Digital Camera Megapixels - What is All the Hype About?

Image : http://www.flickr.com

So, new digital cameras are boasting new improved specifications with more megapixels like the new Canon SOE 7D that provides a generous 18.2 megapixels.  

What are megapixels and how important are they? As a general rule in the digital marketplace, the more pixels an image has the more detail the image will have. This also means the image file size will be larger needing more significant storage capacity available. One thing to consider is that when you take pictures with your digital camera using a higher resolution, you won't be able to take as many pictures as you could by using a lower resolution. Why? Because the higher the resolution, the more memory that is needed to store each photo.  

More pixels provide the capture of additional shading and color providing a more realistic looking image. A digital camera's resolution is rated in megapixels. In other words your image sharpness is contingent on the digital camera's resolution. An example would be the Nikon D5000 providing 12.3 megapixels for great image quality.  

This being said if you will be exclusively printing 5x7 prints you can capture high quality detail with a digital camera with 3 or 4 megapixel resolutions.  

Pixel count expressed in megapixels is just a simple mathematic equation multiplying the number of horizontal pixels by the number of vertical pixels. For example a 3mp camera has 2,048 (horizontal) x 1,536(vertical) pixels or 3,145,728 pixels or 3mp.

Small differences in pixel count are seemingly unimportant when it comes to print quality. Doubling pixel count increases resolution by about 40% which isn't enough to make much of a difference. One needs at least a doubling of linear resolution to make an obvious improvement. This is the same as quadrupling the megapixels. The factors that matter, like color and sharpening algorithms, are far more significant.  

So go for the best value and purchase the highest megapixel digital camera. With technological advances moving at a huge rate of speed printer advances may catch up to digital capture technology and those extra megapixels may provide quite a difference in the near future.