Best picture quality with 6 megapixel!, or an assertion that, as the number of pixels in a compact camera increases beyond 6 million, the image quality decreases; the finer pixels have lower sensitivity and dynamic range, and thus are more susceptible to noise, while suppressing the noise algorithmically results in loss of actual picture resolution. Of course, the clueless masses, who don't like to think about these things, have been conditioned to equate higher numbers of megapixels with better quality, and will thus happily shell out more money for cameras with poorer image quality and the assurance that they are actually better because the files they produce are bigger.

Posted by: Aitor | | Mon Dec 24 17:21:59 2007

Coincidentally, I read something about this last night:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/12/22/Megapixel-Madness

Posted by: gjw | http://plastic.tumblr.com/ | Thu Dec 27 01:12:22 2007

It's very true, but surely this 6-megapixel limit isn't fixed for all time? Things are going to improve, presumably. My more general suggestion is to find the latest, greatest number of megapixels in the newest point-and-shoot cameras, knock off about 30%, and buy a new camera with that many megapixels instead. A few years ago, I tried out one of the latest 6mp cameras, and was so disgusted by the image quality I returned it the next day to exchange for a much higher quality 4mp camera.

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