can easily produce standard 4x6 photos already which is why the number megapixels is unimportant. Unless you plan to send images to a printing company to blow up, keep the megapixel count on the back burner when you make your camera choice.

The naked eye can only see 300 dpi. DPI is dots per inch. For every inch that you see in a photo, there are 300 dots there to make up that inch in the photo. DPI is a printer resolution. MP (Megapixels) simply means "one million pixels" and is used when describing digital camera capability. Let's break down the math.

If the naked eye can only see 300 dots per inch and your camera is at 5 megapixels (at one million pixels), and you plan to print it out in 4x5 images at the store, will your photograph quality turn out grainy or smooth?

Let's find out:

5 x 1,000,000 = 5,000,000 pixels   (Remember: 1,000,000 pixels = 1 megapixel)

5,000,000 pixels /300 dpi = 16,666 pixels per 300 dots per inch  (Remember: DPI is for the print quality and the pixels are for the camera capability)

Let's be reasonable, if one pixel represents one picture element and one million of those pixels equals ONE megapixel. You quintuple that one megapixel to create a 4x6 image printed at 300 dots per inch, the image will come out just fine.

Still confused? Check the following link for simple to go rules:


http://www.digicamhelp.com/camera-features/camera-parts/megapixels/