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ARTICLEThe Truth About Resolution For Newbies
One of the most common questions I get from folks who email me is about resolution. Let's say Jane and Joe Smith have a 2 megapixel camera, and they go to the store to buy a new one. This time, they buy a 4 megapixel camera, and upon taking photos and making prints, they do not see a huge improvement over print quality. They email saying something like, "We just bought a camera with double the resolution of our old one, but the prints are not that much better.. what's wrong?". What's wrong? The understanding of what resolution is. Here's the explaination...
Size and Pixels
The typical "starter" camera today has a 2 megapixel resolution. Digital photos are made up of "pixels" (or "dots") of light of primary colors, which basically mix to create other colors and form photos on your computer monitor. Digital cameras are rated and priced by how many total pixels their largest image size can produce. A 2 megapixel camera can produce a photo that has 2 million pixels in it. The math of this, is that the physical pixel size of a 2 megapixel image is around 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels tall. 1600 multiplied by 1200 equals 1,920,000 pixels (close to 2 million - the camera makers round this off when advertising cameras). Ok, so now let's say the Smith family wants to DOUBLE the resolution of their current 2 megapixel camera. To some, logic tells them that by going out as they did, and buying a 4 megapixel camera, then they will do this. Nope. In order to literally double a 2 megapixel image of 1600 x 1200 pixels, you will have to buy a camera that produces an image size of twice those numbers... 3200 x 2400 pixels. If you multiply these two new number you will find that 3200 by 2400 equals 7,680,000 pixels! This is roughly just over 7.5 megapixels, NOT 4 megapixels.
When Buying
When upgrading, you must do some math and look at the total number of pixels the camera's images produce, and NOT the "megapixel rating" of the camera at the store. Look at the highest image size (usually printed on the box), multiply them together and that will give you the number of millions of pixels that the image makes up. Jumping from a 2 to 4 megapixel camera will only give you a little more than 600 extra pixels across the width of an image. While prints will look better with the higher megapixel camera, they will not be doubled the resolution of the old camera. A good 4 megapixel camera will give you very good 5x7 prints, and acceptable (to many) 8x10 prints. But if you really want very good enlargements of 8x10 and up, you will need to plunk down the dough for a 5 or more megapixel camera. Some will say they get great enlargements from their 2-3 megapixel cameras as have some of my co-workers. That is, until I put a 5 megapixel print on the table next to theirs... then they back down. I hope this clears up this particular question about resolution. I get this same question every year around the holidays as folks buy and upgrade cameras, so hopefully this article will save a few folks some frustration during the shopping season. -end
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