How good is 5.0 megapixels for a camera?

My camera is 10 mega pixels. The higher amount of pixels the better value and quality the picture is. I assume that only 5 mega pixels is pretty low and the pictures that you take won't be as good quality as, say, 10 mega pixels.

In the article "Digital Photography: How many Megapixels Do You Need?" (at http://www.naturesimage.com.au/page/77145/default.asp) the professional photographer Andrew Goodall says good pictures up to 8"x12" can be taken with a 5MP camera:-

You can produce good, high quality prints up to 8x12 inch (20x30cm), and probably larger, with a five megapixel camera. This is not a compromise; I doubt you would see any improvement in print quality taking the same picture on a ten megapixel camera. Certainly you would see a difference if you enlarged the photo to poster size, but (as we have discussed), very few people reading this article are likely to do that.

Please do not see these comments as negative. I would never suggest that anyone who has bought a more powerful camera has wasted their money. Your upmarket camera probably came with an extra feature or two that adds to the fun you can have with photography. And of course, it is nice to know you could make giant prints from your photos…even though we both know you possibly never will.

The important thing is not how many megapixels the camera has, but how well-focussed and sharp the original photo was in the first place. A camera with more megapixels doesn't make you a better photographer: a poor 6"x4" will be an atrocious A4 size photo (Hint: focus on the eyelashes.)