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How many times have you seen mobile phone companies boast about the number of megapixels in the camera of their latest model? How many times have you had to suffer a friend mocking you for having a lesser-megapixel camera phone than him? Many times, I am sure.

Sony Ericsson recently revealed a soon-to-be-launched 12 MP-camera phone code-named Idou. They already have phones with 8 MP cameras that they proudly advertise. 8 MP! Wow! That must be so awesome huh? “I can’t even image the quality of photos that the phone will click,” you think. But hold on. Does the number of megapixels in a camera really matter that much? Is the hype surrounding high-megapixel phones justified? Or is it just an advertising gimmick? Do phones with more megapixels really click better pics?

Ok, that pic is funny, no doubt! But it is also true. More megapixles don’t always get you better pics. Read on…

Let’s first find out what the image quality of a digital camera really depends on.

The image quality of any digital camera depends mainly on two things:

1. the quality and size of the sensor

2. the number of megapixels

Simply speaking, a sensor in a digital camera is a device that converts optical signals to electrical impulses. Yes, I know that sounds complicated, but bear with me here. I simply mean to say that “image” that you are going to capture gets converted into electrical signals. That’s enough knowledge for the moment.

Now, the bigger a sensor is, the more sensitive it is to light. Bigger sensors also improve the sharpness of the image.

Phone manufacturers, of course, are trying to make their phones as small as possible. This makes it impossible to fit a good sized sensor inside. As a result, image quality suffers, especially in low light.

The number of megapixels, on the other hand, only help in improving the overall size of the image. Pixels, as you know, are the smallest part of an image. Those tiny little squares that everyone keeps talking about. 1 megapixel equals 1 million pixels! So the more megapixels you have, the bigger your image is.

But is a bigger image better? Not necessarily. Image quality will also depend on the resolution. Resolution is the number of pixels in every inch. The higher the resolution, the better the image will be for the same size. For example, a 300 ppi (pixels per inch) image is a lot better than a 200 ppi image of the same size. While a 100 ppi image measuring 1×1 inches is the same as a 10 ppi image measuring 10×10 inches. Of course, this is just an example. You won’t find any images at such a low resolution. But the point here is, increasing the size simply “pulls” the pixels further apart, making the image look blurred(or pixellated).

Further, more megapixels will not help you snap better images in low intensity light. Nor will it ensure a high colour contrast, or sharpness of the image.

Using a high megapixel camera in a phone has its disadvantages too. To start with, the images captured take up a lot more memory. The size of each image may even be higher than 1MB. Phones don’t have unlimited storage. And then you have also got your music tracks to think of, haven’t you?

Plus, it slows the phone down, too. Phones are not known for their fast processors. And a fast processor is precisely what you will need if you are going to use a 12 MP camera. Otherwise you can forget using your phone for a couple of minutes each time you click a photo. Not an appealing idea, is it?

So now you know that more megapixles aren’t necessarily better. But if that is true, why is there so much hype about them? Why are people going crazy about the number of megapixels in their phone cameras?

The answer to that is pretty simple. It was all started by mobile phone companies. Listing the number of pixels in a camera was the easiest way to brag about their camera phones. Forget sensors and lens quality. They are too difficult for the customers to comprehend in any case. So they just keep going on and on about the number of pixels in their camera. And increasing just one row of pixels in any direction goes a long way in increasing the overall megapixel number, since it is a multiplication of the number of rows by the number of columns of pixels. So it is pretty easy for phone manufacturers to increase the megapixel number without improving the image quality much.

Ok, so now you must be thinking “how many megapixels do I really need?” For most uses, a 3.2MP camera (with auto-focus) will be enough. 3.2 MP means 3.2 million pixels! More than you need, unless you are looking to print big posters, in which case you would need to get a stand-alone camera anyway. A phone camera is simply not good enough for such purposes.

There you have it. The megapixel myth is busted. be adviced…more megapixels does NOT mean better images!

-BoxieBlue