How good is the quality of a 1.3 mega pixel camera?

[downhiller80]

Aihya: What makes you claim that 300dpi is "true" photo quality?

Obviously the more dpi you have, the better. But you'd be hard pressed to tell a 200dpi print from a 300dpi one without the aid of a loupe. Anything over 150dpi is acceptable. 200dpi is great. 300dpi? Slightly excessive I'd say. Sure, nice if you've got it but if I had 300dpi at 8"x10" I'd be happy printing upto 12"x15" or whatever.

- seb

 

[Aihyah]

Photos are expressed as bitmap images. An image consist of pixels ("picture elements") -- tiny coloured bits of square tiles. A photo on the screen may look crystal sharp but when you zoom in to 200- or 400-percent enlargement, you will see that it consists of nothing but the coloured tiles, much like a picturesque mosaic floor (see photos on right).

The quality of your photo depends on the number of pixels in each square inch of the image, expressed as DPI (dots per inch) or PPI (pixels per inch). You need 300 DPI to print a picture that looks as good as one from a processing lab.

Bitmap images come in several file formats, e.g. Windows Bitmap (.bmp), JPEG (.jpg) and TIFF (.tif). Both BMP and TIFF image files are very large, up to 30MB for a half A4-sized image at 300 DPI.

For practical reasons, most users prefer their photo files to be in JPEG format, where the data is compressed to about 1/20th or 1/30th of its original size, but with minimal loss in quality. So, a 30MB TIFF file can be reduced into a 1MB JPEG file.



just did a quick search forgot where i originally read it. you can get away with less, but true photographic quality is a claim that gets thrown around i'm so lazy..

http://www.solowatersports.com/pressquality.htm

http://www.google.com/search?q=photo+quality+AND+300+dpi

 

[Macro2]

2.1 megapixel is a nice compromise...
I have 3.34 and rarely if ever use that high of a resolution.
Optical zoom and memory are very important as well..

Mac

 

[new99]

pretty damn good [for the price], if you ask me...