Need some help on printing

[Designer]

Can someone help me understand this..View attachment 141331Take this picture of my wife.. I understand that I need about 7 megapixels for a good sharp 8 x 10 but this image of my wife is only 2.9 taken with my 5 D and a picture of my Son taken with my phone is 16 megapixels.
So a picture taken with my phone will produce a better print than my camera??!! I'm so confused.

If you are talking about the out-of-focus areas, that is a function of the depth of field (DOF) not megapixels. Your cell phone has a small sensor and a wide angle lens which gets more of the image in reasonable focus, while the DLSR has a larger sensor and a somewhat longer focal length, so the DOF will (in many cases) be shallow.

There are many neophyte photographers who crave this shallow DOF and we are asked regularly about how to get that. (they erroneously call it Bokeh). The DOF is a function of focal length, aperture, sensor size, and distance.

Megapixels is a somewhat over-sold measurement that is touted to sell cameras, but the advertising text leaves much out of the equation. For instance; pixel density is one measurement that is seldom advertised. Some high-end professional cameras have fewer megapixels than some consumer-level cameras, but you don't see the pros complaining or trading cameras because of it.

 

[Evertking]

I got it! Thank you all for you help. I really appreciate it.