Camera basics - megapixels

You can think of megapixels in the same way as negative size. In film, you can shoot with 35mm film, or 2.5 inch negatives like portrait photographers, or in the old days, guys like Ansel Adams used 5"x7" glass plate negatives. Nowadays, it's hard to find any film other than 35mm or APS (which is even smaller) in the stores. So, more megapixels roughly translates to a larger image.

As you might imagine, more megapixels is nice, but more megapixels do not equal better pictures. A horrible lens or a low quality CCD can both make for a terrible picture despite megapixels.

This is why professionals use SLR's, where it may not have as many megapixels, but the CCD is higher quality and the lenses are better.