I’ve heard about megapixels being the amount of pixels in millions that a camera can take but I don’t understand how a Canon EOS R6 II can take better photos zoomed in than an iPhone 15 PM with optical zoom despite having a lower megapixel count.
I don’t get how a megapixel count correlates to the resolution, and how significant it is to the quality of the image.
In: Technology
With cameras the megapixels are literally the number of pixels. 20 megapixels means there are 20 million pixels on the sensor and there will be 20 million pixels on the output photo (lets call it 5470 x 3660 pixels).
BUT the number of pixels isn’t the only factor, there is also the size of the sensor. [Look at the size of the sensor on the EOS R6](https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/0000646042/canon-eos-r6-beauty-shots/2950879552), that entire rectangle inside the lens mount is all sensor. Absolutely huge! The sensor in an iPhone 15 is [this tiny little thing](https://wccftech.com/iphone-15-pro-max-new-48mp-sony-sensor-and-other-camera-details/).
Also look at the size of the lens, the iPhone has those tiny little lenses on the front, the EOS R6 [not so small](https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/0000646042/canon-eos-r6-beauty-shots/1025571375)
This much bigger sensor and much bigger lens means there is a lot more total light hitting the sensor, and each pixel sensor is much bigger so can hold more total light before getting full.
This is what lets those bigger cameras capture much better looking images even if technically they have less megapixels, because the pixel sensors they have are individually better quality and the lens is physically capturing more light.
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