Digital Photography – Take the Guesswork Out of Mega pixels
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:
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? Knowing the purpose for your photos is the first step. Uses that require a high resolution digital photo will naturally require a camera with a higher number of pixels. Photos for viewing on a computer screen need only a low resolution image making any camera sufficient if this is the only intention for the photos. However, the most common goal of printing or developing pictures requires a high resolution photo for quality results. With this in mind, we will use printing a photo as our example in determining megapixel need.
Next we must determine the largest print size we would like of our photo. Let’s presume that we won’t be needing poster-sized images of our photos for wallpapering our home, so poster prints will fall into the “seldom or never” category. With extreme sizes eliminated, we have the three most common photo sizes to think about. According to online photo labs, the following minimum resolutions are adequate to create high quality prints:
4 x 6″: 640 x 480 pixels (0.3 mega pixels) 5 x 7″: 1024 x 768 pixels (0.8 mega pixels) 8 x 10″: 1536 x 1024 pixels (1.6 mega pixels)
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″.
Once you know how many mega pixels are required for your photo needs, you can move on to mastering the other features of your camera and be another step closer to producing the highest quality images possible.
For thousands of years, man has been capturing images. Before the camera was invented, man captured images through drawings and paintings. Often, the images were based on the interpretations and skill of painters, so the resulting images were not always...
Awesome Tips That Will Help You With Digital PhotographyThe camera consumer trend over the past five years has been to go digital. The development and use of Single Lens Reflex [SLR] digital cameras has grown dramatically. The marked drop in use of large format film cameras and enlarging...
Sharing Your Digital PhotosWhat do you do with all of all of you beautiful digital photos? Of course you want to share them with your loved ones, but how? You have many options available to choose from that include burning them onto CD...
Photography: From Film to DigitalPhotography is defined simply as taking photographs. In a bit more technical terms, photography is the capturing of light to create a two dimensional image on a medium such as film or digital media....
A Digital Camera – How To Make The Right Buying Choice!If you want to purchase a digital camera, you really must have at least some idea of what you need to look out for and avoid. You don\'t have to be an expert, but you must at least know some...