Would a Nikon 16 pixel camera be good for making hd quality short films?
Would a Nikon 16 pixel camera be good for making hd quality short films?
Still image resolution is measured using "megapixel count".
Video resolution is measured using horizontal line count.
480 = standard definition
720 and 1080 = high definition
higher than 1080 horizontal lines is "ultra high definition".
If we take the above and the column count associated with these horizontal rows…
640 x 480 = 4:3 aspect ratio NTSC standard definition video = 307, 200 = about 1/3 or a megapixel
854 x 480 = widescreen NTSC standard definition video = 409, 920 = almost 1/2 megapixel
1280 x 720 = 16:9 aspect ratio high definition video = 921, 600 = almost a megapixel
1920 x 1080 = 16:9 aspect ratio high definition video = 2, 073, 600 = a little over 2 mega pixels
On top of this, this resolution is not the only contributor to "video quality". A huge contributor to "video quality" is the amount of compression applied to the video when captured or rendered after editing.
It is easy to have even ultra-high definition that is compressed a LOT that looks terrible… Since we don't know which "Nikon 16 pixel camera" you are asking about, we have no way to know what compression is used. Also keep in mind that a large part of video is audio - and we don't know what audio plans you have for your "short film".
Tips: Always capture in highest quality. Stay in highest quality, lowest compression, all the way through the edit process. When rendering, there's no single "best" file that will "look good" on a huge TV screen or be efficiently stored for use on a personal medial player like an iPod…