When to use LESS Megapixels and Why.

Mar 25, 2009 by Matt Voran

Fancy Pants Camera?
Do you have a really nice 10 Megapixel point and shoot that you take everywhere? Chances are you do! Do you find yourself taking pictures at the clubs, or parties or even just of your kids at soccer games or school plays.

These are the kind of pictures that you rarely print, and if you do, your probably not printing them any bigger than 4×6. Right? What you are probably doing more and more is putting those pictures on Facebook, Flickr, Shutterfly or emailing them to friends and family. But there is one little problem that you always run into when you have a 10mp image. It’s BIG. It’s awkward in an email or it takes forever to upload onto Facebook. And many of you probably don’t even know where to begin trying to make the picture smaller, and even if you did, you don’t have the time or will power to mess with it. Here is a great tip.

Think AHEAD!
Think about what you are taking pictures of WHEN YOU ARE TAKING THEM! Ask yourself “What am I going to DO with these pictures. If the answer is anything other than “Make 8×10 prints to hang on the wall then just set your camera to lower megapixels. Most cameras have settings that let you choose a lower megapixel setting and the result will be just a smaller, more “digital lifestyle” friendly image. In fact I would say you could go as low as 4mp without sacrificing ANY quality at all, and still be able to print 5×7′s easily, if you wanted. Now, look if you are on vacation and your going to take a variety of different types of pictures, then you probably want to leave your camera at its highest setting, just in case you get the shot that you DO want to frame. But if you are just at the bar with friends or at the park with the dog and kid…….dial it down a notch!

Whats the Point
The benefit is these are going to be a much better size for email, or Facebook (they will upload faster and be smaller files for email) AND you will be able to get as much as THREE times as many images on your memory card! Seriously, whats the point of 10 megapixels unless you want large prints, its the lens and the photographer that determine image quality, megapixels are all about SIZE.