Pixels And MegaPixels - Explained!

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2016-11-18 15:59

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Edited by RIPKILLER at 2016-11-18 13:29

Hey Folks,

We today have mobiles and camera's with camera options of 12 MP , 5 MP , VGA camera etc etc .. Have you ever wondered what exactly is MP ? How does it define the quality of pictures you capture ?
To understand what is MegaPixel [MP] we have to firstly understand the basic of defining a digital image :

What is a Pixel?

The word "pixel" means a picture element , Every Photograph in digital form i.e in digital media is made up of thousands of pixels. Pixel is the smallest unit of information that makes up a picture

Now lets check this picture

  

The one portion has been magnified over so that we can see its individual compostion in pixels. The pixels approximate the actual image .

Resolution

The number of pixels in an image is called resolution. Now to define the resolution of a picture there are two conventional ways :

-> By width and height

When we say the resolution of a screen/image is 1280x1024 that means there are 1280 pixels from one side to another and 1024 pixels from top to bottom

-> By MegalPixel [MP]

A MegaPixels referes to Million Pixels , we use this way to express the number of pixels as a single number.

When we say 5MP this means the number of pixels in width multiplied by the number of pixels in height, taken by a camera equals 5 million pixels.
It the case of 1280x1024 resolution it can be expressed as : 1280x1024 = 1,310,720 or 1.31 MP
The table below briefly describes the Camera's MP and its resolution
 
MegaPixel

 

As explained above MegaPixel defines the size of a digital image. When we say this camera is of 12MP , it means this camera can produce images of total 12 Million Pixels .

More megapixels do matter when viewed on a phone, when zooming in or cropping a photo. For example, some phones with 20 or more megapixels let users "zoom in" without losing quality, without an optical zoom lens. They do this by simply cropping a high-quality 8-megapixel photo from the center of the 41-megapixel image captured by the camera (for example.)
Photos with more megapixels are larger in file size, and therefore can take longer - and cost more - to send over the network at full size. Most cameras and camera phones have an option to take photos at lower resolution (smaller), if desired.


I hope now you surely understand whats MP and how does it affect the digital pictures .!

Surely Comment Your Views And Questions!


Note:- Digital camera's have a "Quality" settings that changes the amount of pixels used . Unless untill the setting is set to the highest level , we are not really using the best of our camera.

So just your settings now !