Newb question

[nando2323]

This is a newb question sorry I am very new to this. What in the DSLR camera's make the picture quality so great. I always thought that Megapixels were what made the picture quality look great (even though it's essentially the resolution, just comparing it to computer res the greater the better). I know that is not true now because I see pictures on here taken on 6.0 MP and lower and they look 100's of times better then my sony 10MP DSC-N2. I know this information must be online somewhere I just don't know where to start looking. If someone could at least point me in the right direction that would be cool.

EDIT:

Nevermind I looked it up on wikipedia and I got all the answers. Thanks anyhow.

 

[the Helix]

well...

The short answer is that a great part of it is due to the lens (or "glass").

99.9% of what makes an exposure (a photograph) great is the lighting. I am of course only referring to the technical aspect of the picture. If however, we were to speak about the artistic and creative dimension of a picture, than the answer would be a lot more involved.

In any case, the ability of a dSLR's optics and body to allow light to enter (through the glass) and to manipulate how it enters (f-stop, shutter speed, etc... of the body) is what allows it to produce a far better picture than a typical point and shoot (p & s).

 

[bertpalmer]

It's mainly down to the sensor and lens.

In a DSLR - the sensor is about an inch across whereas on a point and shot it is typically abotu 5mm.

So, if they have the same amount of megapixels the DSLR will get a better quality picture because they pixels are larger and receive more light.

Then you have the lens glass which is incomparable compared to many small point and shoots.