Do your homework before wasting your money...
And I'm serious - you'd be amazed how many people blow big bucks on an expensive digital camera so they can take snaps, or who go cheap on a camera and can't make a decent print bigger than 4x5.
A friend of mine (Eric Jacksch) wrote a nice article about digital cameras for a local magazine. You can get to it here: Considering a new digital camera?
The article is much better than I could produce on the subject :) But here's a 30 second primer:
A photo quality print is at least 200 dots per inch. You can get away with 150ish if the subject of the photograph doesn't have a lot of detail. A nice photo is at least 300 dpi, and a professional-looking photo can be 600 dpi or more.
Therefore: a standard album snapshot (4"x5") is at least 800x1000 dots (pixels). That is 0.8 megapixels. If you shoot in jpeg mode, which is a common limitation of inexpensive cameras, a 1.2 megapixel camera will give you a bit of extra quality to make up for the jpeg quality loss, and is all the camera you'll ever need for vacation snaps, album shots of your three-year-old picking his nose, and so on. If you go to 300dpi (1.8 megapixel) for this sort of thing, your snaps will look awesome and you'll really see that booger in exquisite detail. An additional note here... If you take pictures to use as wallpapers on your computer desktop, a typical computer screen resolution is between 75 and 100 dpi, so a standard 1024x768 desktop is also, conveniently, the same approximate size as your 4x5 print.
** Edit: it was pointed out to me that people younger than me might only have ever shot 35mm film, from which a standard print is 4"x6". That makes a 200 dpi print with just under 1 MP and a 300 dpi print with 2.2 MP.
However: if you take mostly vacation shots but like an occasional enlargement to 5x7, you'll need at least 1000x1400 pixels. That's a 1.4 megapixel camera. If you add in the "jpeg fudge factor", you will have no problem doing reasonable 5x7s of most things with a 2-ish megapixel camera and you'll get awesome album snaps and decent enlargements. Go for a 3-ish megapixel camera and you can have great 5x7s.
If you're a bit of a photographer - that is, you take your photography a bit seriously, you probably want some 8x10 enlargements or similar size. At 200 dpi, that's at least 3.2 megapixels, and even then if your subject has a lot of picky detail, you'll probably want more. Good 8x10s would typically require at least 5 megapixels. Although I've personally made some nice 8x10 enlargements off a 3.2 megapixel camera, it doesn't really cut it for really detailed shots.
So there's my advice. Before buying a camera, figure out what you're going to use it for, look for something in that megapixel range and then FOCUS ON QUALITY OF OPTICS... you'll save money, get a better camera, and probably be happier in the long run. There are lots of other features to consider and Eric's article covers a bit of that.
More megapixels will allow you to make larger, more detailed prints. Typically, it will also reduce your bank account somewhat more than less megapixels.
Just remember that more megapixels will not:
Make your penis larger;
Make you more attractive to women;
Make you more attractive to men;
Make you look smarter; nor
Make you a better photographer - photography works on the GIGO principle;
** edit:
So the really short summary is:
| Expected camera use | Megapixels needed |
| Snapshots - quick stuff, impromptu pictures, capturing the silly moment for posterity | 1 to 2ish |
| Nice vacation / event shots | 2 to 3.5ish |
| Intro to artsy photography - pics you'll display occasionally in frames | 3.2 to 5ish |
Unless you're a fairly serious hobbyist, honestly, more than 5ish MP is probably a waste.
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