The Mega-Pixel wars are upon us. Camera manufacturers sling about the Mega-Pixelosity of their latest models luring buyers in with promises of photo excitement, living the mega-cool Flickr© life-style. Are more pixels really the path to photo nirvana or are there hidden costs to this pixel orgy? …More and more pixels are being crammed into smaller and smaller camera bodies at lower and lower prices.

Only a couple of years ago a 6 mega-pixel camera would cost you around $1,000. A 12 or 24 mega-pixel would cost $5,000 – $25,000.  Canon introduced 10 new compacts this month all in the 12 mega-pixel range priced from $129 – $350. We are likely experiencing only the first skirmishes of the digital camera wars, the next few years promise to be truly interesting.

When you move up to high mega-pixel cameras you need to be aware of the hidden impact that all those pixels can have on your wallet. When your camera is able to capture 10, 12, 15 and even 24 mega-pixel photos the files become quite large. In some cases downright huge.

These large files may require you to add more storage space on your computer, more computer memory, a faster computer, better software, a better printer. If you’re not careful that new camera you just bought may cost you a bundle.

How much camera do you really need? Are more mega-pixels really better? Well it depends. It depends on what ultimately you intend to do with the pictures. In general the more pixels your camera can capture the better the photos. Are more pixels the holy-grail? The answer of course is… yes and no.

Boy, we’re not getting very far here are we?

While it’s true that the more pixels you have the more image information you have to work with. But you also need to consider the quality of the information you’ve captured.

Noise is the enemy of digital photo capture. Noise shows up in your photos as random colors in areas where they should not be. Blue or red pixels in shadow areas for instance.

The sensors that are used in modern digital cameras are made up of a matrix of photo-sites. Think of them as little buckets that fill up with light. Each bucket represents a single pixel. The greater the number of pixels on a given sized sensor the smaller each bucket has to be.

These smaller sized photo-sites tend to be noisier than larger photo-sites. This means that at some point higher pixel counts begin to diminish the quality of the captured image at a given sensor size. Camera makers use a variety of techniques to combat this diminishing return but as a user your concern should be whether or not the camera suits your need and at what cost? So what should you consider?

1. How do you typically use your camera? How you use your camera will have a big say in the importance of mega-pixels in your life. If you typically are taking snapshots of your kids or friends at social events your pixel needs are probably only moderate. You may want to choose a camera based on other features such as face recognition. If on the other hand you are using your pictures for publication then pixels become more important.

2. In what lighting conditions do you typically photograph? If most of your photography is outdoors in sunny weather conditions with plenty of light available the amount of noise in your images will be low, even non-existent. You may be able to trade off low-light performance for other features like image stabilization.

3. How do you display your photos? How will you be displaying or using your photos? If you are printing your photos at sizes above 8 x 10 for framing and display, more pixels will become important to you. The more pixels the larger the prints without resorting to software to scale-up the photo. If you typically email your photos to friends and family and occasionally print a snapshot or 5×7 then other camera features may be more beneficial to you.

4. Do you do any post-processing? Whenever you manipulate a photo after you have captured the picture you run the risk of degrading the photo. If you’re doing a lot of digital enhancement you’re better off starting with as much information, (pixels) as you can. If you are simply correcting red-eye, or fixing the color or simple cropping, or doing no photo enhancement at all, once again pixel count may not be the most important feature to consider.

5. What type of supporting equipment do you use? The higher the pixel count the larger the file sizes. If you’ve got a computer mainly set up for simple email and web browsing you might find you need a better computer. You’ve also got to consider how you’ll back up those important photos you’ve been taking. What happens if your computer crashes and you lose your photos?

A high mega-pixel camera can end up costing more in upgrades than the camera itself.

At the moment a compact camera in the 10-12 mega-pixel range will give very good results in decent lighting. Many of these cameras also feature image stabilization, face recognition and red-eye reduction. Decide how you will use your camera and make your selection on the features that will most benefit you. Mega-Pixelosity might be cool, but getting the right camera for your needs is Mega-Cool.

Vincent Laforet shot a short film with a prototype 5D. The movie was hosted on Canons site but it… had 1.5 million views in 10 days and I guess Canon took it down for now because of the bandwidth demand. Vincent reports that it will be available again soon. Check out Vincent’s website here for more information.

The 5D Mk II shoots 16:9 Full HD movie capture at 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30 fps or you can shoot 4:3 standard TV quality 640 x 480 pixels at 30 fps. Oh yeah and still images too! As I mentioned in my post about the 50D the 5D is the next throw down in the hyper-rapid Digital SLR product cycle. Photojournalists and wedding photographers alike have been challenged with increasing demands to provide their clients with video and still imagery of their events. Shooting both up until now has been a compromise or requires both a videographer and photographer. The 5D looks to begin to change all that. Still images are able to be taken simultaneously with motion capture without losing video frames. Does the 5D replace the video camera? Not yet as HD capture is limited to 4 gig clips, 12 minutes of HD video, 24 minutes of standard and once you start taking still images it’ll fill up faster, but it’s certainly more than sufficient to capture “moments”. Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

Canon 50D

The 40D is a great camera and it looks like the 50D only adds to the lineage. We are now in the age of imaging. In the ’80s and ’90s computers were obsolete by the time you bought them. Computing power grew so fast that IT departments had to ask manufactures to slow down their release cycles because it cost too much to keep testing and deploying at such a rapid pace. I see camera technology currently hitting that type of rapid advance and release cycle and will continue for the next several years. The best today will be surpassed literally tomorrow.