Is An 8MP Smartphone Camera Good Enough

When it comes to smartphone cameras, a lot of attention tends to be focused on how many megapixels they have. Many years ago, it was not uncommon to find phones with 1.1MP cameras. And honestly, the picture quality was terrible.

Fast forward to today and you’ll find mobile cameras that have more megapixels than even the best consumer DSLR camera. And the quality of the images they produce is nothing short of stunning for a smartphone camera.

At the tail end of the smartphone megapixels spectrum, you still get mobile cameras that only have 8MP or lower. These don’t get as much attention these days as they would when 5MP mobile cameras were something to boast about. This, then, begs the question…

Is an 8MP mobile camera any good today?

Yes, an 8MP camera can be good enough for taking pictures with a smartphone. That’s because, in the case of megapixels, more is not always better. There are several other factors at play that determine the picture quality of a smartphone camera than just packing it with a ton of megapixels.

This might not make a lot of sense to some people since today’s smartphones have cameras with megapixel counts as high as 48MP, 64MP, and even 108MP! How can a mobile camera with only 8MP compete with that?

To make sense of that, firstly, we need to get a better understanding of what megapixels are and exactly how they affect the image quality.

What are megapixels?

Mega is a prefix that means ‘one million’. Therefore, one megapixel is equal to one million pixels. So, if a mobile camera is said to have 8MP, it means that it has eight million pixels.

portion of picture magnified to show pixels

Pixels are the building blocks of any digital image. If you enlarge a photo taken using any digital camera by quite a lot, you’ll notice that it is made up of many tiny blocks that have their own colour value. These blocks are known as pixels. So, an 8MP digital photo is made up of about eight million of these tiny blocks of colour.

The number of pixels in a digital photo matches the number of photosites (also commonly referred to as pixels) that are found on the surface of the camera sensor. These photosites are responsible for capturing the light that enters the camera to create a digital image.

Therefore, a smartphone camera sensor that has 8 000 000 pixels will produce an 8MP photo.

How do megapixels affect picture quality?

As already mentioned, photosites capture light to create an image. They are like buckets into which light falls. In order to create a good-quality image, these photosites need to catch as much light as possible. So, size is important. The bigger the photosites, the more light they can capture.

This is great for picture quality, especially in low-light conditions. Small pixels cannot capture as much light as big pixels and are susceptible to digital noise when lighting conditions are not ideal. Smartphone cameras with large pixels take better pictures in poor lighting with far less noise.

To learn more about pixel size and how it affects mobile photos, check out The Importance of The Pixel Size In Smartphone Cameras.

How does the number of megapixels affect the image?

The number of pixels a digital image has is also known as image resolution. This is sometimes identified by the width and height of the image, or the total number of pixels in the image. For instance, a digital photo that is 2 448 pixels high and 3 264 pixels wide (2 448 x 3 264 pixels) has a total of 7 990 272 pixels or 8MP.

Similarly, a 12MP photo may have a resolution of 2 800 x 4 290 pixels. By this, it is easy to see that the 12MP photo has a greater resolution than that of the 8MP photo.

Resolution refers to how much detail an image has. The higher the resolution, the sharper and more detailed the image is. Also, high-resolution images are larger in size than low-resolution images.

When it comes printing large-size copies of mobile photos, it’s best to print high-resolution photos because stretching low-res photos to make them larger will result in pixelation.

By this logic, it may seem like more megapixels are ideal. However, that’s not necessarily the case. The size of the sensor plays a big part in the whole equation.

Megapixels and the size of the sensor

The sensor is a device in the camera that creates a digital image from the light it captures in its millions of photosites. The size of the sensor is important because it determines how many pixels the camera has and how big they are.

Smartphone cameras typically have the smallest sensor of any type of consumer camera. For this reason, it’s important that their pixels are as big as possible in order to capture enough light to produce quality photos, especially in poorly lit environments. This, unfortunately, comes at the sacrifice of image resolution.

How?

Let’s say you have two smartphones with the same size mobile camera sensors. If one of them has 8MP and the other one has 16MP, they will produce photos that are very different in quality and size.

Although the 16MP camera has more pixels and will produce larger photos, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will perform as well as the 8MP camera, especially when the lighting is not great. Sure, the photos from the 8MP camera will be smaller than those of the 16MP camera but that’s fine.

You don’t need very high-resolution photos for sharing on social media. What matters most is the picture quality that you get from having large pixels, not necessarily the resolution. But that’s not to say the resolution is not important. There needs to be a balance between the two.

Pixel binning

To further drive home the importance of the size of the pixels over the number of pixels, many if not all smartphones that boast high megapixels use pixel binning by default. This is where neighbouring pixels are merged to form a larger superpixel.

For example, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has a 108MP sensor. However, by default, it takes 12MP photos with larger pixels. This is done by merging nine adjacent pixels into one.

If you want to take a 108MP picture with the phone, you have to change it in the settings. If the resolution was the most important thing, pixel binning would not be necessary.

To learn more about pixel binning and how it works, click here.

Conclusion

So, is an 8MP camera good enough for a smartphone? Absolutely! If you don’t intend on printing large-sized prints of your mobile photos, an 8MP mobile camera is perfectly fine for taking pictures with your phone.

However, the quality of the photos it produces will depend on the size of the sensor and the size of the pixels on it.

But that’s not all. It takes more than just a smartphone with impressive mobile camera specs to capture amazing shots. Other things such as the subject, the lighting, and the composition also play a part in how well your mobile photos turn out.

If you’re new to mobile photography and would like to improve the way your smartphone photos look, you can go ahead and download this free 22-page ebook that will teach you five ways in which you can do so. It is very informative yet simple and easy to understand. And best of all, it’s absolutely free. So, you have nothing lose but some good mobile photography skills to gain.