Kevin Whibley of Captured Moment in Fleet has kindly agreed to provide hints and tips for would-be photography competition winners. In addition, with over 20 years photography experience, Kevin will be delighted to answer any photography question you may have. You can pose questions on this blog by submitting a comment (see below this post).
Today’s question: What is a megapixel?
Each image is made up of a number of dots of different colours. Each dot is called a pixel. From here you get the number of megapixels (mpg) that your camera has.
For example a 5 mgp camera produces an image made up of 5 million pixels creating an image approximately 1826 pixels high by 2739 pixels wide (1826 x 2739 = 5,001,414).
A 12 mgp camera produces 12 million pixels as follows: 2828 pixels high by 4242 pixels wide (2828 x 4242 = 11,996,376).
So what does the above mean in real terms with regard to the quality of your images? The optimum print quality level is 300 dpi, which means 300 dots for every inch of print. Whilst good print quality can be achieved at lower levels I would not advise going below 150 dpi. So from this we can see that our 12mgp cameras optimum image size is 9.5 inches by 14 inches: 9.5” x 300 dpi = 2850 pixels and 14” x 300 dpi = 4200 pixels.
An acceptable image can normally be produced up to 20” x 30” from a well taken shot.
Further hints and tips will include hints on lighting, composition etc. Kevin will also reveal why a 12mgp camera may not necessarily produce better pictures than a 5mgp one!
Reminders!
FPS Photo Competition 2009 – deadline for entries: Thursday 31 December 2009
BBC Countryside Photo Competition 2009 – deadline for entries: Friday 4 September 2009
Picture credit: see FPS Photo Competition link above.
What is the best size of print to send in to a comp?
Hi Linda
The size of the photo for the FPS Comp is 10cm x15cm. This size is fairly standard but may possibly vary from competition to competition.
Hope this helps
David