April 12, 2007

Digital Cameras - Megapixels - How Many Do I Need?

Tip! If you don’t need to make large prints, but do want to print standard sizes like 4″ x 6″ or 5″ x 7″, or e-mail or post your photos online, a camera with 5-6 megapixels will work well for you.

It seems for every year that goes by digital camera manufacturers are adding one more Megapixel (Mp) to their cameras. Could it be true that an existing 7 megapixel camera that’s on the market now had an equivalent model of 6 megapixels last year and 5 megapixels the year before that? Next year, will you see the same camera in an 8 megapixel version? Where will we be in another 10 years time?

But do we need the latest 8, 10 or even 12 megapixel camera? Well I have two answers for that question:

Yes, a.) You’re a professional photographer and often have to produce very large high quality prints. b.) If you love to have the latest and most up-to-date gadgets and technology, and are quite happy to spend the extra money to get it, and a little extra more to store those larger files.

Tip! Digital zoom stretches your camera’s pixels to make a photo look bigger�similar to cropping a photo and enlarging it, but it happens right in the camera.

No, because the biggest photo that I’ll print will be A4 or 10×8 and a 5 megapixel camera is more than capable of producing a quality photo at that size.

Let’s assume you’re not a professional, because if you were you wouldn’t need to read this article in the first place. So how many megapixels should you go for?
My short answer would be anything between 4 and 6 megapixels for an amateur who isn’t going to print much larger than A4.

Megapixels and Print Sizes
2Mp - Perhaps you have a camera on your phone. You wouldn’t want to get prints larger than 6×4.
3Mp - Will give you great 6×4 prints and good quality 7×5 prints too.
4Mp - Will give excellent 6×4 prints, great 7×5 prints, good quality 9×6 prints and passable 10×8 or A4 prints.
5Mp - Excellent 7×5 prints, great 9×6 prints, and good quality 10×8 or A4 prints. If your printer is capable of printing edge-to-edge photos then 5Mp will be your starting point.
6Mp - Excellent 10×8 or A4 prints, quality 15×10 prints and good prints up to A3.
7Mp - 8Mp - You must be a very keen on photography and looking for the best of kit.

Tip! Megapixels affect the resolution of your digital photos�that is, the potential clarity of the photos. If you choose a camera with a high number, for instance, 10 MP, you’ll get rich, detailed photos, perfect for making large prints.

Remember, the more pixels in your picture, the more storage space you’ll require and depending on the chip inside the camera it may take longer to process and save your files. This lag whist the camera is processing and saving the picture can be quite annoying if you like taking quick snaps. Some budget brands suffer badly from this.

To summarise, I recommend you stick with a quality brand and go for somewhere between 4 and 6 megapixels.

Bill Thomson has been a keen armature photographer for more than 20 years and runs the website http://www.DigitalCameraWebGuide.com Find out more on digital cameras at http://www.DigitalCameraWebGuide.com
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