"What camera should I get?" is one of those primal questions that, at some point, we all ask. Whether you're an amateur looking to buy your first, or a professional looking to add together to your arsenal, this question volition inevitably rear its ugly head. In this article, I'll be covering one of the primal measurements we all employ when deciding which camera to purchase:

How many megapixels do I need? 'Need', existence the operative word.

Within any marketplace, manufacturers take to discover a way to differentiate themselves from the competition. As such, information technology's understandable that headline figures, similar megapixels, go key selling points. After all, for the average consumer, megapixels sound far better than loftier ISO performance.

How Many Megapixels Do You Need To Impress At…

Printing at 300 DPI is considered the aureate standard for impress quality. Yes, it is possible to print with a higher DPI, but 300 is more adequate for nearly of us. Having heard that 300 DPI is the "gilt standard" many photographers (I accept also been guilty of this) think that every impress has to be 300 DPI. If that were the example, the maximum print size of a 50.6 megapixel Canon 5DSR would be roughly 29 inches on the long edge. And, a 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D-100c would max out at roughly 39 inches. So, how on globe tin can you print something at billboard size?

I don't desire to delve into this aspect of the megapixel statement also heavily as it's been covered in countless articles by people far more than technical than myself, but if you lot want to acquire more almost maximum impress sizes, check out the two articles linked below. For our purposes, all you actually need to know is that a photographic camera with a 24-megapixel sensor could print billboard size. Yup, that's right, billboard size. So, if your argument for purchasing a high-megapixel camera is to impress large, you're wasting your money.

[REWIND: HERE'Southward WHY SIZE MATTERS | PRINT RESOLUTION EXPLAINED IN 5 MINUTES]

[REWIND: Exercise Y'all NEED More than MEGAPIXELS OR A Higher MEGAPIXEL SENSOR?]

More Megapixels Does Not Necessarily Equal More Detail

Now that one major myth has been disrepair, lets nail a few others. In the video above, Pye talks near some of the many factors that tin can touch on 'perceived image sharpness'; noise, lens quality, viewing distance then on. If your sole desire is to print large, ultra-sharp images, then it won't matter how many megapixels your camera has if the lens you lot put on information technology cannot resolve the potential particular (an statement tin exist made here, however, that modern good lenses can out-resolve properly paired sensors). The aforementioned tin can be said if y'all were forced to shoot at a high ISO and your camera does not cope well in those situations. The point here is, there are many other factors which must be considered, and megapixels are not the be all and stop all.

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teenager sits on fallen tree in park during autumn. image used as an example of the megapixels needed for your camera
Photograph past Max Span Portrait Lensman

When Are Loftier Megapixel Camera's Useful?

Whether or not a loftier-megapixel camera will be useful to you comes downwards to i question: "what exercise y'all shoot?"

I shoot a range of things, as many of usa do, one of which being family photography. For that, I use a 24 megapixel Nikon D750 and have never felt more than megapixels were required, about. I'one thousand confident the D750 files can be printed at almost any size, but I have, on occasion, desired some more megapixels. Why? Cropping.

One of the biggest advantages to having a loftier megapixel sensor is the ability to significantly ingather your images. With portrait photography, you lot rarely need to make significant crops. Nevertheless, there are leap to exist a few occasions where that power volition be of use.

a bottle of courvoisier photographed on a dark background. Use as an exmple of megapixels needed for product photography
Photo by Square Mountain Photography

Given everything we've learned thus far, I think we can safely say that 99% of photographers out at that place practice not need a loftier-megapixel camera, especially if we include amateurs. Then, who does?

Well, I also create a lot of commercial still-life images. Inside this arena, the more megapixels the better, and the same can exist said for about commercial photography; fashion, architecture, e-commerce, still life etc. The reason for this comes back to the ability to crop.

If you have a shot of production and want to crop in on ane detail detail, a high-megapixel camera will give you that ability. When photographing very small objects like jewelry, yous can take advantage of that ability to crop and shoot a little wider. The advantage here is, y'all won't have to have quite so many images to focus stack.

The Megapixel War | Summary

For the bulk of photographers out there, the megapixel state of war is a marketing i betwixt manufacturers, and that has niggling to do with you. A photographic camera with 10-twenty megapixels is going to, in near cases, be more than capable of meeting all your needs. You lot'd be served far meliorate by saving coin on your camera and investing in better lenses.

a low angle photo of a bottle of Kronenbourg used to demonstrate the number of megapixels needed for still life photography
Photo by Foursquare Mountain Photography

On the other paw, high-megapixel cameras are exceptionally useful to many, but not all, commercial photographers. Those who need to make meaning crops to their images will find the affluence of megapixels a useful tool. Essentially, beyond a certain number of megapixels, that'south what it becomes. A tool. A tool which is useless to most simply indispensable to others. Don't let the megapixel hype fool y'all into purchasing a camera you lot don't need.

[REWIND: PHOTOSHOP BETTER | USE LINKED SMART OBJECTS TO KEEP PHOTOSHOP FASTER & FLEXIBLE]

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