The Myth of Megapixels

For most things in life, more is better.

As a business it's better to offer more features, more services or more products.

What individual doesn't want to have more money, fame, or control over his or her life?

So the same rule should apply to megapixels. And that's how the myth got started.

The Megapixel Race

Think of the rush to add more megapixels to digital cameras like the arms race between the U.S. and Russia back in the 80s.

Each camera company felt the need to overcome the other, and the one number that made comparisons easy was megapixels.

It makes sense.

How would you rather compare 2 different digital cameras? Is it easier to tell that they are different because one offers low noise at ISO 800 while the other only offers ISO 400?

Isn't it much simpler to say: "This one has 4 megapixels and that one has 5"?

It made comparing cameras a lot easier. Notice the use of past tense.

Why doesn't it work any more? Because today there are many cameras that offer the same number of megapixels.

It's no longer enough to compare cameras on megapixels alone. Now you actually have to understand more camera terms to find the one camera that you really like.

What Megapixels Are Good For

During the rush to add more megapixels to digital cameras, something got lost along the way: what megapixels are good for.

What also got lost was the fact that not everyone NEEDS an 8.0 megapixel camera.

Despite what the ads and salespeople tell you, it's just not necessary for most of us.

Megapixels are good for one thing: printing your digital photos. The more megapixels your camera has, the larger the size you can print.

An 8.0 megapixel camera will produce beautiful prints at 12x16 inches, while a 4.0 megapixel camera is limited to 8x10.

What do the pros use? Anywhere from 16 to 22 megapixels. This is what's required for magazine and advertising work. It's no coincidence that their cameras cost anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000. You pay a lot of money for that many megapixels.

So what about average Joe photographer out on the street?

If he rarely needs to print photos larger than 8x10, then a 4.0 megapixel camera will suit him just fine. No need for anything more than that.

Find Your Megapixels

The first thing that you need to decide before you go out and shop is how many megapixels you really need.

Here's a quick rundown of how you might use your digital photos and the appropriate number of megapixels for each one:

You want to e-mail to friends and upload to websites - 2 megapixels will get the job done. If you're never going to print your photos, you don't need a huge amount of megapixels. Less megapixels results in smaller file sizes for your digital photos, and will make it easier for you to e-mail them to everyone you know.

You make standard prints - while 2 megapixels is enough for a 4x6 print, I recommend you go up to at least 3. This just gives you some additional breathing room if you get a spectacular shot and decide you want a 5x7.

You don't like tiny prints - if what really gets you going is a nice 8x10 print, then you're going to want 4 megapixels or more.

When you decide on the right number of megapixels first, you're going to save a lot of money.

First, you'll save money on the camera itself, since the price of a digital camera is directly related to the number of megapixels it can capture.

Here's the real kicker: you'll also save money on the hidden cost of owning a digital camera. What do I mean by this?

Photos with more megapixels result in larger files which require more storage space. When you get an 8 megapixel camera, you are also going to have to pony up for at least a 512 MegaByte memory card to go with it to store all of those giant files.

Furthermore, all of those files are going to take up a ton of space on your computer's hard drive. If you're not diligent about weeding out the photos you don't like then your hard drive is going to fill up fast.

With a 2 megapixel camera, you can get by with a 64 MegaByte memory card, and you won't have to worry about running out of room on your hard drive for a very long time.

In Conclusion

I hope this article has helped to debunk the myth of megapixels for you.

If you already own a digital camera, now you know what all of those megapixels are really good for.

And if you're just about to get a brand new digital camera, you'll save yourself a lot of hard-earned dough by making the right choice about how many megapixels you really need.