How many megapixels

[head]

Just got a new camera, not much of a photographer. The camera is a 16 megapixel, do I take the photo's at 16 or set a lower number of megapixels in.
Thanks Neil

[Tony T]

What sort of camera, Neil?

[Rossvickicampbell]

usually the more megapixels the better the quality - set it on "large" and the photos will be at max.  Allows for more editing options - but then if you don't want to print large photos maybe not needed - whole kettle of fish!

[head]

Olympus SZ-20. SZ being super zoom. The SZ-20 offers an ultra slim design, 16 MP backlit CMOS sensor, SLR-like image quality, Full HD movie & a powerful 12.5x optical zoom. Got it with my credit card points.

[PEZBerq]

Large size photos can be painful to email and post on line. Think about what you will be doing with your  photos. I find 1 megapixel is fine for most happy snaps and gives you heaps of storage on the camera card. If you are into photography and want to print out large size photos then the larger the megapixel size the better. Also bigger file sizes chew up storage on the computer quicker than smaller files. 16 mp is massive and I   wouldn't shot at that resolution unless I was doing family portraits or other special photos. Cheers

[lukeb1961]

I cannot imagine anybody today using less than 5MP, as that renders a decent 8x10" printout.
That model has good optical zoom too. Use the 5MP or 8MP settings for most and the 16MP for the Serious Photos.
16MP would pump out something like a 6Mb image, so don't try e-mailing that to your friends.
Luke

[Rossvickicampbell]

However - take good quality photos and easily convert prior to emailing.  With disk storage being so cheap nowadays you can have hi res stored photos and still mail your mates?