What are megapixels?

Question

My new digital camera has 8 "megapixels". I am not sure what "megapixels" are.

Answer 1

The first answer is bang on! But when buying a camera the sensor size and lens have a lot to do with quality too.

The sensor in a compact camera isnt very big whereas an SLR's sensor is much bigger producing an overall better picture quality. A 6MP SLR (e.g. Nikon D40) is going to be better than an 8MP compact generally.

Also lens quality matter a lot. At the end of the day the light passing through the lens is what makes the picture so even an expensive SLR with crappy cheap lens is going to struggle.

I know its a bit more than you were asking but thought I'd give some advice anyway.

Answer 2

megapixels are roughly one million pixels.

A pixel is a small dot, many of which make up an image.

Your camera takes images in the 8 million pixel range.

The number is basically a multiplication of your camera's max resolution width/height.

Read source for more info and better description.