Oh--and more megapixels is just a sales pitch unless ALL of the following are true:
1. You are making hugely enlarged prints.
2. The optics of the camera are so excellent (and the lighting and picture conditions good enough) that those extra pixels aren't just blurry or grainy anyway.
3. You aren't using significant JPEG compression--either on disk or to fit more images in flash memory--which would reduce the quality.
In fact, I've seldom seen any REAL use for more than 3 megapixels among the people I know. So 5 should be plenty. For perspective: a 1024x768 computer display is only .79 megapixels. A 5 megapixel image is six-and-one-third times larger than an iBook screen, in pixel detail.
6 or 7? It's like MHz numbers--sounds good on paper or coming out of a salesperson's mouth. And it's a reason to make you buy more flash memory. If those extra pixels won't affect your final print in any noticeable way, and could never be seen on-screen without cropping in really far (to the point where optical defects may become apparent anyway), then all you're doing is using up expensive camera memory--and HD space--and CPU time--and camera price--for no good reason.
Basically if you don't already know you have a specialized need for more than 3-to-5 megapixels, then you probably don't. I'd spend on size/convenience/features instead.
1. You are making hugely enlarged prints.
2. The optics of the camera are so excellent (and the lighting and picture conditions good enough) that those extra pixels aren't just blurry or grainy anyway.
3. You aren't using significant JPEG compression--either on disk or to fit more images in flash memory--which would reduce the quality.
In fact, I've seldom seen any REAL use for more than 3 megapixels among the people I know. So 5 should be plenty. For perspective: a 1024x768 computer display is only .79 megapixels. A 5 megapixel image is six-and-one-third times larger than an iBook screen, in pixel detail.
6 or 7? It's like MHz numbers--sounds good on paper or coming out of a salesperson's mouth. And it's a reason to make you buy more flash memory. If those extra pixels won't affect your final print in any noticeable way, and could never be seen on-screen without cropping in really far (to the point where optical defects may become apparent anyway), then all you're doing is using up expensive camera memory--and HD space--and CPU time--and camera price--for no good reason.
Basically if you don't already know you have a specialized need for more than 3-to-5 megapixels, then you probably don't. I'd spend on size/convenience/features instead.
