Digital Cameras Buying Guide

Don't be mystified by jargon or fooled by hype. Our comprehensive Buying Guides help you choose the right products.

What you need to know, from the kind of user you are to current technologies:

HOW MANY MEGAPIXELS DO I NEED?

As much as we'd like to give a one-word answer, this is one of the trickiest questions in digital photography, so we'll provide a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer | The long answer

The short answer

For any images you plan to print or retouch, we recommend you stick to 3-megapixel resolution and higher; Web- and email-only photos should be fine at resolutions below that. For prints A4 or larger, look for digicams with 4-megapixel resolution or higher.

The long answer

It depends upon what you're doing with the picture and how you're doing it.

Hint: If you're going to display or print pictures at smaller-than-actual-pixel size, resolution doesn't matter much -- opt for the camera with the best colour.

The images below were shot with a 2-megapixel and a 4-megapixel camera, respectively, and scaled down to smaller-than-actual size. Aside from slight colour differences, they should look pretty similar.

2-megapixel

4-mexapixel

Hint: If you're going to crop in close or print large, higher resolution lets you crop in closer and get better prints.

Let's say you want to blow up a detail shot or print a picture. That's where extra resolution comes in handy, for both printing and Web display. The 2-megapixel shot (left) is obviously too blurry, but the 3-megapixel (middle) and 4-megapixel (right) shots come pretty close to each other. Which could you live with?