With so many terms being thrown around these days referring to resolution of a photo or video, it can be confusing to understand the terminology, and what they really mean for you and your photos or video. One of the most common terms used to describe resolution is megapixels. Thisis a term used to describe the resolution in which your camera sensor is able to capture detail in your photos. Whether you want to know how many megapixels you really need for your photography, or you just want to learn more about this common photography term, this article will tell you everything you need to know about megapixels.
What is a Megapixel?
Simply put, one megapixel is one million pixels. A pixel is the smallest level of information on any photo you take. When you take a photo, pixels are small squares arranged on your photo, each representing a different color. When you zoom out and look at the photo as a whole, you’ll see the photograph you’ve taken. If you zoom in to look at the pixel level, you’ll simply see a bunch of colored squares. These are known as pixels.
The more megapixels you have, the higher the resolution your photo will be. This is because your image will be made of more megapixels. Generally, the term megapixel is used to describe how large the images are off of your camera, since it is much easier to say that a particular camera shoots 25 megapixel images rather than 25 million pixel images.
Why Do Megapixels Matter?
When viewing a photo on a phone or computer screen, the difference between 10 megapixels and 100 megapixels isn’t noticeable. This is because your screens have a maximum resolution, so you won’t be able to tell the difference unless you zoom in on your photo.
More megapixels means more detail that is recorded in your image. The more pixels you have, the more you can crop a photo before seeing the actual pixels of your image. As mentioned before, when viewing on a screen, the megapixel count doesn’t matter too much. However, more megapixels enable you to print larger and crop your photos.
Regardless of the amount of megapixels your camera has, most camera sensors work the same. The sensor is focused through a lens, and then the sensor is able to capture light to create your exposure. The camera then turns this light into an image on the back of your camera screen. A sensor with more megapixels will be able to capture higher levels of detail since it has more data points recording the color and lightness values coming from all areas of your image.
How Many Megapixels Do You Need?
The answer to this question depends on your style and habits of photography. If you don’t need to print your images and never need to crop, almost any digital camera on the market today will provide a sufficient amount of megapixels for digital viewing of your photography.
In fact, if you don’t need cropping or printing, more megapixels will only increase the size of your files, meaning you’ll be filling up your hard drives even quicker. While you generally won’t see any difference in your files if you have too many megapixels, when you send an image out to print or to social media, you may run into problems. Sometimes, certain social media platforms won’t allow you to upload a larger image. This means you’ll have to downsize the image yourself using your photo editing software. Other times, a printer or the internet will downsize the image for you.
Most of the time this is totally fine, but occasionally you may have issues when allowing a printer or a social media platform to downsize for you. Because the destination for your image requires the photo to be smaller, it will automatically choose which pixels to delete in order for the image to fit its resolution requirements. Rarely, this can mean that you’ll lose the sharp edge on a building, or a sparkle in the subject of your photo.
When Cropping
If you’ve been shooting for long, you’ll know that every so often, you’ll need to crop your images. Whether you just didn’t have a long enough lens in the field, you don’t like your composition, or you want to make the subject larger in your frame, cropping is an excellent way to improve an average photo. When you have more megapixels, you’re able to crop your photo and still maintain an excellent resolution. For example, if you shoot with aSony A7R IV(60 megapixels), you can crop the image by 50% and still have a higher resolution image than you would coming straight out of the camera on a Sony a6000 (24.3 megapixels). Again, on the screen, you won’t notice a difference. You’d notice a difference if you created a large print, or zoomed in on your computer screen.
When Printing
When printing, a higher megapixel count means that you’ll be able to print much larger without upsizing your print. Most printers use DPI, or “dots per inch” to inform you the resolution at which the printer will print at. A printer that prints at 150 DPI means that it will put down 150 dots in a line per inch of paper. Essentially, this just means that your image will be more detailed. The number of dots per inch that your printer is capable of providing is directly linked to the size you can print at based on the megapixels of your camera.
As an example, let’s imagine you shoot with a 24 megapixel camera. This would provide you with 6000×4000 pixel images. If you print on a 150 DPI printer, you’d take each side dimension and divide by 150 to tell you the maximum size you can print before you lose resolution. This would be equal to roughly 40”x 26.7”. If you go over this print size, you may begin to see pixelation in your print, where you can start to pick out individual pixels.
Included below is a chart illustrating the maximum recommended print size at different DPIs and different megapixel counts. If you don’t have enough pixels to print the size you need, you can always resize your photo in Photoshop. It is certainly better to have the amount of megapixels required without having to upsize your photo, but this is an effective way to still create great prints in a pinch. If you don’t know how many DPI your printer uses, check the manual or contact the lab you want to print photos at. Divide the DPI by the resolution of each side of your photo to calculate the maximum print size without doing any upsizing.
Megapixels: Frequently Asked Questions
How many megapixels is a good camera?
The amount of megapixels that will suit most photographers’ needs is between 10-20 megapixels. If you don’t need to print or crop, megapixels won’t make too much of a difference for you. Luckily, most high quality DSLR or mirrorless cameras on the market today are all at least 15 megapixels. Sometimes, having more megapixels is beneficial, even if you don’t plan on cropping or printing. You never know when you might change your mind!
Do higher megapixels mean better quality?
Technically speaking, higher megapixels means more resolution. If you correlate resolution with quality, then more megapixels would equal better quality. However, a good camera consists of more than just high megapixel count. Dynamic range, autofocusing, read and write speed, and so many more features are just as important as having enough megapixels on your camera.
How many megapixels is high resolution?
Believe it or not, but “high resolution” (or high definition) is just one megapixel. The HD picture you see on your TV may have been shot at a higher resolution. But when you see it in HD, it has been downsized to just a single megapixel. 4K, a step up from HD, is equivalent to roughly eight megapixels.
What MP camera is the newest iPhone?
The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus both have a 12 megapixel main and ultra wide camera. The iPhone 14 Pro has a 48 megapixel main camera, in addition to a 12 megapixel ultra wide and a 2x and 3x telephoto camera. iPhone photography surely has come a long way, and even the phone in your pocket is capable of taking excellent high resolution photos.
Conclusion
It’s important to know what megapixels are and how they relate to your camera. However, megapixels probably aren’t the first spec you should be looking at when purchasing a new camera. While megapixels do matter, other specs are going to have a larger impact on what your final image looks like. Camera companies and professional photographers alike love to boast the latest and greatest in high megapixel technology, but don’t overlook other factors the next time you are in the market for a new camera.
Austin James Jackson
Austin James Jackson is a landscape photographer and outdoor enthusiast based out of Portland, Oregon. He loves teaching others how to photograph landscapes and leads workshops in the western USA.
