It's all in the Sensor

These cameras all produce an image of roughly 8 megapixels (3264 x 2448 is a typical pixel dimension). Let's use the Nikon Coolpix 8700 as the point-and-shoot base of comparison and we'll use the Canon Digital Rebel to represent the dSLR market. At first glance, the Coolpix should have an image quality advantage since there's an extra 192 pixels across and 400 pixels high over the 3072 x 2048 pixels that the Canon is capable of. The 8 MP camera produces an image that's got an extra 1.7 million dots to the image, which is about 22% smaller.

As the title of this article indicates, the number of bytes doesn't take everything into consideration. The image sensor is what actually takes the picture within the camera. Here, there's a HUGE difference. The size of the sensor in the Coolpix 8700 is 8.8 x 6.6 mm (which is roughly 58 sq mm). This is a huge difference when comparing the size of the Canon DSLR sensor, which is 22.7 x 15.1mm (342 sq. mm), which translates to almost 6 times the size. This is a huge difference.

For a standard 4x6 or even a 8x10 print of these images, most users will not see a difference in the print out. The difference in the sensors is in how they are capturing and recording the light. Cramming that much into such a small processor (the point-and-shoot) can lead to bleeding of the light and other color capture problems. These problems become evident when you crop the image and/or expand the image to create either a larger image from the photograph or when you are enlarging a cropped image. The quality of the photograph from the larger sensor should have a clearer definition of the captured color and the light used to create the image (all other things being equal).

Right now, if you're going to be spending $1,000 on a camera, you're really better off with the DSLR camera. The sheer number of pixels that the 8 Megapixel point and shoots provide for you puts them at the advantage, but the quality of the captured pixels definitely leans towards the dSLR cameras.