5 or more megapixels, better prints?

[TsMom]

Hi,
I'm just curious what you all think. I don't get this apparent trend toward digital cameras with 5 or more megapixels. To those of you who know, please tell me. Do more megapixels REALLY yield significantly better prints at 4X6, 5X7 and 8X10?

I know there are many people who are professional or semi-professional photographers and of course they want as many megapixels as possible. Sometimes, I know it may be necessary to enlarge or crop extensively. THAT I get.

But what about the rest of us, the average users? Is there really any need for more than 4 megapixels? I just bought a Canon Powershot A70 (3.2 megapixels) and I'm thrilled with it. I am a digital scrapper so I understand the need to crop sometimes. I doubt seriously that I'll ever want to enlarge more than 8X10 and that will be a rarity. When I grow out of this camera, which will probably be a long time for now as I can get extra lenses to extend the 3X optical zoom, I will most likely want to focus more on zoom than megapixels.

But a couple of friends and relatives have looked at me wierd when I said I didn't see much need for more than 4 mp as long as the camera had good optical zoom. What do you think?

Just a thought.
LaWanna

[valeri]

Honestly, I love my camera. I get some fantastic shots and it is only 2.1 mp. (it is an Olympus 2100c UZi) I wouldn't trade my 10 x optical zoom w/ IS for anything, including more mp. I know that Canon makes a camera with higher mp now with the IS, but the price tag is more than I could afford. Anyway, I have printed several of my pictures out 8x10. They look fine to me, although I know that I couldn't go much higher. I also know that my opinion is in the minority.

[Rebecca]

I feel that the only reason you would ever need one with more than 4 or 5 MP is if you were aiming for the larger prints. This is why I went with a canon 10D over the 1D that and it was a heck of a lot cheaper but the 1D was a thought till I just thought about why I would need such a large camera.

When printing the larger format photos I find that I need to size them down for a clear print espeacialy when I am printing a 4x6 size photo. I rarely use my camera to do full size photos and keep it to a medium setting. With my little sony I also keep that one to a medium high setting and that one is 3.3 mp. So personally I feel that unless you need larger than life prints that you should concentrate on zoom and shutter speed and pass by paying extra for the MP that you really don't need.

[Fidelis]

For the average snapper a 3mp camera is just fine & will give you pretty good results if your not wanting to enlarge your prints hugely. I have a Fuji finepix f410 just as our family snapper camera & the quality from that is just ace! There is a trend going on at the moment regarding mega pixels but I say most people don't need more than 3mp, its just a craze people are going through but it really isn't necessary to have more!

Thats my thoughts anyway!

Emma.

[Jill]

I have a 4mp canon G3 that I love and have printed up to 11x17 with amazing quality...I cannot see why the average consumer would need anything more than a 3/4 mp camera...I wouldnt spend the money on the extra megapixels....you can save that money and use it for printing all those layouts!!!

:-)

[Sybrina]

I have actually seen camera reviews on tv (tech tv) that has basically said the same thing. That for non professionals a 3/4 megapixel camera is Great. Here is the upside to this craze for us. The higher megapixel cameras coming out will drive down the cost of the "lower" mp cameras and we can have our pick from the lot LOL Mine is a 3.2 Olympus c-730 ultra zoom 10x optical which prints Great 8x10's and the zoom was the main selling point for this camera plus a lot of the other cool features like the dual type memory card (xd and smartmedia), video with sound for the amount of memory and so on. I do think that if you fell in love with a camera that had less optical then the need for 4/5 megapixels would be more important but the 8 megapixels until the price is more affordable are really exessive in My opinion. I don't think you are alone in your opinion Like I said I have seen reviews that mimic what we think :)