Megapixel myth

[scrapyardkath]

Interesting article...


In the world of computers, you can never have too many megabytes or megahertz.

That sounds dated in this day of gigahertz and gigabytes, but the principle remains the same: More is better, whether you're looking at CPU speed, system memory, hard drive space, or graphics processor speed and VRAM.

Where it's not necessarily true is digital photography, where there's an unhealthy fixation on megapixels.


Read on...

[Microferk ~ Miki Ferkul]

Interesting read Katherine! TFS!

[LauraBeanCT]

David Pogue of the NY Times did a similar column about a year ago (with followups on his blog, I think); good reading, for sure.

[danger girl]

I had a 2.1 megapixel Olympus C-2100UZ that took better pictures than the 6MP Panasonic I have now. I'd still be using the Olympus if I hadn't worn it out.

[Wags374]

Maybe if we consumers started demanding better we would get sensors that matched the megapixels - and thus get better shots. As long as folks only look at the number of megapixels thats what the companies will pander to.

[Lizzyworks]

That's a great article! Very informative- thanks for linking!

[jessica31876]

Yep Ive had this same discussion with my brother-in-law and several friends. While I did learn some from that article and maybe a better way to explain it to them they can seem to see why I would spend more for a 6 or 8 megapixel camera then they did for a 12. Well anyhow it was a good read. TFS

[Just Plain Kristi]

Great article, I just sent it to my dad. When I see people shopping at the store or if friends ask me about cameras (and I get asked A LOT at church) I explain that they don't need more MP if they don't plan to blow up their pictures to poster sizes. I'm still using my 4MP Easyshare DX6490 but I'm itching to get my hands on a Z812. (I used to drool over the P880 but they don't sell the P line anymore...they morphed those into the high-end of the Z line.) Anyway, a number of Kodak's offerings claim HD status...makes me wonder what the difference is...more pixels or better pixels? Hmmmmm. Good to know though that I can turn the picture size down when I do get my upgrade. I keep my 4MP on the highest setting cause the church likes to print posters of the the kids for the children's area.

[Gina.Maria]

I think HD has more to do with the lens set-up and how your image is processed as you click the shutter, not megapixels. There are a bunch of tutorials online to walk you through processing images to get the HD result from cameras without this built in. Most require that you use RAW files but I found one that showed how to "fake it" with regular JPG files.

I referenced the original NY Times article and a follow-up blog post by Ken Rockwell on this very subject earlier this week on my own blog because it's been a sore subject with me for a long time. My husband's siblings bought my in-laws a 5.1 MP camera for Christmas in 2006 and it was a serious piece of junk. No optical zoom and terrible image capture technology made for grainy, blurry images with horribly faded colors. All the megapixels in the world couldn't save this. Compared with my old Canon S1IS with only 3.2 megapixels or even my even older Fuji Finepix with the same megapixels, their 5.1 was just garbage.

Optics first, CCD (image sensor) next and megapixels third. That's the priority I use for judging a camera's quality. Functionality and usability are a completely different matter and usually determine the choice after it's narrowed by the top three.

[krystalhartley]

I know...I purchased a Nikon D70 a couple of years back, but it's not always the most practical choice for traveling or sending with Dad on field trips, so I tried to go shop for a smaller point and shoot...I couldn't find anything with decent optical zoom and picture quality...everything was all about the megapixels. Ended up walking out with nothing! Of course, the collegiate Best Buy department "expert" thought I was crazy.