Re: Digital Camera Advice

Posted by jahrome on Feb 1, 2005

Good point, beyond 4 or 5 megapixel it requires more study to say if a camera it "better" simply because it has more megapixels.

Digital cameras use something called a CCD - charged coupled device. It's the digital equivalent of film. Basically it's millions of little light activated pits (being non-technical here) on a grid. Light hits them and what is represented on that CCD is what gets transferred and stored on whatever media you use - memory stick ,etc.

Well not all CCDs are created equal - they can be different size and different quality. A larger CCD with 5 megapixels, is much better than a smaller CCD with the equivalent number. With a smaller CCD, there is a law of diminishing returns where it's no benefit to cram more pits in a small space. I doubt the manufacturers tell you any of this unless it's a high end camera.

In my opinion, you're better off looking for the best optics with 4 or 5 MP or above. A lot of these expensive cameras they send into space are ONLY 1 megapixel believe it or not! Their optics are 2nd to none however and produce superior images.

I hear Olympus are very rugged cameras as already mentioned. I'm partial to Canon for ease of use and good picture quality.

My wife has a Sony which is good in certain conditions. Outdoors it always gets it right. Indoors requires too much tweaking and we get a lot of bad pictures.

In Response to: Re: Digital Camera Advice by Steve Miller on Feb 1, 2005

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