Pixel means Picture Element, a microscopic part of a sensor capable of recording a single colour from millions of hues. A group of pixels with different hues will start to create an image.

A major selling point for a digital camera is the number of pixels it has for taking a photographic image. Many have at least 10 million, but a camera with a greater number will not necessarily guarantee a better image as pixel count is not the only criteria for determining its quality.

A true digital camera will have a lens designed for digital photography. Some digital lenses are twice the resolution of their equivalent film lens and of tele-concentric design delivering light to the digital sensor at right angles over its entire area. It is false economy to use a film lens on a digital camera no matter how well it performed on a film camera, as it delivers light to the sensor at an incorrect angle causing aberrations and vignetting at wide aperture, wasting the potential that a higher pixel count might give.

Note: Jargon is a confusing animal and with a camera boasting 10 mega-pixels, the word mega, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, can also mean large and it comes first in its listing of meanings. What is meant is obvious, but a humorous thought is inescapable, a digital photographer with a new camera with 10 rather large pixels!