There’s probably more talk about sensors in digital photography than anything else, so here’s a run-down on sensor basics and everything you need to know to make sense of the jargon. First of all, sensors are made using two types of chip technology. They’re often used in sensor descriptions so it makes sense to mention […]
Megapixels (MP)
The number of pixels captured by the camera’s sensor. Smartphones typically have around 8 megapixels and upwards, while regular digital cameras typically have 16 megapixels or more. Megapixels used to be a good guide to image quality but now sensor size is more important.
Sensor size and why it matters
In the days of film, it was well understood that the bigger the negative, the better the quality of the picture. The same is true with digital cameras, only here the ‘negative’ is the sensor. The larger the sensor size, the better (generally) the picture quality. Megapixels do confuse the issue somewhat because you can […]