What is a Megapixel?
Answering the question "What may be a Megapixel" is basically pretty simple because a megapixel is just a million pixels. But then that results in subsequent question where things get a touch more interesting which is "What may be a Pixel"?
Understanding Pixels and Megapixels
Digital cameras use an bitmap sensor to require pictures rather than film. These image sensors convert the image (picture) into an electrical signal (a form of binery code) which is then processed and stored electronically in some sort of external (a removable memory card such as a SD card or Compact flash card) or internal memory (that types of memory built into the camera). Each image sensor is formed from individual optical components referred to as pixels (picture elements). One million of those pixels is mentioned as a megapixel.
An image sensor is formed from individual optical components referred to as pixels (picture elements). The term megapixels simply means one million pixels with a pixel being a single point or dot that makes up part of the picture or image.
Now that we've a basic idea of what a pixel is we all know the straightforward answer to our question "What may be a Megapixel" but we still got to understand why megapixels matter and the way important they're to overall picture quality.
Why are Megapixels Important?
Megapixels are important because they're a sign of camera's image quality or resolution.
Higher megapixel cameras will produce very higher resolution images which is better quality photographs.
Important Note: There are other factors that influence the picture quality as well; especially with the dimensions of the image sensor so be wary of falling into the Megapixel Myth and automatically equate to more megapixels with the better pictures.
In film cameras the image resolution was determined by the size of the film however in today's digital cameras it determined by the size of the camera's image sensor and the number of megapixels it has. To determine the amount of megapixels you multiply the amount of pixels the camera's image sensor has vertically by the amount of pixels horizontally. That gives you the entire pixel count for the camera which is expressed in megapixels.
Avoiding the Megapixel Myth Trap
Now that we've a far better understanding of "What may be a Megapixel" we'd like to form sure that we avoid falling prey to the Megapixel Myth trap. The megapixel myth is the assumption that "more megapixels are better" when evaluating digital cameras.
The number of megapixels a camera has is important because it indicates the image resolution that camera can capture, but it is just one of many factors that play a role in the overall quality of the picture. There are simply too many other related factors such as the size of the image sensor that affect overall image quality to automatically assume that just because one camera has more megapixels you'll get a better quality image than another camera.
While the number of megapixels is important when it comes to how large of an image can be printed there are other factors that contribute to the overall picture quality. Therefore when considering a camera don't assume that a better megapixel camera will always be the simplest choice.
While the number of megapixels is important when it comes to how large of an image can be printed there are other factors that contribute to the overall picture quality. Therefore when considering a camera don't assume that a better megapixel camera will always be the simplest choice.
How many megapixels are needed for various print sizes?
As we still study what's a megapixel we'll check out the important relationship between the amount of megapixels and maximum print size. The general rule is that the more megapixels you've got the larger your print are often without noticeable distortion.
The number of megapixels needed for various print sizes is decided by the print resolution which is generally listed in dots per inch with 300 dpi being a standard standard for typical prints.
Therefore determining the utmost print size is as easy as dividing the amount of horizontal and vertical pixels by 300.
For example a 5 megapixel camera may need a resolution of 2580 pixels by 1944 pixels or 5,015,520 total pixels. This means you'll easily print a picture up to eight .53 inches by 5.4 inches with a 5 megapixel camera.
To determine the utmost print sizes for cameras with a special number of megapixels please see the table below.
The number of megapixels needed for various print sizes is decided by the print resolution which is generally listed in dots per inch with 300 dpi being a standard standard for typical prints.
Therefore determining the utmost print size is as easy as dividing the amount of horizontal and vertical pixels by 300.
For example a 5 megapixel camera may need a resolution of 2580 pixels by 1944 pixels or 5,015,520 total pixels. This means you'll easily print a picture up to eight .53 inches by 5.4 inches with a 5 megapixel camera.
To determine the utmost print sizes for cameras with a special number of megapixels please see the table below.
| Camera Resolution In Megapixels | Maximum Print Size At 300 dpi |
| 5MP (2,580 x 1,944) | 9x7 |
| 6MP (3,008 x 2,000) | 10x7 |
| 7MP (3,072 x 2,304) | 10x8 |
| 8MP (3,264 x 2,488) | 11x8 |
| 9MP (3,488 x 2,616) | 11x9 |
| 10MP (3,648 x 2,736) | 12x9 |
| 11MP (3,830 x 2,872) | 13x10 |
| 12MP (4,000 x 3,000) | 13x10 |
| 14.6 MP (4416 x 3312) | 15x11 |
| 24.6 MP (6048 x 4032) | 20x13 |
*Horizontal and vertical measurements can vary depending on the format of the image sensor, etc. These are general guidelines not absolute standards.
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How many pictures can my memory card hold?
In this last a part of our discussion of "What may be a Megapixel" we'll briefly cover the connection of megapixels and file size. The more megapixels a camera has means the larger the dimensions of the quality JPEG picture file. This means that to store the same number of photos you will need a larger memory card, an important fact to keep in mind when considering replacing your digital camera with one that has more megapixels.
Below is a chart that shows an average file size for different megapixel sizes and the number of standard JPEG images that can be stored on different sizes of memory cards.
| Memory Card Capacity | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camera | File size | 2GB | 4GB | 8GB | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| 5 MP | 1.5 MB | 1200 | 2400 | 5000 | 10000 | 20300 |
| 6 MP | 1.7 MB | 1000 | 2000 | 4300 | 8700 | 17300 |
| 8 MP | 2.3 MB | 700 | 1500 | 3200 | 6400 | 12900 |
| 10 MP | 2.9 MB | 600 | 1200 | 2500 | 5000 | 10100 |
| 12 MP | 3.4 MB | 500 | 1000 | 2000 | 4300 | 8600 |
| 16 MP | 4.6 MB | 300 | 700 | 1600 | 3200 | 6400 |
| 21 MP | 6.4 MB | 200 | 550 | 1100 | 2300 | 4600 |
While many people associate a higher megapixel camera with better quality photos there are too many other related factors to make that type of sweeping generalization.
There are many other factors than just the amount of Megapixels a camera has that must be given careful consideration when purchasing a digital camera. For more information on the various sorts of camera s available checkout our digital camera comparison page. I hope you've got found this page on what's a megapixel helpful.
There are many other factors than just the amount of Megapixels a camera has that must be given careful consideration when purchasing a digital camera. For more information on the various sorts of camera s available checkout our digital camera comparison page. I hope you've got found this page on what's a megapixel helpful.
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