Digital Zoom

[jgent]

Just wondering if a teleconverter has any effect? I am willing to use any brand, however, my G10 has a digital zoom settings which read 1.7 and 2.2. My question therefore is by setting the G10 to one of these settings does that increase the maginification within the camera even if no converter is attached? If I purchased a teleconverter, would it have any effect since the camera is already set for zoom magnification? Lastly, what should these settings be set to if a converter is attached?

Thanks for your help,

J

[denncald]

The Digital Tele Converter feature allows you to "pretend" you have a real tele converter on the front of your camera, so you actually see a more zoomed in image on your LCD. What the camera is doing is an in-camera crop of the center portion of your image sensor. This is supposed to not degrade your resulting photo, but that is debatable.

I have used this feature on my G9 on a few occasions with good results. I would suggest you consider a tripod (small or large) to help get the best possible (sharp) image. Your image stabilization will help, but it's not perfect. A rule of thumb for non-stabilized cameras is to at least have your shutter speed = lens in mm. So for example, if you zoomed out to the max 140mm with your G10, and then also used the 2.2x tele conversion feature, then you should at least use a shutter speed of 1/300 sec to help eliminate a blurred shot. Using that suggestion and using IS should provide a sharper result.

Using a quality tele conversion lens attached to the G10 will allow you to take a full resolution image. The in-camera tele conversion feature only uses a part of your 14.7MP sensor. The full resolution image with the lens allows you to crop without losing more detail. Trying to crop the in-camera tele conversion is actually cropping a crop. By the way, I have also used a tele conversion lens on my G9, AND used the in-camera tele conversion to get even "closer" with good results.

Dennis