Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 - Megapixel Help?

[Scousefire]

Hi Guys...

This is my first post to the forums and I need a bit of help.
I am using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 and have been doing for a while, unfortunately when I take images on the highest picture quality setting on the camera, they only come out at around 2.9MB tops, yet I was surprised to read that the camera has a maximum of 5MB Mega Pixels?

Is this something to do with the memory card I am using, as I cannot find anything to increase the size on the camera.

PS - I am very new to digital photography and pretty much only know the basics.

Thanks in advance
Andy

[Fen]

There is a difference between Megapixel and MB

MB is Megabytes and has nothing to do with megapixel. Megabytes is just for the filesize.

Megapixel is wrote as 'mp' not 'mb'

A photo at 5mp will vary of filesize depending on how much information is in the photo

[Scousefire]

There is a difference between Megapixel and MB

MB is Megabytes and has nothing to do with megapixel. Megabytes is just for the filesize.

Megapixel is wrote as 'mp' not 'mb'

A photo at 5mp will vary of filesize depending on how much information is in the photo

Ah right, thanks - I didnt actually know that.
Basically, I wish to submit my images to a magazine, but the editorial team stress that any digital images MUST be over 3.3 Megapixels.
My pictures are constantly turning out at around 2.9MB, so is there a way of knowing how many megapixels this would be?

Thanks for your help, cheers

[Fen]

You're confusing the two.

What setting did you shoot the photos on? If you shot them at 5mp (megapixel) then they will be 5mp

1mp doesn't equal 1mb (megabyte)

[Roy5051]

Is the 2.9MB the size of the picture on your hard drive, or the size when opened in your image editinmg program?

A 5MP camera, where the pictures are taken at full resolution (Largest Size option on the camera) should open in your image editing program at approx 15MB, but may well appear on your hard disk as 2.9MB because of image compression by the camera. All cameras that use JPEG (file extension .jpg) for their pictures compress the image so that you can get more pictures on your memory card. It may well appear that your picture is only 2.9MB, but this is the compressed size. Open it in your image editing program (Photoshop or Elements) and the opened size will show at the bottom left corner of the screen.

[ermintrude]

Basically, I wish to submit my images to a magazine, but the editorial team stress that any digital images MUST be over 3.3 Megapixels.
My pictures are constantly turning out at around 2.9MB, so is there a way of knowing how many megapixels this would be?

Thanks for your help, cheers

As the others have said forget the MB (megabytes). A quick Google shows your camera shoots "5.0 million effective pixels" in the following options:

• 2560 x 1920
• 2048 x 1536
• 1600 x 1200
• 1280 x 960
• 640 x 480
• 1920 x 1080 (HDTV 16:9)

You need to select the first option, 2560 x 1920. 2560 x 1920 = 4,915,200 pixels ie almost 5 million pixels - five Megapixels.

The size in MB (megabytes) is nothing to do with the size in MP (megapixels). Megabytes is just the memory required to store the information about the pixel content and is calculated mathematically so varies depending on the picture - a plain blue sky would take much less memory than a busy scene with lots of different colours and shapes in as it is a less complicated sum for the camera to work out, basically.