Digital Cameras

[BigDogsWang]

Do more 'Megapixels' neccessarily mean better pictures?

[ugly_bob]

no, that depends on the photographer.

More pixels means sharper, more detailed pictures, and better ability to zoom in/blow up.

Without a decent lens though, you won't get the full benefit.

[RATTER15]

Yes in theory, but in reality pixels only improve pictures if you want to enlarge them, 4 million pixels will print a piccie on A4 paper without any degradation, if you try printing a larger picture it will start pixilating.

My camera is 4 million pixels and is suitable for all uses so far without a problem, and I do use my camera a lot.

The above info is just a basic guide and I'm sure someone will come on here and give far more details about the pro's and con's or higher lower pixels etc.

[BigDogsWang]

Thanks guys. The reason I ask is that someone bought me a Fuji, with 5.2 MP's. To be honest, i don't think the quality of pictures are as good as my old 35mm Olympus 'Mu'.

Mind you, i do have a tendancy to shake when holding cameras.

[whowhatwhy]

Absolutely not.
The most important factor is the quality and quantity of light that you can get to your recording medium..ie film or digi sensor. There is of course a point where if you don't have enough resolution the image will be grainy and too small to do much with.

Take for example an 8 or 10 mega pixel compact and a 6 MP Digital SLR. The reason that the DSLR will always produce better images is because the lens is of much higher quality glass with far fewer distortions and allows a lot more light through that the compact camera lens. This means that your DSLR image will be sharper, it will contain less 'noise' and distortion and will be much easier to achieve professional prints and to work with.

The lens is the business end of any camera, which is why they can cost over �6,000+ per lens for some of canon's top end telephotos. Remember a small imperfection in a lens will result in a massive imperfection in a blown up 10MP image. For every day use a 6MP compact will produce good A4/A3 prints as long as you use a tripod...these 10MP compacts are a joke and are produce much lower quality images that the 'older' 6-8MP sensors since they contain much more noise as they are less sensitive to light.

I am a photographer so I'm a bit biased, but a lot of this debate hinges on what your intentions are to do with the end image; family prints or commercial use? Ideally you'll have big MP AND expensive glass :)

If you haven't gone to sleep yet there are some good articles on the net explaining more...i just found this one:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

[TeeGee]

I agree totally with whowhatwhy with the added comment that it's the person that presses the button that creates the picture, better hardware just helps. To miquote the PM "Composition, composition, composition".

[RATTER15]

Ok, I obviously got no idea what im talking about so time for me to butt out of this thread. Told you so!!

[whowhatwhy]

RATTER15: hey, you were right in saying 'In theory'! In theory the more information you have then the better picture you can construct, (photographically, historically, scientifically...) that's assuming that the information is good in the first place...if you extrapolate from poor information the picture soon becomes distorted.

Your 5.2mp fuji will produce good images as soon as you get the hang of it. Just remember that in order to truly deliver the standard and size of a scanned 35mm film slide you would need a 12MP+ camera...not than many normal people would shoot in transparency then blow their pictures up to 30x40" and more...so that's pretty academic ;)

[ugly_bob]

lol, at work I get people wanting their jpeg logos from their websites blown up to 1m x 1m for exhibtion panels. They don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that a 200 x 200 pixel file won't look any good with 5mm pixels!!

[whowhatwhy]

haha, that's hilarious! I have to deal with that sort of thing all the time as well...drives me nuts trying to explain DPI and image sizes to people that don't get it.