Does Megapixel really matter?

Bruceorange

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I'd just like to know does the Mega Pixel on Digital Camera's really matter? It's just I've seen some decent make cameras such as sony and panasonic with like 10mp and then I've seen makes I've never heard of before with 12mp and stuff just wondered if they are going to be decent or not? and does mega pixel on a camera really matter?

thanks
 
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I'd just like to know does the Mega Pixel on Digital Camera's really matter?

No. I've got a Fujifilm F30 6.3 mpix camera that is quite old now, it still produces better images than many of the latest higher mpix compacts.

It appears to me that the more mpix they try to squeeze into them, the worse image quality gets.

Of course the other way to look at it is that a dSLR at only 6 mpix gives better image quality than a 12 mpix compact would :)
 
A good 8MP camera will produce superior images to a bad 12MP camera.

Essentially MP only become important if you're planning on blowing images up or cropping them.

Anything over about 8MP will produce a reasonable 10x8 reprint.
 
A good 8MP camera will produce superior images to a bad 12MP camera.

Essentially MP only become important if you're planning on blowing images up or cropping them.

Anything over about 8MP will produce a reasonable 10x8 reprint.

Oh really? lol you know what MP really annoys me all my friends are always boasting on how the more MP the better it is... lol always competing who has the most MP on their phone etc, once I tell them this they're going to either shut up or just not believe me lol
 
Oh really? lol you know what MP really annoys me all my friends are always boasting on how the more MP the better it is... lol always competing who has the most MP on their phone etc, once I tell them this they're going to either shut up or just not believe me lol

hehe :)

Remember that good pictures comes from a good photographer getting the best results from his camera. A damn good photographer with a camera phone would take better pictures than some people with top range DSLRS! :p
 
Oh really? lol you know what MP really annoys me all my friends are always boasting on how the more MP the better it is... lol always competing who has the most MP on their phone etc, once I tell them this they're going to either shut up or just not believe me lol

I'd love to compare their pictures to those taken with a dSLR like the 6.1mpix Nikon d40 :D

They'd soon understand the difference between having high mpix and a good camera :rotfl:
 
Consider the monitor in front of you. Assuming an average resolution of 1280x1024 you have a roughly 1.2 megapixel screen in front of you how does it look to you without getting too close?

Imagine that your picture is made up as an excel spreadsheet. Each cell is coloured differently until you zoom out and see the whole image. If I tell you you can have 6 million or 10 million pixels you'll find you can draw similarly detailed overall images; the real diffences only become clear when you look very closely.

More important is whether I let you use all the colours available, or whether you are only allowed to use the darker ones. There is also the issue of whether the colour of one pixel is changed by what those all around it have.

That is essentially the dilemma. A good DSLR will let you have bright colours and definition. A cheap camera will tend to have smudging and bad light sensitivity. The obsession with MP came around because manufacturers like to have simple numbers to throw at consumers rather than muddling the issue with the far broader range of important specifications which effect actual benefit. This is exactly why in places like PC world '2.4GHz' computers are talked about, rather than your average joe public actually looking at things like how much RAM, what type of processor it is, and what type of graphics card it has; equally consumer level camera buying focusses on MP, rather than ISO, shutter speed, aperture control, etc.
 
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A quality camera with good optics is far better than a cheap camera with lots of mega pixels (phones etc).
6-8 meg should be more than enough, look also for at least 4x optical zoom.
Other things I do are.
SWITCH OFF digital zoom (de-creases picture quality)
I show all my pictures on a media centre (Large screen LCD TV) so always look for a camera that does 16:9 and I leave set on that.
 
Woah thank you for all of your help, it's been very useful to me =P
 
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Oh really? lol you know what MP really annoys me all my friends are always boasting on how the more MP the better it is... lol always competing who has the most MP on their phone etc, once I tell them this they're going to either shut up or just not believe me lol

As eddiewood says, if you have the same size sensor, more megapixels often produces WORSE pictures, as the light sensitive area of each 'pixel' is smaller. Less light is gathered by each pixel, so it's statistically more likely to record the wrong light/colour, and more likely to be affected by electronic noise of the sensor itself. So these cheapo 12MP cameras produce HUUUGE images that are a mass of digital noise, as opposed to say an 8MP sensor with a clean image.

For an A4 print, 4MP is fine. For viewing on a screen you only need 2MP. The best thing is when someone buys a 12MP camera and displays the results on a 640x480 digital photo frame :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Feel free to mock your mates :smashin:
 
The less resampling your doing the better but as has been posted a 6MP camera with a 1 grand lens would produce a far better image than any 12 megapixel compact. You get what you pay for at the end of the day.
 

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