What the heck is a megapixel?
Mega is a prefix that means million. A pixel refers to the element on the CCD that captures light. Thus a 4 megapixel camera has approximately 4 million sensing elements on its CCD.
The megapixels a camera has nothing to do with the size of the image, but has everything to do with resolution. You can get a print of any size with any camera, but the image quality will be better the higher the resolution.
Here is an extreme example:
1600x1200 pixels | 80x60 pixels |
The following is a guide to the maximum size of pictures from common cameras:
2-megapixel - 1600x1200
11-megapixel - 4064 x 2704
The higher the number of pixels, the greater the need for storage. An image stored in a 4 megapixel camera takes twice the memory space as does that from a 2 megapixel camera.
Cameras can take pictures in lower resolution. For example, a 4 megapixel camera can be set to take pictures in 2 megapixel or 1 megapixel mode. The only advantage to this is the reduction in required storage space; more pictures will be stored on the memory card. For example, a four megapixel camera will take pictures at 2272 x 1704 and also 1600x1200 as a
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