Last week, while most of us were lost in preparations for Thanksgiving, David Pogue, tech guru for The New York Times, ventured into the streets of New York City to find out once and for all whether or not megapixels matter when it comes to print quality. Pogue showed people three 16 x 24-inch prints made at a professional photo lab. The first print was made from a 13-megapixel image, which was then down-rezzed to 8 and 5 megapixels for the remaining two prints. He posted the three prints in a store window and quizzed dozens of passers-by. The results may leave you in need of a medic.

The vast majority — 95% — of the bloodthirsty shoppers said it was impossible to tell the difference. Several volunteers guessed but failed, and only one (a photography professor) succeeded in correctly identifying the prints to the megapixel counts. Pogue concluded that the professor merely got lucky and there was really was no perceptible difference. Now, even though his experiment is flawed in many regards, the lesson is clear: when buying a digital camera, all factors need to be taken into consideration; a higher megapixel count will not inherently yield higher quality images. — Elliot Black

The New York Times, via Gizmodo