is megapixel important?

I collect digital cameras, and have about 40 so far. Features are not as important as taking a clear picture. Two megapixels will take a better and clearer picture than some with more megapixels. More megapixels is better only if the camera has a good lens and other things. More megapixels is good for advertising, but one is better off to compare how well the camera does under other conditions, like light and camera shake. No digital camera is worth anything if it can't take clear pictures. Many new cameras claim lots of features, but take bad pictures, blurr, camera shake, and other undesirable things.

A digital camera could not even function without SOME pixels, however, the amount is not near as critical as many people think. Here is an article you should read:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

Canon or Nikon really makes no difference.

Things such as quality of lens, and how well the camera sensor and other electronics function are far more important than a megapixel number. More megapixels will always give you a larger picture, but not at all necessarily a better picture.

The number ONE thing that influences the quality of the photos is the skill and knowledge of the photographer.

Yes - and no! All cameras except the very cheapest toy cameras for young children have more megapixels than you can ever take advantage of in general use. In the early days of digicams, over 12 to 15 years ago, the number of megapixels was important, as when it went up from 1.3mps to 2mps, then 5mps, etc. But nowadays adding more Mps is simply a marketing exercise in many cases.

Nahum and others have given a lot of good technical advice on why Mps are a poor way to rate digital cameras.

Megapixels are the *worst* measure of image quality, because there is no direct correlation.

Megapixels only tell you the image dimensions (width × height). As Larry points out, larger dimensions mean more work has to be done. It's like carrying a dollar's worth of coins in your pocket: you can have four quarters or you can have a hundred pennies. A quarter is worth more than a penny, and is easier to handle than twenty-five pennies.

By the time you end up scaling down your photos to 2 MP for sharing on Facebook, you've obliterated any distinction between the majority of all cameras. The more megapixels, the longer you spent transferring and processing the images.

The main factors in image quality are the lighting in the scene (nothing to do with the camera), the lens, and the sensor. That means you have to do more research than comparing MP counts. When these are similar, you'll do better to compare the feel and price.

As has been noted, the number of pixels tells you how large you can print or how much cropping you can do. What affects the image quality is the SIZE of the sensor and the pixels.

The size of the sensor will dictate what focal lengths you use for any given angle of view. For example, a 14mm lens on a Micro 4/3 camera, an 18mm on an APS-C camera, and a 28mm lens on a full-frame 35mm format camera all produce the same angle of view. However, because depth of field (DOF - the area that's in focus) is affected the focal length, the smaller the format, the great the dof. This can be a problem for anyone shooting portraiture or when blurred out backgrounds are needed.

The size of the pixels affect the image quality to a great degree. Each pixel captures light (photons) during the exposure. The larger the pixel, the larger the number of photons captured during any given exposure. This then allows the pixel to generate a more powerful signal which then requires less amplification from the camera to determine the quality of the light (color, brightness). Therefore, less amplification equals less noise. A larger sensor also means that it can hold a larger charge. Consider a very bright area in a scene. If the pixel is small, it will get "filled up" sooner which results in clipping of the highlights. A larger pixel can hold a larger charge/voltage, therefore the same area will be bright but with detail. This is known as dynamic range.

Then, there's diffraction. Diffraction is simply smearing of the light due to small apertures. The smaller the pixel, the sooner diffraction is noticeable. So a super-small pixel like those on bridge cameras or smartphones, will show diffraction at about f/4-f/5.6, while you won't see it on a full-frame camera until f/11 or higher. Therefore, you end up getting sharper images.

For all of these reasons, this is why a 41MP Nokia Smartphone produces worse image quality than a 12MP Sony A7S. Sure, you can print images from the Lumina larger before things get pixelated, but the pictures won't look as clean or as sharp.

Considering the amount of megapixels are both important and not important. I say this because it really depends on what you are doing with the camera and how would you be posting the photos in future.

If you are looking to print really big photos in the future for example, then yes megapixels does matter but if you are posting on facebook twitter, instagram etc, printing for photo albums or something then megapixels does not matter unless you get a used DSLR from about 10+ years ago or something but I dont think you want to do that.

If you have a chance to hold a DSLR consider the build quality, how it feels for you and how the menus look as well. Every DSLR is different and everyone has their own preference on the body and what not. but if any thing go borrow a friends DSLR try the pics on those and see how you like them or if not then go buy one play around with it for a bit and if you dont like it then return it. Its all personal preference when buying a DSLR

No, the number of megapixels doesn't matter at all.

All modern DSLRs have more than enough megapixels. The difference between 18 and 24 megapixels is negligible.You actually couldn't tell the difference by simply looking at the photos.

Nobody makes any bad DSLRs.

I'll tell you one thing about megapixels: they slow things down.

I have two cameras: a Sigma DP Merrill and a Fuji X100. The Fuji has 12 megapixels, and the Sigma has (depending on how you count) 46 megapixels - yes, that's not a misprint, forty-six. When I look at them on my iPad, the Merrill files take ages to load, ages to swipe to the left and right, and generally ages to do anything. On a 21 inch iMac screen they look phenomenal though. The Fuji's pictures load up in no time at all and don't tax the iPad at all. And to be honest, unless you are looking at the pictures on a large screen or a large print, it's hard to tell the megapixel count of a photo by looking at it, certainly at web sizes.

For a smaller sensor, 12 or so is more than enough. For full frame cameras of the modern period, 24 seems about the sweet spot.

With today's cameras, megapixels are no longer a concern. It was important maybe a decade or more ago when cameras with less than 8 megapixels were available. What's better is to evaluate the user interface (the menus and where are the buttons are) to see which makes more sense to you.

You are kind of answering your own question, cameras under $1000 having more Mps than cameras costing over $2000! It is difficult for the average user, i.e non professional, to tell the difference between photos of differing megapixels, so unless you are a pro user where mps might be an important factor, I wouldn't take too much notice of how many camera "A" has compared to camera "B". I have a 8mp camera on my phone, at first glance, and to a non professional it takes just as good a photo as a stand alone camera with a lot more mps.