Do More Megapixel Doesn't Mean Better Image Quality

This term refers to the size of an image, usually in reference to a photo from a digital camera or camera phone.

Megapixel means one million pixels. The resolution of digital cameras and camera phones is often measured in megapixels. For example, a two-megapixel camera can produce images with two million total pixels.

Since pixels are usually square and form a grid, a 1-megapixel camera will produce an image roughly 1200 pixels wide by 900 pixels high.

By comparison, a VGA image (640 x 480 pixels) would be only 0.3 megapixel.

A higher-megapixel sensor doesn’t equal high-quality images on its own, so it’s important not to just look at megapixels and forget about the other aspects of the camera.

Higher-megapixel sensors, however, can give you more fine detail. Pick one of our webcams with a true two-megapixel sensor and you’ll enjoy sharper, more detailed photos.

How many megapixels you need depends on the how you are going to use your images. Here are some common uses:

Printed at 300 dpi

If you only enjoy your photos on your computer screen, or uploading to a photo website to share with friends, you really only need a 1 megapixel camera. That is because your computer monitor is usually about 1000×1000 pixels = 1 megapixel! I’d err on the safe side and use a 3 megapixel camera or higher to enable cropping though, as I discuss below.

When you print your images, you will need more megapixels. If your megapixel count isn’t enough for the size of image you print, your images won’t look sharp.

Use the above table as a guide for the number of megapixels you need. Notice how I say “14×11 inch prints or larger” on the last line of the table. You only really need a 7 megapixel camera for any prints larger than 14×11. Even huge 30×40 posters. That’s because we normally stand further away from larger prints, so we don’t notice when they are less sharp!

There are a few reasons why you might want to buy a camera with more megapixels than that listed in the table above. The most important is cropping. Sometimes you don’t always capture what you want to capture in the right part of the frame. If you crop the image slightly, it looks a lot better than it would if you just left it alone. This is the main advantage of having a camera with more megapixels. It gives you a little extra room to play around with when you are cropping your photos.

But how much room do you really need? If you were to double the image size, that would be more than enough room to crop photos and still have a great looking image on your monitor screen. Now for a 6×4 print, we are up to 4 megapixels.

The other main reason is for the times when you take a photo you are really proud of. You will want to print it as large as possible to show it off! This is where having taken the shot with a 6 megapixels camera can really help!

But wait, I hear you say, these are incredibly small numbers! Why do camera makers keep making cameras with many more megapixels every year? The answer is simple. They need a reason to convince us in the public that the next model we buy will be a big upgrade from the one they we now. What better way to do it than with a number that steadily increases as camera makers make bigger sensors every year?

So, what is the lesson to be learned from all of this? Megapixels are great. They brought digital photography out of the dark ages and allowed photographers to make digital images that compare to film images. But megapixels are no reason to upgrade your current model. Instead, focus on a kind of image you would like to get and consider the limitations of your current camera model. You might need a different lens or a camera body that takes a quicker continuous stream of photos. If you do end up buying a new camera body, do it for reasons other than the fact that you will be getting more megapixels with it.