Quote Originally Posted by azjoe
It isn't the megapixels that make a good picture. It's the lens, lighting, focus, etc. Anything over 2mp will work fine for posting here. In fact, large MP cameras make it necessary for you to resize the pictures to convert them to a manageable size file for uploading to the site. Here's a good article on the [Megapixel Myth].
I have to agree with this. The megapixels only give you the maximum available resulution. The rest depends on the lens, focus and exposure. If you can get the maximum resolution out of your camera, the resolution of the photo will be determined by how much you enlarge the picture you took. So, a 1mp camera will give you 1000 pixels in height and the same in width.

If you blow it up to quadruple each dimension, you'll have a 4x4 print with a resolution of 250 dots per inch in each dimension. That's a super quality print, and about the size of what you would display. Even if you went to 6x6" you would have a pretty good print.

The reason photos with a 1 mp camera are unsatisfactory is that the other factors have had their effect. They're usually cheap and made foe snapshots. The more expensive cameras have better lenses, better focus systems and better exposure control. With the pixel counts growing you can get a fine quality 3mp camera at a very low price. That should be excellent if you get a brand that has a reputation for cameras- Minolta, Nikon, Canon, Sony, to mention a few. When you find ones that interest you go to "stevesdigicams.com" and find out about it.