Does more megapixels gives you better image quality?

Cameras and their sensors getting everyday better and better with their capability of taking photos with a lot of details.

But one question is always asked, does more Megapixels make your photos better?

A lot of salesman that work in some store with a lot of tech are talking to their costumers about how much Megapixel does camera have and they think it will take better photos. Like 24 megapixels or higher than this number. I can clearly say that they are wrong about that. And when you combine these 24 or higher megapixel to crop sensor of one camera you are getting even worse performance because of how much megapixel is stuck to this little sensor.

There are two sensors that are used today and that is CCD (charged coupled device) and CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor).

CCD is older technology than CMOS. CCD still reproduces good image quality and today is often used for cheaper cameras to reduce its price. It has really good power consumption which gives longer battery life for cameras.
But there is CMOS sensor that is used for almost every new camera, because it has better quality and gives better dynamic range than CCD. CMOS sensor is way better improvement than CCD because have much better power consumption, better performance for taking continuous photos with faster burst rate.

my camera sensor (Canon 600D with APS-C sensor)

Sizes of sensors

There is a lot of sizes that sensor can have:

• Full frame (36x24mm)
• APS-C (23.6x15.8mm)
• Micro 4/3 (17.3x13mm)
• CX (13.2x8mm)
  There is also smaller sensors that are meant for point and shoot cameras and phones. I won't talk about them.

Source WIKI CC BY-SA 3.0

Full frame

Is the largest sensor that is same as 35mm film. With this sensor you are getting amazing image quality with good low light performance. This sensor is almost twice larger than APS-C sensors. Just imagine, 24mpx on Full frame and APS-C sensors. You can clearly say that Full frame sensor will give much more space for pixels to "breathe" which will give much more better performance in low light because pixels are bigger than in APS-C sensor. Bigger pixels means better low light performance and better image quality. Don't be confused about bigger and more megapixels, that is a huge difference! Everything said here will be same for every sensor. So by getting smaller sensor you are getting worse performance for your camera.

Let me prove my point about megapixels

I will show you one example. The best example will be SONY A7S (low light beast!) with Full frame sensor and 12 megapixels. It can see literally in dark! It was produced back in 2014. that was the best low light camera that came that year. Why? Because, as I said, gives pixels more space to "breathe" which gives much more light to sensor that will have much less noise on photos with higher ISO.

Here is perfect example of SONY A7S performance in low light against Canon 5d mark 3 that also have Full frame senor but more megapixels

One more thing that you need to hear about camera sensors is their temperature. The whole point about megapixels and sensors is their low light performance and of course image quality. If you are using your camera for taking long exposures with higher ISO you need to pay attention to sensor temperature. Because sensors are getting hot when you give him heavy task to do. Longer exposure it is, hotter will sensor be which will give you noise to your photo even though you are using ISO 100 for example and exposure of about 30 minutes or so. You will think that photo will be noise free, you are wrong.

For example, that is why cameras for astrophotography are different. They have fan and cooler that will reduce sensor temperature to get better results in long exposure photos. One thing that will help you reduce noise is cold weather, Winter for example is the best season for that.

RECAP

So let's recap everything that I said. Answer is NO! More megapixels doesn't give you better image quality, sensor is what it makes your image quality better. Like I said in example of SONY A7S, it has just 12mpx but Full frame sensor which gives you amazing image quality. If you are thinking of buying your first camera, pay attention to what sensor does it have and how many megapixel does it have. More megapixel is only good if you want to make bigger print of your photo and that is it.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope this was useful for you! :)