Digital Envisions

Not too long ago, 1, 3 and 5 Megapixel digital cameras were a really big deal. As digital storage size gets physically smaller and less expensive and camera technology evolves, seeing compact cameras with megapixel size of 10, 12 or even 14 is becoming more and more common. This begs the question, “Is more better?”

Let’s first address the fundamentals of digital imaging. The terms pixel and megapixel should sound familiar to most people, but what are they? A ‘pixel’, short for picture element, is a single bit of information about the image color. Picture a blue dot. That dot represents a pixel. It could be any color at all. Now picture a tic-tac-toe board, with three rows and three columns for a total of nine boxes. Mentally place a blue dot in each spacenow you have nine pixels.

Continue to extrapolate and you can see how the number of pixels in an area can multiply quickly. A 10 x 10 box would contain a hundred pixels. A megapixel is one million pixels, or a box containing 1000 rows and 1000 columns. While one million pixels sounds like a very large number, one thousand rows and columns is not a very large image.

Nice image sizes for viewing on a computer screen are 320 x 240 pixels, or even 600 x 400 pixels. If you consider that a typical computer monitor might be set at a resolution of 800x 600 pixels (that’s actually a bit smaller than most large computer screens), an image of 320 x 240 pixels will fit nicely inside the computers window without having to scroll.

However if you want to print your image on paper, a nice printer ought to have a minimum output resolution of about 200 dots per inch for a good quality photo. Now suddenly the 320 x 240px image that looked nice on your facebook page, is only 1.6″ by 1″ on printed glossy photo paper. Note that 200 DPI (dots or pixels per inch) is considered a minimum for nice quality image printing.

Let’s cut to the chase. What image size in pixels do you need to print out an nice looking 8 x 10 photo from your photoprinter on glossy paper? 8″ multiplied by 200 dots per inch (pixels per inch) is 1600 pixels. Do the same for the 10″ x 200 and you get 2000 pixels. 2000 x 1600 pixels equals 3.2 million, or 3.2 Megapixels. Here’s where you should stop and scratch your head. Read the above paragraph againan 8 x 10″ image can be printed from photo that’s only 3.2 Megapixels. Most people would be happy with a glossy 8 x10 of their favorite camera photos. Then why do we see cameras with sensors of 10, 12 & 14 megapixels?

One answer is that hardly any of us are happy with the initial snapshot we typically take. It’s common to zoom, crop, rotate and otherwise manipulate your digital image after the photo is captured. Therefore the more detail you can record at the time the image is taken, the more manipulation you can do and still have a nice looking printed image at the end of it all. But do we really need camera phone apps that can take 10MP images? Consider that limited edition professional prints of up to 13x 19″ are sold at the natural history museum for $650and were taken with a 6MP Nikon Digital Camera. (source: Ken Rockwell dot com)

As you review the technical specifications of your next digital camera, don’t get too caught up in how many megapixels it can capture. Features such as the lens quality and of course, personal skill are far more important to a quality printed image you’d be proud to hang in a gallery.

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