MegaPixels and Macro Focus Ranges??

manda · Aug 14, 2003

argh
im still very confused
Can someone explain what exactly mega pixels are?

i know that they higher the mega pixel, the sharper and clearer your shots, right?
i have a pathetic 1.2 megapixels on my digital and im wanting to upgrade.
ive been researching adn it seems that for the sort of quality i want, i need at least above 3.
Are 4 /5 mega pixels that much better than 3?

I also want to be able to take good macro shots(thats the one thing that frustrates me about my current digital) and am not sure about the focal lengths that i'm even looking for. I want to be able to take very upclose shots of teeny things
The Fuji FinePix 3800 for example has a macro focus of 0.3 ft to 2.6ft.Can someone tell me what that means exactly??

Im a visual person, not a numbers :|

Youngblood97 · Aug 14, 2003

it means you can focus on something that far away. I have Sony F707 with a very nice macro ability on it. It is a 5.2 megapixel camera. I can take pictures of subjects at like .25 inches away and they are crystal clear. great for flowers and bugs or any other small things. Hope this helps.

voodoocat · Aug 14, 2003

Manda, the megapixel doesn't indicate how sharp an image is. It is the # of pixels in the image. I have a 2.1 megapixel digicam and get image sizes that are 1600x1200 which technically = 1.92 million pixels

nukie · Aug 14, 2003

voodoocat said:
Manda, the megapixel doesn't indicate how sharp an image is. It is the # of pixels in the image. I have a 2.1 megapixel digicam and get image sizes that are 1600x1200 which technically = 1.92 million pixels

exactly what he said.

as for the macro ability of a camera. for digitals (and i'm guessing film too) its souly dependant on the lens that it uses and has nothing to do with megapixels.

bear in mind that megapixels isn't the only thing that matters in a digital camera. as voodoocat touched on, the quality and sharpness of the image matters a great deal as well. cause theres no point in having a 27 megapixel camera if a 10 x 10 square of pixels are all the same colour (does that make sense? it does to me

). to illustrate that point, go here. check the samples of the nikon 5700, as to the sony and canon. to my eyes the sharpness of the nikon's image is far more fuzzy than the sony and canon's.

anyway, i'll go lots more technical if you want. but at this time of the morning, well, i'm not too sure if the stuff i've already typed makes sense.

enigma · Aug 21, 2003

mega=milloin
1,200,000 pixels per inch....?? right?? it is late that is right though.... right??

what you need will depend on what you use the picture for. if you print out 8x10... 3.5 or 4 sould be fine, but if you want like 11x14 or anything bigger you may need 5 or so.

If I were you, the soney 828 will be coming out soon (8mp) and after that the pice on the sony 717 should drop. That is a great camera for what I understand.

Also, any newer digital camera will have a macro shot that will be fine, i think.

Good luck, I hope I helped a little.

voodoocat · Aug 21, 2003

It's not pixels per inch, it's total amount of pixels. You are thinking dpi

Just like with your screen size. If you have your screen set to 1280x1024 and opened a 1.3 megapixel image it would fill your screen. (1280x1024~1,310,720 pixels)