Picture taking difference between image size!?

Question

so i recently bought a Sony DSC-W170...

what i want to know is the difference in picture quality when i upload my pictures online, let say for facebook, xanga, myspace or any other stuff, between the image size.

like 10mega pixels, 5mp, 3mp, vga, 3:2, 16:9+, and 16:9

also for the internal memory of 15mb, when i tried taking pictures with 10mp, image capacity(amount of pictures i can take) is 3, while when i take it with vga (no idea what this is) image capactiy is 96

so yeah, i just wanna know why 10mp takes up so much space, while vga and the others take up less, and if i take pictures with vga, will i get a worse quality compared with 10mp...

thanks

Answer 1

Vga means you're pics are only 720 X 400 pixels which is fine for screen facebook, myspace etc.., but are useless if you want to print them.

Your camera allows you to select 10Mp, 5Mp, or 3Mp. a 10Mp will allow a print of A3 size or even larger, 5Mp about A4 and 3Mp allows a 7" X 5" or so. I suspect that the 10Mp is 'interpolated' which means the camera adds pixels so it will print big, but quality will not be very good. Look in your manual for the highest 'optical' size which I suspect will be 5Mp or even just 3Mp, and shoot in that (sometimes they call it sensor resolution). Image editing programs like Photoshop will do a much better job of 'interpolating' than your camera will.

3:2, 16:9 etc refers to the 'aspect ratio' (the height to width ratio. 3:2 is standard for most photographs, 16:9 is like a 'panorama'.

Chris