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Are Megapixels Important?

Marketing folks love to promote Megapixels when advertising cameras. Are Megapixels what you should be looking at when you are buying a new camera? Not necessarily.

A Megapixel is a million pixels, or “squares” of colour on your monitor or printed photograph.

It is true that more pixels means you can print and display larger pictures. How many Megapixels do you need? You can print an 8×10 picture with a 4 Megapixel camera without any problems. You may not notice any improvement going to a 6, 8 or 10 Megapixel camera if all you are printing is 8x10s or smaller.

Going to higher Megapixels can also be problematic. If you increase the number of Megapixels without increasing the size of your image sensor (the digital chip that captures the image), then you can actually introduce noise in your picture, making things worse.

Read the reviews for cameras, and don’t buy solely on Megapixels. Check out the cameras sensor size, and it’s sensitivety to light (especially in low light situations).

I’ve used a 3 Megapixel camera that takes better pictures than a 14 Megapixel camera I’ve also tested.

For an excellent site for reviewing cameras, ignore the Megapixels and check out Digital Photography Review.

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Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO

The aperture is the size of the opening in your lens to allow light onto your sensor or film.The wider the aperature, the more light that comes in at any instant. Aperture is measured in f-stops. A higher number means a smaller opening, which means less light.

The shutter speed is how fast the shutter is open to allow light in. The longer the shutter is open, the more light that comes in over a period of time.

To get the same exposure with a higher f-stop (smaller hole), you need to leave the shutter open longer, thus you will need a slower shutter speed. You want to make sure the shutter speed isn’t too slow, because vibrations in your hand will affect the image. If you need to use a long shutter speed, you will want to use a tripod to stabilize the camera.

ISO is a measurement of film. A higher ISO number means it is more sensitive to light, and you can speed up your shutter speed if you use a higher ISO film. In digital cameras you obviously can’t change the ISO of the film, but digital cameras let you emulate ISO values. A word of warning: higher ISOs increase noise in pictures (or “grain” in film cameras).

Here is a neat utility that let’s you see first hand how aperature, shutter speed and ISO affect the quality of an image.

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The Diagonal Method

The Diagonal Method is a method of composition alternate to the popular Rule of Thirds.  Although it is less known than the Rule of Thirds, historically significant photographs, mainstream advertisements and even famous paintings use this technique. Read the article.

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Composition

One of the rudimentary composition techniques is the Rule of Thirds. This is where the points of interest in a photograph are located either on the vertical or horizontal (imaginary) lines dividing the picture into nine squares of equal size. Read more about the Rule of Thirds in Wikipedia.