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Step 1
Learn what a megapixel is. A megapixel is one million pixels. With pixels, the more pixels you have in a photo, the better the resolution. You can buy a camera with a resolution of anywhere from 1 megapixel to over 100 megapixels.
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Step 2
Compare your quality to a 35mm camera. The typical 35mm camera prints at about 300dpi (dots per square inch). On a digital camera, 5 megapixels is about the same quality as you would get making prints from your 35mm camera.
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Step 3
Compare your quality to a professional medium format camera. Once you start to get into the 7 and 8 megapixel range, you are going to get quality far above a 35mm camera. This is where you are going to be able to take semi-professional photographs with great quality and resolution.
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Step 4
Compare your quality to a 120mm camera. Cameras with 10 to 13 megapixel resolution are going to create prints that are very similar, in some cases better, than a professional 120mm camera. Remember that the more megapixels you have, the less amount of photos will fit on your memory card. A 13 megapixel camera will be able to fit about 55 pictures on a 1GB memory card.
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Step 5
Compare your quality to the media professional. Any digital cameras between 14 and 100 megapixels are really only for the media professional. There is no real need to invest in this many megapixels unless you are doing major media print work and photography.
Comments
radar00 said
on 11/23/2009 The author is not a photographer. Check his profile.
His statement here, ("On a digital camera, 5 megapixels is about the same quality as you would get making prints from your 35mm camera.") is incorrect.
The best estimates vary, but 35mm has 3 or 4 times more resolution than 5 megapixels.