Do yourself a favor and disable digital zoom. With digital zoom you are just throwing away part of your image.
Why do you want to use it? The only real advantage (If you can call it that) is for people that want to go straight from the camera to the printer without the need to edit.
Same as cropping.
All things being equal, you should wind up the same, unless the camera software does some compensation for the loss. So, it will be up to you to test.
Simple, really. Why not give it a try and report back here with your findings?
Two of us have tried it, but the Digital zoom is clearer than the adobe zoom. We thought it would be the same and can’t figure out why it isn’t
Probably some softeware compensation. Sharpening algorithm?
Thanks for your comments!
Bill:
This will be different from one camera to another [you don’t tell us what yours is]. When I first got my Sony F717, I knew enough about digital zoom to know that I should just turn it off and ignore it.
But I got curious.
I took 2 photos of the same subject within seconds of one another. One was at maximum optical zoom; the other was with max digital zoom applied too. Then I took the first image and cropped and resampled it up in PS 7. The I compared the 2 images. There really wasn’t much to tell between them, so I guess that the camera was using a very similar resampling algorithm to PS. Maybe PS had a slight edge. I didn’t try the other algorithms in PS or use Genuine Fractals etc. – maybe that would have yielded some more interesting data.
My conclusion was, since memory in my camera was not a problem, I’d rather not throw data away until the every end of the process. So digital zoom stays off. For the same reason, I wouldn’t use the camera’s B&W mode – might as well get the colour and discard it later, if necessary.
Sue:
Although you and I arrive at the same conclusion, I am not so sure I understand what you’re saying in the para after "Not so fast!".
Digital zoom won’t accentuate the effect of camera shake, as the camera is only "seeing" the larger, "unzoomed" image. It’s just showing you the bit in the middle. If anything, it might help you, as this "magified" area will show you the movement more readily.
Guess it doesn’t matter, as the conclusion is the same: just say no to digital zoom.
I attended a seminar by a rep from a well-known camera manufacturer, who tried to explain the digital zoom was cool. He was unable to explain in what was it was better than doing it in PS later. Needless to say, the seminar aided my buying decision later by excluding an option.
Digital zoom won’t accentuate the effect of camera shake
it sure does on my olympus 3020zoom. it’s almost impossible to get a clear shot (without bracketing) when using 10x digital on that camera.
Dave:
That’s curious. Can understand/explain why it does it?
Can understand/explain why it does it?
IANAP (i am not a photographer) but i think it has something to do with the magnification algorithm bumping up against the auto focus algorithm. so the slightest hand jitter causes an autofocus event and most of the pix turn out blurry. 2-3x zoom and i can get 1 in 3 shots ok, 4-7 it’s like one in 5. > than that and it’s almost like 1 in 7 or 10 that’s clear. I’m sure i’d get better results if I used a tripod, but try setting one up on the rock and roll roller coaster going at 60 mph in disneyworld! 🙂
Dave:
That sounds logical. Thanks.
Guess the autofocus mechanism sees the magnified image.
Colin:
The subject is magnified when you zoom in, so any camera movement will be magnified as well. In my experimentation, I found it impossible to get a clear image using the maximum digital zoom with the camera handheld. Also, my camera’s User Guide (Canon A80) specifically states that using digital zoom increases the effects of camera shake and blurring.
Just quickly skimming this thread, I don’t see (or overlooked) any mention of the file format. If one takes a JPEG image from the camera and enlarges it 3X compared to the same image and format obtained by a 3X digital zoom on the camera, then I’d expect the latter to have slightly better image quality. The reason here would be that, I assume, any zooming of the image in the camera is performed internally on RAW data and then saved in JPEG format. On the other hand, if we are comparing TIFF or RAW images where no JPEG compression artifacts are introduced, then I’d expect the differences between in-camera zoom and in Photoshop to be negligible.
Regads,
Daryl
I use an Olympus C750 with a 10x optical and 3x digital zoom. I hardly ever use the digital part of it and have no problem with shaky pictures. I do aerial photography and most of the picts just need the Photoshop digital clean up after downloading them. Digital zooming does make more blurry images, but try walking with a 10x scope and sighting in something and you will see the problems. Check out my picts at www.oceancountyaerialpictures.com
