Digital Camera Megapixels - How Many Do I Need?

It seems for every year that goes by digital camera manufacturers are adding one more Megapixel (Mp) to their cameras. Could it be true that an existing 7 megapixel camera thats on the market now had an equivalent model of 6 megapixels last year and 5 megapixels the year before that? Next year, will you see the same camera in an 8 megapixel version? Where will we be in another 10 years time?

But do we need the latest 8, 10 or even 12 megapixel camera? Well I have two answers for that question:

Yes, a.) Youre a professional photographer and often have to produce very large high quality prints. b.) If you love to have the latest and most up-to-date gadgets and technology, and are quite happy to spend the extra money to get it, and a little extra more to store those larger files.

No, because the biggest photo that Ill print will be A4 or 10x8 and a 5 megapixel camera is more than capable of producing a quality photo at that size.

Lets assume youre not a professional, because if you were you wouldnt need to read this article in the first place. So how many megapixels should you go for? My short answer would be anything between 4 and 6 megapixels for an amateur who isnt going to print much larger than A4.

Megapixels and Print Sizes
2Mp Perhaps you have a camera on your phone. You wouldnt want to get prints larger than 6x4.
 3Mp Will give you great 6x4 prints and good quality 7x5 prints too.
4Mp Will give excellent 6x4 prints, great 7x5 prints, good quality 9x6 prints and passable 10x8 or A4 prints.
5Mp Excellent 7x5 prints, great 9x6 prints, and good quality 10x8 or A4 prints. If your printer is capable of printing edge-to-edge photos then 5Mp will be your starting point.
6Mp Excellent 10x8 or A4 prints, quality 15x10 prints and good prints up to A3.
7Mp - 10Mp You must be a very keen on photography and looking for the best of kit.

Remember, the more pixels in your picture, the more storage space youll require and depending on the chip inside the camera it may take longer to process and save your files. This lag whist the camera is processing and saving the picture can be quite annoying if you like taking quick snaps. Some budget brands suffer badly from this.

To summarise, I recommend you stick with a quality brand and go for somewhere between 5 and 7 megapixels as this will give you quality 10x8 or A4, which will suit most peoples ink jet printers.

Remember: If you set your 7 megapixel (for example) camera to 3 MPs or less you may limit the size of prints you can obtain from a online printing service provider or store.