Ted Avery

Why More Megapixels Isn’t Always Better

A tech pet peeve of mine has always been the common misconception that more megapixels always means a camera with better quality images. This is far from the truth. In this link, a tech blog Gizmodo gives a very technical, yet easy to understand explanation on how digital cameras work and why this simply isn’t the case.

But in case you don’t feel like reading that article, at least consider this. The camera in the iPhone is 2 megapixels, an amount which was considered acceptable not all that long ago and could produce high quality shots. Yet when you view shots such as this one, you see an incredible amount of graininess, washed out colours, and blurs. Megapixels only determine how much detail is being captured in the image at once, and is only really relevant when it comes to making prints. Yet fewer and fewer photos are actually being printed these days, and even when they are, you actually only need a 3 megapixel camera to print a 5” x 7” photo! The standard of 10 megapixels today is actually overkill for most people. (For more megapixel to printing information, click here.)

So next time you purchase a digital camera, just search Google for some reviews first. Many reviews often include sample pictures taken with the camera, which is a great way to get an idea of the picture quality. Additionally, the popular photo sharing site Flickr will usually display technical information about any photo, such as the camera that was used to take it as well as the configured settings.