STOP THE MEGAPIXEL MADNESS

This inaugural blog post is an appeal to all digital camera manufacturers to stop using megapixels to market cameras and start making image quality better by decreasing the megapixel count. The average person has little to no idea how digital photography works and they, understandably, look for some way to quantify "better" when comparing cameras. The megapixel count fits the bill perfectly: it's a number that is always advertised and often times printed right on the camera itself and this simplistic idea that a higher number means better quality is easy to swallow and the camera manufacturers know this.

When people talk to me about digital cameras (a conversation that is almost always instigated by the other person when they find out I'm a photographer) they invariably ask how many magapixels my camera has. In their mind this is a measure of the seriousness of what I do. They then go on to ask me about this or that camera seeking my opinion and I usually have to say that I don't know because I don't follow all the latest camera models. "But I just got this XYZ camera. It's 12 megapixels. That's good isn't it?!" I usually don't know what to say so I just reply, "Sure. Sounds good. OK. Yeap."

The reality is that the number of pixels don't matter, the physical size of them does. In fact, unless you increase the physical dimensions of the chip, then you MUST make the pixels smaller in order to increase the number of pixels. The math is pretty basic. As you make each pixel smaller you make the quality worse. You get more noise, less detail and an increasingly limited value range. If more magapixels really meant higher quality then why would anyone pay $4000.00 (body only) for a 10 megapixel Canon 1D MkIII when you can buy a 12 megapixel Nikon Coolpix S700 for a hundred bucks!?

If you really want to measure the image quality you need to look at the pixel density. As opposed to megapixels, this actually does give you a good idea of what you can expect when comparing quality between one camera and another. You express the pixel density by saying how many megapixels there are per square centimeter of sensor real estate. It's a little more involved than a simple number and to further make this less appealing to the macho-photo crowds, the lower the number the better.

Even if more megapixels did make the image better quality (which it doesn't) then you still have the problem that in order to actually see that better quality you would have to make prints large enough to use all that pixel information. I've never taken any scientific survey to see what people do with their digital images but from what I've seen at labs, heard from talking to friends and family and what I've read online - most people don't even print their pictures at all much less make large sized prints so why would they even care that their camera has ten, twelve or more megapixels? A six megapixel image can produce a beautiful 16x20 print with zero interpolation. How many people are printing larger than this on a regular basis? Not many I think. Some people never even have their 12 megapixel cameras set to the highest resolution anyway and only look at their images online so what's the point?

What it all boils down to is that camera manufacturers need a reason for you to keep buying new camera models. You might want to get a camera that is faster or has better optics and those can be arguably good reasons to buy a new camera but a lot of people I talk to are buying new cameras because the megapixels keep getting higher and higher and it sounds like a good thing. I have a Canon G9 and it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I love the body design and the features but overall I'd say this camera kind of sucks. Unless you're in really bright light and can use the lowest ISO settings of 80 or 100 then the images are so noisy that they really aren't usable for anything serious. There is no reason this camera should be 12.1 megapixels (yes, not just 12 but 12.1!) The chip is still the same tiny sized chip Canon has been using in the G series cameras all along. If Canon put a high quality 6 megapixel chip in the G9 body you would have a very serious camera that I would use a lot. In terms of print quality, I almost prefer my 4 megapixel Canon G2 that I've had for almost 9 years. And now the Canon G10 is available with 14.7 megapixels and I can only assume that the image quality has gotten even worse. Come on Canon!

I don't expect this to change. In fact, I expect the small point and shoot cameras to start coming out with 18 or 20 megapixel chips soon and I'm sure people will eat them up. I just hope that the camera companies will preserve the professional level DSLR focus on the real factors that increase image quality and keep this foolish megapixel numbers game out of the picture.