When comparing megapixels in digital camera equipment it's important to first assess your digital imaging needs. While digital cameras come in a variety of styles and sizes, with varying ranges of megapixels available, knowing how you will most often use the images captured by your digital camera will help you to select the equipment best for you. When comparing megapixels, it's important to understand how the number of megapixels affects both the print size and file size of the digital image that is created.
Online Use
When comparing megapixels when the primary use of photos will be for online use such as sharing via e-mail or through an online photo album, it's important to consider that online images are generally fairly small. In order to effectively email or view an image online, the file size of the digital image must be kept at a minimum. To achieve smaller file sizes necessary for online use of digital images, physical dimensions of the image as well as the resolution of the image should be kept at a minimum.
For images that will be shared through online means, no more than two megapixels are necessary to create a quality image suitable for viewing online. Since resolutions for online viewing should be no more than 72 pixels per inch, and standard physical measurements are normally 640 pixels by 480 pixels, a two megapixel camera will be more than sufficient.
Photo Printing
When determining how many megapixels should be used when printing digital images, a great amount of attention should be focused on the physical dimension of the print to be created. A good rule to use when considering megapixels for print images is to base decisions on the largest size print you would consider creating. For most consumers, few prints are created at sizes larger than 5" x 7". However, if you would like to leave the option available to create 8" x 10"-sized prints or larger, then more megapixels should be considered.
For standard 4" x 6" photo prints, two to four megapixels will provide adequate resolution for print reproduction. Creating print images in sizes 8" x 10" or larger will generally require eight megapixels or more to maintain quality in the photo print.
Adjusting Resolution
Most digital cameras marketed at the consumer level provide a maximum capability of 10 megapixels, a few offer a little more. Since it is rarely necessary to take images at such a high resolution, a common practice is to reduce the resolution of the digital images using the built-in adjustments available on the camera. Resolution adjustments control the number of megapixels that are being used in the creation of each digital image and can be adjusted at any time to suit the intended use of the photos being taken. A good standard setting for most users should fall within the range of three to five megapixels, which should be sufficient resolution for images that may be reproduced in print up to 6" x 9", and also ones that can be resized for e-mailing or other online use. Setting digital cameras within the range of three to five megapixels also conserves the file size of each image, providing users with the ability of storing more digital images on media storage cards within the camera.
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