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More MP or Less MP is important?

Badrottie

Badrottie

Suspended
Original poster
May 8, 2011
4,317
336
Los Angeles
Currently I have a Superzoom Canon Powershot SX30 IS with 16.1MP I assumed the more MP the picture looks great and I am thinking about upgrade to PowerShot SX50 HS BUT it has 12MP?? I am not sure I am ready for DSLR (Canon EOS Rebel T5i). I use my camera for basic modeling and taking picture everywhere like tall building.

So MP is really important for picture quality(SP?)?
:apple:
 
Badrottie said:
Currently I have a Superzoom Canon Powershot SX30 IS with 16.1MP I assumed the more MP the picture looks great and I am thinking about upgrade to PowerShot SX50 HS BUT it has 12MP?? I am not sure I am ready for DSLR (Canon EOS Rebel T5i). I use my camera for basic modeling and taking picture everywhere like tall building.

So MP is really important for picture quality(SP?)?
:apple:
Click to expand...

Depends on how large you print. After about 8 megapixels unless you print bigger than A4, there are other more important things to consider like IQ.
 
Depends on your print size and/or output medium.

You won't want an 8MP image for a highway billboard ad for example.

You don't need a 50MP image for street photography.

It's a right tool, right job kind of thing.
 
I don't know either of these cameras but generally speaking it really depends on what you do with your photos. Large poster sized prints can use up the better part of 16MP. Posting photos on the internet in forums or on your own site require far less overall size. On the internet, a photo less than 5MP will show quite nicely.

You also have to think about how much you may want to crop a photo. A landscape photographer probably doesn't need as much wiggle room as a wildlife photographer.

I wouldn't be concerned about the MP of any digital camera these days. Instead focus on other key performance aspects such as low-light and noise handling.

~ Peter

Wow that was fast...my post sounds like it came from the department of redundancy department. Don't you guys work and have anything better to do. :)

Oh and one more thing when looking at performance...don't forget Bokeh!! :)
 
Last edited:
Apple fanboy said:
Depends on how large you print. After about 8 megapixels unless you print bigger than A4, there are other more important things to consider like IQ.
Click to expand...

Oh thats right I really forgot about that. Alright many thanks. I usually print 8 x 10 glossary paper most of the time. I might want to try 11 x 17 someday. :apple:
 
More is not always better. It has to be more of the right thing.

More pixels mean, under ideal circumstances, you can make bigger enlargements/crop more aggressively.

Larger pixels mean less noise. If you're doing low-light photography, noise can prevent you from enlarging to the size you'd like.

So, if you have two image sensors of the same dimensions, one with 12mp and larger pixels, and the other 16mp with smaller pixels? Either one will produce superior images under certain circumstances, but may be a problem in others.

And if you consistently end up cropping aggressively to make up for the lack of a longer telephoto? Then a longer lens probably makes more sense than more pixels.
 
Megapixels are not born equal and more is not automatically better. The average consumer has plenty of pixels to work with and despite popular opinion, you can blow up low-res images with decent results: as long as it is a good photo, smaller technical flaws don't matter.

@OP
A 16 megapixel camera is not automatically better than a 12 megapixel camera, because there are many other axes along which to judge image quality. It sounds to me you want to upgrade just to get something new (at least you don't mention a compelling reason), and that you get the successor to your current camera. I don't see much of a point in that, if your current camera works for you and you're happy, keep it.
 
It's all about the image sensor in the camera.

If you have a 16mp FF DSLR compared to a 16mp point and shoot camera, you're going to get a better image from the FF DSLR than you would the point and shoot camera where the sensor is significantly smaller.

As the others have said, it really depends on how large of prints your making. For most real world situations (and it doesn't sound like you're a professional), you're most likely not blowing up your prints up to 60x40. For what you're currently using you're shooting, your camera is more than enough.
 
Whenever I think about megapixels and gear, I try to review some of my older digital photos.

This one was taken on my honeymoon in Greece with a Nikon Coolpix S3. It's a 6 MP point-and-shoot from 2006. This was shot as a JPEG. It stood up to some fairly aggressive manipulation in post. On a computer screen when pixel peeping it has some obvious artifacts. However, printed at 8x10 from a good photo service those flaws aren't nearly as obvious. I have this framed and hanging on a wall in my kitchen.

14593047059_c871a8e05e_b.jpg
 
As someone has already said, megapixels barely have any impact on your photographs above 8MP. Although it's easy to say that the images of people with more expensive, higher megapixel cameras look better, that's usually only because the images their cameras produce are higher resolution. But that doesn't mean you couldn't capture the exact same image with your camera...it just might look a little lower res than their work. Don't get bogged down with megapixels, just enjoy your camera and the photos you create.

You only need to worry about megapixels if you're going to be printing your photographs to very large sizes 90% of the time. Even then, nearly every consumer DSLR available these days will produce images of high enough resolution to print to a fairly big size. I have a 16MP Nikon D7000 and I've printed my images to 30 x 40 a bunch of times and the prints are always gorgeous.

You can check out my photo stream, if you'd like! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaredscottpeters :)
 
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