[sublime]

I'm a bloody idiot when it comes to cameras. I tried asking another site but got no response. Is it better to have 3 megapixels and no optical zoom or 2 megapixels and 3x optical zoom?

Don't laugh at me

[sublime]

I'm a bloody idiot when it comes to cameras. I tried asking another site but got no response. Is it better to have 3 megapixels and no optical zoom or 2 megapixels and 3x optical zoom?

Don't laugh at me

[Jeff Rutledge]

I am pretty sure the answer is that it's not the same, but I'm no better at understanding digital photography than you.

However, I'm pretty sure there was an article on this exact topic at Digital Media Thoughts. You may want to poke around there.

[Fishie]

No its not the same.
Optical zoom means its like a binocular, it can magnify whats in the distance witouth loss of quality but it remains the same pixel count.
Software zoom just blows up the picture you have and that goes with loss of quality.

[sublime]

So which would you suggest is better? To optical zoom with a smaller megapixel count, or to have the higher megapixel count with no optical zoom?

[Locksmith]

Best rule to follow when buying or evaluating digital cameras is to ignore and never use digital zoom.

Optical zoom is what you are used to in a film camera. The lens of the camera magnifies the image and gives you the best image with no loss of quality.

Digital zoom takes a small part of your digital image, cuts off the rest, and then enlarges the remainder to fill the screen, with a resulting loss of quality. You can do digital zoom much better on your desktop computer.

[Kati Compton]

They don't quite do the same thing, so it's hard to say which is more important. I mean, you can simulate having more optical zoom with a higher number of pixels - you can crop. But I'm not sure you'll find a 4Mpixel camera with a 2x zoom and a 1 Mpixel camera with a 8x optical zoom to compare, and if you did, the "better" choice would depend on what you needed it for.

On the whole, I'd suggest that the Megapixels is more important, because it gives you a little more flexibility to have big pictures that are zoomed out...

But to address the original post - the number of pixels is set by the camera (there's the upper limit, but you can usually take lower resolution pictures if you WANTED), and the zoom just affects what area is captured by those same # of pixels. So a higher number of Megapixels makes the same image sharper.

Think of megapixels as analagous to DPI.

[Dave Potter]

Unless your a really serious zoom meister - I'd go with the camera with the most megapixels. (There are some really nice 3.1 MP fixed lens Canons out there)

[JustinGTP]

The higher the megapixels, the better the look and quality of your picture. You want lots of those, I have a 3.2mp and they are nice. I also have 3X optical zoom and 4 times digital, but I dont bother with the digital - it is useless!

-Justin.

[ignar]

But, between 3 megapixels with no optical zoom and 2 megapixels with 3x optical zoom, I will go for a 2 mega one. 2 megapixel is good enough for snap pictures unless you print a large picture. Optical zoom is very useful, and your legs will thank you.

[shah]

i used to do a lot of photography. If landscape and stuff are your forte, then 2 Mega with and Optical zoom is better than a fixed 3 mega.


Unless you are into didgital printing in which case get a 4-6 mega with a SLR..... or else 2x is fine.

Also depends on make and comptression algorithm used.. so three different cameras will give three different results even with the same mega pixels..!