Optical and Digital Zoom

[RokyRoc]

Hey. I am looking at buying a new camera and I am getting bogged down by a lot of the specifications that the companies are advertising. I was wondering how much should zoom capacity affect my choice in a camera and which one (optical, or digital) should I be looking at.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Big Mike]

I would ignore 'digital zoom' and just look at the optical zoom specs.

 

[swmocity]

yea what he said ^
digital just makes all of the pictures blurry

 

[osirus]

yeah digital zoom is basically the same as just cropping your pic on the PC and blowing it up.

so totally ignore it.
and when you get your camera..i recommend just turning off the digital zoom.

 

[Sandspur]

I totally agree with the previous answers. Digital zoom is a technical gimmick by which the pixels are simply amplified in size to give the impression of zooming in.

In almost all cases, it is something to be avoided, and should certainly not be considered when making a new camera purchase.

Having said that, however ... I've been amazed at how good it CAN look (sometimes). I have a Canon S3is, which has 12X optical and 48X digital zoom.

A month or so ago, I became intrigued with the antics of a squirrel hanging out in my backyard and raiding the birdfeeder every chance he got.

I began shooting his performances from inside the house, through a bedroom window, hand-held, using the 12x zoom.

Then I set up my sturdiest tripod, mounted the S3 on it, and experimented with the digital zoom.

Yes, there's a lot of digital noise, and yes, it's too contrasty. But ... well, You can see the results for yourself on my flickr page. (http://www.flickr.com/grimitz)

Scroll down to one of the two "belly flop squirrel" images.

Like I said before -- don't let the absence or presence of digital zoom affect a purchasing decision. But, sometimes, it can be fun!

 

[Tiberius47]

Digital zoom is evil! I hate it! I want to rip it out of every camera and stomp on it until it's pathetic little life flees it! I would rather die than use digital zoom, and there isn't a single pro photog out there who would use it.

Turn it off, forget it is there and NEVER USE IT.

it ruins your images.

 

[RokyRoc]

Digital zoom is evil! I hate it! I want to rip it out of every camera and stomp on it until it's pathetic little life flees it! I would rather die than use digital zoom, and there isn't a single pro photog out there who would use it.

LOL


Thanks for your help.

 

[TamiyaGuy]

Digital zoom is basically cropping the image to give the photo an appearance of being zoomed in, at the expense of resolution. Never use it, as you can make such a better job by cropping it yourself using an image editing application.