Saturday, January 7, 2012

The Dilemma When Choosing A Camera How Many Mega-Pixels Do I Honestly Need In My Camera?

By James Helmering


One of the bewildering things in selecting an electronic camera is deciding how many mega-pixels you should look for. The answer depends on what you're planning on doing with the finished photos.

First, you want to grasp what a pixel is. In terms of digital prints, a pixel basically means a dot of color that makes up the image. A mega-pixel is the same as one million pixels. The more mega-pixels a camera has, the larger the quantity of information it records.

The easiest way to decide what to search for is to know what size prints you are probably going to print from your camera. a one mega-pixel camera is fine for those that don't plan on printing photos but rather just post them on the internet. A small print, say 4 x 6, will print acceptably from this camera.

A 2 mega-pixel camera will permit you to provide good quality 5 x 7 prints and fair quality 8 x 10 prints. When you reach 4 mega-pixels you can print out wonderful quality 8 x 10 prints and sufficient 11 x 17 prints and a 5 megapixel camera will allow you to print out top quality 11 x 17 prints.

Most families find a camera in the 3.2 Mega-pixel range to be the very best choice. The standard of both 5 x 7 and 8 X 10 prints are very good yet the files on your personal computer aren't so big you need to fret about not having enough space.

Any camera over 5 mega-pixels is needless for all but executives in photography; even then, only people who have need for poster-size prints find that more mega-pixels in a camera are worth the money. Most independent photographers find 4 or 5 mega-pixels to be adequate for excellent-quality prints.

The choice is yours. Look to what you are counting on doing with your photos and then decide. In most cases spending the money for increased optical zoom and lower mega-pixels is the top choice. You can always edit your photos with a free photo editing software and still get quality photos.




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