SX 40 Digital Tele-Converter Setup Help Please

[Micaryn]

Hi, First post by rank newbie in digital photography...

I've searched for an answer to my problem but have been unsuccessful

I recently purchased a Canon SX 40 & have been tremendously impressed. I have however been unable to set up the Digital Tele-Converter to 1.5 or 2X

According to the manual you should choose Digital Zoom in the camera menu tab and use <>
to select the required Zoom & manual pic shows 1.5X being selected... Problem is my camera only toggles between "Standard" & "Off" there's no 1.5X or 2X...

What am I missing? Please help as this is driving me up the wall

Thanks

[Jon]

Why would you want to throw away the camera's wide angle capabilities, and worsen image quality, by using any form of "Digital Zoom"? You can achieve EXACTLY the same thing in post-processing by resizing the image, and have more control over what you get. All "Digital Zoom" does is take a pixel and break it up into smaller pseudo-pixels that ideally represent what having real pixels of the smaller sizes would capture.

That said, no form of digital zoom will work if you're shooting RAW (an excellent reason forusing RAW, IMO), and the "Digital Teleconverter" isn't (see the chart of available functions and shooting modes on pp. 200-201 of your manual) available in any mode but P, Tv, Av, M, and maybe (depending on how you set them up) the C1 and C2 Custom modes.

[exwintech]

Micaryn - If your priorities on any shot are best Image Quality - then what Jon's saying is totally correct.

There again, the camera makers - particularly on the pricier P&S ones - put in some "fun features" - of which some can be usable for fun-effects - while others make you wonder what they were thinking (?) of....

Example, I have a Fuji HS10 - which does 3, 5, 7 and 12fps for up to 7 shots Continuous... JPEG only - 3 and 5 fps in RAW. I have yet to discover what 12fps is good for - Manual, at 1/4000th Shutter - stopping humming-bird wings....? I'd much rather have the fps to stop at 7 in JPEG - BUT - allow 7fps in RAW - that'd be a "usable".

The HS10 DOES do "1,000fps Slow-Motion" - so Fuji's ad-claims are true. What the ads don't say - is that at the speed, the 'video' is postage-stamp size on screen... Utterly useless....

It does do 640 x 480 at 240fps - still in H264/MOV - which is very usable quarter-speed playback at 30fps, and 240fps at 442 x 332 - just usable at one-eighth-speed playback...

And it takes images before you press the shutter button... Up to 6 out of a 7-shot burst... Perhaps it's just me....., but I prefer to take pix by pressing the shutter button...

So when Canon puts the "TC feature" in the SXxx cameras - I think it's not meant to be taken too seriously - it's a P&S camera "fun-item".

The separate Digital Zoom only needs to be found in the Menu once - to turn the darned thing right off!

That Digital Zoom and TeleConverter are different items is made clear on Page 85 of the SX40 Manual - which explains the TC functions. The settings sequence in the Menu setting - the diagram there shows the 1.5x setting.

The TC uses the camera processing to "interpolate" optical and digital zoom. It's better than "digital zoom" by itself - which doesn't mean that it's "good" - it's just a fun item...

My SX10 has TC at 1.4x and 2.3x - the latter is useless - unless just using the camera as a "telescope". In theory the 1.4x takes the 20x of the SX10's zoom to 28x. If you like fuzzy images of car number-plates at 1-kilometre - that's fun...!

But what you "can" do - is use part of it - on the SX10 - an indicated "24x" will give a little more "reach" without degrading the image a great amount. Such images are usable at an onscreen 1024 x 768, and "okay" at 800 x 600. You might go a bit further with the SX40, as it has more sensor pixels than the SX10.... Possibly - try the 1.5x - and go about halfway into the "added range" - there's a lineal indicator with numbers onscreen.

Use the "L" size frame - that lets you do more onscreen display-size reducing, to hide the fuzz...

So long as you realise it's just a fun-thing - you can have some fun with it....

However - if it's a "serious" image - doing as Jon says will get better results, if, say, you're needing to crop to enlarge the target in the frame. You can also select the part of the frame you want to crop to.

As JPEG is a "lossy" format - do change to a "non-lossy" before working on images taken as JPEGs. You can use PSD with Photoshop, XCF with Gimp - or if you use both (as I do in Linux) - TIFF works well in both programs - non-lossy, and can do layers if needed.

When working on the non-lossy converted JPEGs you can use Levels, Curves, and USM (UnSharp Mask) for sharpening. But - as JPEGs have vastly less 'meat' (information) in them than RAWs - use all of those in small amounts and gently - particularly the USM - use the Fine-Tune USM slider instead of the Main slider, if your program has that option.

With CHDK the SX40 can do RAW. I've found with the HS10 (Fuji RAF RAW) - that RAW from a small-sensor P&S doesn't give nearly the options range that RAWs from DSLR size sensors do - BUT - it will help you recover poor light-level exposed images, and also improve colours - particularly if the image has a "colour cast" to it.

Welcome to the Forum - and I've been using Jon's genuine "been-there, done-that" good-advices (deserves a plural!) - for quite some years now.....

Regards, Dave.

[exwintech]

Micaryn - Did a couple of quick snaps out the front window to show what the SX10 does with TC at 1.4x and 2.3x. The first image is at standard 20x / 560mm - Tripod so they're the 'same image position'.

Second is 20x at TC 1.4x - Third is 20x at TC 2.3x. Shown at 800 x 600 either is a "shareable" - but neither is crop-able or printable at 100%. The "usable" purpose might be to get a more frame-filling snap to share, at very reduced size, without doing post-processing to crop.

Distance is about 40-50 metres. Exifs included. (Image size 'L', Superfine JPEG, 10Mpix, 3648 x 2736.)

Images unaltered other than using Linux / Kim to resize to WebExport 800 x 600 at 75%.

Regards, Dave,

[exwintech]

Image 3 at TC 2.3x.

[redfordl]

Originally Posted by Micaryn

Hi, First post by rank newbie in digital photography...

I've searched for an answer to my problem but have been unsuccessful

I recently purchased a Canon SX 40 & have been tremendously impressed. I have however been unable to set up the Digital Tele-Converter to 1.5 or 2X

According to the manual you should choose Digital Zoom in the camera menu tab and use <>
to select the required Zoom & manual pic shows 1.5X being selected... Problem is my camera only toggles between "Standard" & "Off" there's no 1.5X or 2X...

What am I missing? Please help as this is driving me up the wall

Thanks

micaryn shut off the digital zoom and then you can select the 1.5x or 2x teleconverter on the sx40. Good luck!!

[Jim727]

To use the telconverter you must be in P-TV-AV-M or C1-C2 modes then goe to digital zoom and you will have 4 options,--- off, standard, 1.5 or 2.0

[redfordl]

Originally Posted by redfordl

micaryn shut off the digital zoom and then you can select the 1.5x or 2x teleconverter on the sx40. Good luck!!

The aspect ratio needs to be changed to 4:3 for it to work.

[Micaryn]

Apologies for the delay in thanking everyone for their assistance but I've been offline

@ exwintech thanks for the lengths you went to in answering my question & pointing out the problems

Reason I was interested in using the teleconverter is I wanted to see how it performed for macro shots & I'd also seen some really great bird pics where the guy always uses that function.

Thanks to everyone for their assistance & comments