What is more important when buying a Digital Camera-Megapixels or Optical Zoom?

Chastity Doderer: Go for Optical zoom.Mega pixels doesn't make a good photo. Good Optics does.To make you understand a little bit better, a Point & Shoot digital camera has a sensor of the size 6x6mm (approx). As such when manufacturers cram in more & more megapixels, they are only helping to make the picture more noisier (more grains in photos). This is where DSLRs win hands down. For same megapixels, a large sensor will always perform better in terms of photo quality, colour reproduction, noise & dynamic range. This is because the pixels are bigger in the DSLR and hence have more capacity to collect data. As such the final product is far better.Check this excellent link for further info: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital......Show more

Kip Ockenfels: Go for more megapixels.

Chauncey Williama: Mega-pixels.