What is Megapixel? – Definition, Advantages & Disadvantages, And More

Definition Megapixel

A megapixel is one million pixels. And what are the pixels? According to Wikipedia, “it is the smallest homogeneous unit in the color that is part of a digital image, be it a photograph, a frame, a video, or a graphic.”

We can check the pixels by ourselves when we enlarge an image a lot; there will come the point where we see some squares that moving away, create the image that we see clearly. Each square is a pixel, and one million of those squares are a megapixel. We could say that it is a way of measuring the image.

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Advantages of Megapixels

On the one hand, having many megapixels at your disposal can offer you some advantages: by revealing a photo, you can make more substantial enlargements. Here you have an orientation table, to know to what size you can expand in maximum quality according to megapixels.

1. 4 Megapixels 21 x 14 cm
2. 6 Megapixels 25 x 17 cm
3. 8 Megapixels 28 x 21 cm
4. 10 Megapixels 33 x 22 cm
5. 12 Megapixels 36 x 24 cm
6. 16 Megapixels 42 x 28 cm
7. 20 Megapixels 46 x 31 cm
8. 24 Megapixels 51 x 34 cm

If you have to crop a photo, by having more resolution, you can also trim more by losing less image quality.

Disadvantages of Megapixels

However, having a camera that takes photos with many megapixels also has its drawbacks. The most prominent and the easiest you can see is that the images weigh more, and over time you will realize that the photos taken with a 20-megapixel camera occupy twice as much as one that makes you 10. It will happen to you when you save them to the hard drive of the computer, on your memory card, it will also mark you that you have fewer photos available.

That said, before buying a camera, do not be fooled and think if you deserve to pay more for a few megapixels that you will rarely use. If you are going to take pictures to send to an agency, or do some specific work, they will indeed ask for high-resolution images so that megapixels will be essential. But if what you want is to mess with your camera when you go on vacation, give it a couple more turns to the head before buying.

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