Be afraid, Be very afraid!

[alwayslooking]

Greetings All,

When I say "Be afraid" I am referring to using the digital zoom.

Is digital zoom for real or just a gimmick???

Has anyone been able to produce high quality pics with this option? If so, please tell your secrets!

Thanks

Phil

[bwb s30]

i agree .. i have it turned off ... I'd rather crop in PhotoShop

[South Mountain]

I don't know why the manufacturer provide the digital zoom. It much be a joke if you want to use it as optical zoom. Of cause it will not improve your picture quality. I think the only use of the digital zoom is to large the view when you take a picture.

If you upload the picture to the computer from your digicam, you can blow up the picture as large as you want, that is the digital zoom. The larger the picture, the poorer the quality.

[MiG82]

The only reason I ever use digital zoom is if I want to have a closer look at something right there and then. It is totally useless for decent shots.

I think this joke is still displayed as being a main feature simply because everyone else is doing it and to a newbie's eyes the camera would appear deficient if it didn't have 14x combined zoom.

[Default9]

it's just an extra feature on the cameras. the more features the more "newbie" buyers.

[Jesper]

Digital zoom is only a gimmick. It's only there for marketing reasons, so that camera manufacturers can scream "This camera has 20x zoom !!!". Other than that it's completely useless!

The only thing that digital zoom does is upscale the image, which you can do on the computer using Photoshop or any other image editing program - probably upscaling in Photoshop gives you even a better quality image than letting the camera do it with digital zoom.

Anyway, digital zoom is not something that will magically give you a 20x zoom lens.

[John_T]

Well... I don't find the digital zoom totally useless. I have used it a number of times to reach further out and take a look before pulling back to shoot. I've used it a few times to get just a bit closer on a bird or something and it panned out better than the non-digital zoom blow up, in that I think the camera processor does it's own version of smoothing and sharpening on digital zoom. If you blow up a simple optical to the same point it will be much more blocky and have less detail than the digital zoom. It's not for beautiful artsy stuff, but I did use it once to get in close enough on a couple of car thieves that they could be identified on a print I gave the police. Many people who buy cameras are not interested in fine photography and delight in things like digital zoom. Why not? Photography is fun and light-hearted. If you take it so seriously, go hang out in cemeteries and IRS offices.

[alwayslooking]

John_T wrote:
Many people who buy cameras are not interested in fine photography and delight in things like digital zoom.

John, I think you are soooo right about the "many people" who buy cameras. One might think that without them in the market Canon could remove this so called feature and add something more useful to the true "prosumer".

With that said, those "many people" also allow Canon to mass produce more of the cameras and do more R&D. In the end, the feature can actually serve us well by keeping the cost down and giving us the most for our money.

...................

Thanks to all for the varied viewpoints. As a result I have reconsider the "digital zoom". You have motivated me to try harder to squeeze more out of it.

Perhaps..... by using a tripod, filling the frame more fully with the subject, working only with subjects that are still, using only small amounts of digital zoom, etc., I can get a few more shots that I would not have otherwise had.


Phil

[sdommin]

Perhaps..... by using a tripod, filling the frame more fully with the subject, working only with subjects that are still, using only small amounts of digital zoom, etc., I can get a few more shots that I would not have otherwise had.
Phil

You don't need to limit yourself that way. If you have PhotoShop, PhotoPaint, Paint Shop Pro, etc., you still have a perfectly good (if not better) "digital zoom". Cropping does the same thing that digital zoom does, and it usually does a better job.

[WW50]

Before I got my tele lens I was using digital zoom sometimes and getting some fairly usable shots. I process the digital zoom shot with Neat Image or another noise reduction software and then use unsharp mask and the photo looks pretty good. You would probably be surprised with the results like I was the first time I used it.

Wendell

[TonyN]

This red tailed hawk swooped right down beside my car while I was driving out in the canyons of California. It missed its prey and went and landed on top of this electrical pole. I zoomed in at 14x and shot it!

I had to re-size the pic and decrease the amount of information using Irfanview so it would load faster here but it still looks pretty good.

http://www.findmall.com/photo/tony_n/hawkzoom14xsmlr.jpg

[CyberDyneSystems]

It really isn't that bad for Digital Zoom,. I guess some cameras may do a better job than others,.

.......that said Tony,
I still think that if you had shot the image without the digital zoom,... then Photoshop or another capable editing program would do a superior job of enlarging the photo compared to what the camera can do. Though have a fine image,. it is quite clearly suffereing from interpolation artifacts.

This argumant is one of the main reasons why so many "dis" digital zoom. Another argument is that you will have more post production freedom in how you crop and enlarge the image than you do when usimg the Digital zoom. If Digital zoom were the only alternative available to get in a little closer,. it would be an image quality sacrificing worth making....

...but as long as you can take a little time and do a better job later in image editing software,. there is no good argumant to use the digital zoom. No?

[CyberDyneSystems]

ww50 wrote:
Before I got my tele lens I was using digital zoom sometimes and getting some fairly usable shots. I process the digital zoom shot with Neat Image or another noise reduction software and then use unsharp mask and the photo looks pretty good. You would probably be surprised with the results like I was the first time I used it.

Wendell

Again,. this is a workabke solution,. but overall image quality is still going to be lower than if you shot with only optical zoom,. cropped and resized in your image editing software and tweeked with that image. You may not need to use Neat Image at all.

[MightyMoo]

The first thing I did when I got my G5 (and also on my Sony DV-camera) is to turn off the digital zoom.

I just want to be on the safe side....Cropping is easier in the calm atmosphere in front of you computer.

Don't you think :-)

[rtamburo]

I think the digital zoom works pretty well. The full size images don't have good quality, but when you resize it down, I think it looks pretty good. Here's a picture of a giraffe at the zoo at 14x zoom (only cropped and resized):

http://www.gookalian.com/temp/giraffe1.jpg

Here's a quick photoshop job:
http://www.gookalian.com/temp/giraffe2.jpg

[Anarchist86ed]

I actually dont know what the complaining is about digital zoom. I've had great results using it with a tripod and enough light to fill the scene. I'd prefer it be optical zoon. but i've had good results with digital i'm sorry to say to all the naysayers...

[Deckyon]

I think it comes down to the photos people are trying to produce. Some who use the digital zoom will be more able to take some blurriness in their photos. You lose a lot of sharpness using digital zoom. Photoshop can only help so far.

Digital zoom takes what the camera sees, divides it by what the DZ is set for (roughly) and fills the CCD with an interpolated image, where the camera processor fills in the missing information.

Do this, take a 320x240 image and blow it up 14 times and tell me if it is as good as the original. Then take an image of at least 22##x17## and crop out a 320x240 selection and see if it is as sharp as the original. Performing the CROP will produce a better, sharper image, even than using a tripod for the DZ image.

Personally, I do not use the digital zoom at all. I tried it once, once. I was not happy. If I want blurry images, I will put a soft focus filter on the adapter ring. I like sharp images.

Just my $.02

[alwayslooking]

Deckyon,

If the CCD takes what it "sees" to produce the zoom then it stands to reason that you could, theoretically, get a very sharp pic with DZ. Just start with all the elements of a sharp image as I suggested at the beginning of this thread??

Question: Could someone tell me how to insert a pic here??? I have some DZ samples. Many thanks to all.

[Deckyon]

Alwayslooking:

Do this, take a 320x240 image and blow it up 14 times and tell me if it is as good as the original.

That is what the camera does at DZ

[MiG82]

Anarchist86ed wrote:
I actually dont know what the complaining is about digital zoom. I've had great results using it with a tripod and enough light to fill the scene. I'd prefer it be optical zoon. but i've had good results with digital i'm sorry to say to all the naysayers...

Sounds like you wasted your money on a decent camera then. Might as well get an el cheapo camera.

[WW50]

The below links point to an example of a digital zoom image before and after processing with Neat Image and light sharpening. The photo was shot with an Olympus C720 which I was using before I got my G3. It was shot at quite a distance at an equivalent of about 500mm. As I stated in my previous post, the quality is not optimum, but the image is quite usable for my purpose.
The images have both been sized down for quicker loading.

Digital zoom before processing: members.aol.com/lww50/horse2.jpg

After processing: members.aol.com/lww50/horse3.jpg


Wendell

[hsia]

Nice photo of the horses.

Sure, digital zoom isn't optimal, but there are times when it's very handy.

1. Saves post-processing in Photoshop. Sure "almost" everything can be fixed in PS, but why not spend that extra time taking pictures? I bought the G3 because I want to spend more time taking pictures.

2. In theory, digital zoom works off of the camera's RAW CCD imager. Unless you're saving all your shots in RAW mode, there might be a small advantage to using a little digital zoom than PS.

3. With center or spot metering, digital zoom let's you more precisely meter your image.

If you're images are destined for the web or even 4x6-inch prints, why not save time with a little digital zoom and crop? I've used 5.7x and 6.4x (?) on landscapes and it's more than acceptable to me. For portraits and other highly-detailed objects, your results may not be as acceptable.

[Andy_T]

Why not let everyone do what he (or she) believes is best ???

There are those using digital zoom and those not using it.

I don't use it myself for reasons that are important to me (no possibility to save RAW, decreased image quality, etc.).

But frankly, I also don't see any need to become a missionary to convince those who believe in digital zoom that they are wrong in their ways :)

Regards,
Andy

[alwayslooking]

Deckyon wrote:
Alwayslooking:

Do this, take a 320x240 image and blow it up 14 times and tell me if it is as good as the original.

That is what the camera does at DZ


Brad, I tried my level best (tripod, still subject, flash)but could not get beyond an image with marginal sharpness. And, after all, image sharpening tools are not meant for blurry images.

As you said, it really comes down to what an acceptable image is to the photographer.

Phil

[alan-G3]

Hi All
Digital zoom is of limited value but sometimes there is no other way. It is FAR better than post zooming software.
Don't knock it but don't abuse it!

regards
Alan