The Secret Behind "More Megapixels"

When I bought my first digital camera, I didn't know much about how many megapixels the camera should have. I went for the most megapixels I could get within my budget.

Now that I've bought a few more cameras, I've learned that how many megapixels a camera has plays a very, very tiny part in the final quality of the pictures. I currently have a Canon SD500 (7.1 megapixel) and a Canon EOS 20D (8 megapixel) but when I look back at the pictures I took with my Canon G1 (3 megapixel), it's interesting to note that the pictures are every bit as good as my current cameras (I've included one with this post...the elephant scared the crap out of me). I took my Canon G1 to Africa in 2002 and of course I would have rather have had something like my Canon EOS 20D but I'm not disappointed in the resulting pictures that I have from that trip.

The NY Times has a good article debunking the megapixel myth. As they state:

But one myth is so deeply ingrained, millions of people waste money on it
every year. I’m referring, of course, to the Megapixel Myth.
It goes like this: “The more megapixels a camera has, the better the pictures.”
It’s a big fat lie. The camera companies and camera stores all know it, but they continue to exploit our misunderstanding. Advertisements declare a camera’s megapixel rating as though it’s a letter grade, implying that a 7-megapixel model is necessarily better than a 5-megapixel model.

Read the full article to understand what I've learned through trial and error.