clarification on Megapixels of digicam

S

sunilyo

Contributor
Hi,

The MEGAPIXEL thing, what is it?

I mean does it really improve the quality/detail of the image being taken or is a marketing stunt that just eats up the space on the mem-card.

As far as my knowledge the higher megapixels only increase the size of the image and nothing else, rest remains same. am i correct in thinking so???
regards - Sunil
 
anything more than 6-7MP is useless for a hobbist/amateur photographer

Higher MP's help professionals to do detail editing at max resolution and make their products into 10x8 foot big prints
 
Its the count of photo cells in a sensor. To an extent i.e 5-6MP as suggested by nuke, the theory of 'more the better' holds good. After that, it would depend on what exactly you need the images for. If you are going to print lots of poster sized images, 7-10MP cameras are worth going for (that too not the point and shoot ones). For general and even till advanced amature levels 5-7MP cameras are more than enough.

There are much small (read less in MP) sensor based cameras which can give much better quality pictures, like Fuji's Super CCDs and Sigma's Foveon sensors.

Unless you want to scratch your head over the technology used, look for a average MP. Concentrate on other features you need and how good it is to handle for your usage and then decide on what to buy.
 
Megapixels do increase the quality of the pic. More pixels per unit of area, better the quality. As simple as that.

However, the marketing gimmick that digicam companies and cellphone companies do is the DIGITAL ZOOM. Its the optical zoom that matters, not the digital zoom. You can digital zoom your photos to 10x,20x,30x... infinityX by the use of photo editing software on your PC, even if the photo is taken by a camera of no digital zoom capability.
 
Megapixel is the degree of pixellation of the CCD(or CMOS used in some DSLRs) sensor. For the same CCD sensor size i.e. 1 1/8" or 1 2/5" used in consumer level cameras, 6-8Mpixels(max) are good enough.

Increasing the pixel count for the same sensor size should not affect the image quality theoretically but it increases the noise captured as the sensitivity has to be boosted to capture images in such fine detail.

I'm no expert, but this is what my understanding is on the megapixel issue. One thing is clear though, more Mpixels for a consumer level digicam do not mean better quality. It may even result in poorer pics.
 
Megapixels do increase the quality of the pic. More pixels per unit of area, better the quality.
Click to expand...

An increase in megapixels is directly proportional to image quality only till a certain threshold. Thats what most of the people would agree. Beyond that (and even before that) other factors like demosaicing, white balance and other algorithms take over.

This is the main reason people are loyal to certain brands for certain reasons. Like Nikon's marketing stresses more on image sharpness and Fuji for its color. Because they make their algorithms look more towards certain aspects of the image. And these factors really dont depend on the pixel count.
 
Megapixel count in consumer cameras is completely a marketing stunt, just to tell u a fact, a 6 MP camera is in reality only (2x3 RGB channels) 1.8 usable megapixel in the green channel which actually makes the whole image.

Higher pixel count without increasing the size of pixels & without increasing the size of the sensor will always create more noise rather having better quality.

You may want to know why it is done? bcoz the companies know that we like ourselves to be fooled......................they love fooling us. Have u ever known how many pixels are there in 1 MP camera??????

We dont need higher pixels instead we need higher quality pixel to have better enlargements, there are many cameras with less pixel counts & 10 times expensive than consumer camera .....why bcoz they offer better quality pixels.
 
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