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Zoom (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter calbirder
- Start date
GerryHerd
Well-known member
Well, my Olympus C2100 has a 10X optical zoom, equivalent to a 380mm lens in 35mm format. The angular field of view (across the frame diagonals) is about 7 degrees.
If you define a 'good close up' as being able to see some detail in individual feathers, I'd say you're looking at distances on the order of 10 to 25 feet. I can fill the frame with the body of a squirrel at 15 feet distance. I think a bird the size of an egret will fill the frame's longest dimension at somewhere around 30 or 40 feet.
If you define a 'good close up' as being able to see some detail in individual feathers, I'd say you're looking at distances on the order of 10 to 25 feet. I can fill the frame with the body of a squirrel at 15 feet distance. I think a bird the size of an egret will fill the frame's longest dimension at somewhere around 30 or 40 feet.
GerryHerd
Well-known member
Calbirder, I looked up the specs on the Fuji, and its optical zoom is 37-370mm equivalent. That minor correction aside, the digital zoom would do more or less what you said: give you an image magnified by an additional 3.6 factor 370*3.6=1333mm equiv or 370/50*3.6=26.6X. (And I'm assuming RAH used 50 because in 35mm photography a 50mm normal lens is considered to give a 1X view).
BUT, and it's a big BUT, digital zoom is not really a big advantage because digital zoom is just an interpolative software process inside the camera. Where optical zooms move lens elements to make light from a smaller area of the subject hit all 4 megapixels of the sensor, digital zooming is the same blowup you'd get if you had already loaded the image file from camera into your computer, cropped the edges, and then resized the remaining image back to full size using your desktop's image processing software. Digital zooming doesn't give you any more detail or resolution than you already got from the optical zoom.
You might go over to Popphoto.com and do a search on 'digital zoom' in their Digital Photography forum. There are more lucid descriptions (and probably some examples) of digital zoom than I gave.
BUT, and it's a big BUT, digital zoom is not really a big advantage because digital zoom is just an interpolative software process inside the camera. Where optical zooms move lens elements to make light from a smaller area of the subject hit all 4 megapixels of the sensor, digital zooming is the same blowup you'd get if you had already loaded the image file from camera into your computer, cropped the edges, and then resized the remaining image back to full size using your desktop's image processing software. Digital zooming doesn't give you any more detail or resolution than you already got from the optical zoom.
You might go over to Popphoto.com and do a search on 'digital zoom' in their Digital Photography forum. There are more lucid descriptions (and probably some examples) of digital zoom than I gave.
RAH
Well-known member
I agree with GerryHerd about digital zoom. In fact, I'd like to even state it more strongly. It is NOT a good idea to use it, because not only does it not give you anything that you couldn't do later with an image editor (as described by Gerry), but you are permanently stuck with what it did when you took the picture. In other words, it is better to take a picture with the most OPTICAL magnification you can get out of your camera, and then later crop it the way you want. If you use digital zoom at the time you are taking the picture, you are in effect doing your cropping while taking the picture. There's no point to it. Get the picture and worry about cropping it later.GerryHerd said:
Some folks argue that the camera is able to better crop and enlarge (i.e. digital zoom operation) than an image editor because it knows how its sensor works and is optimized for it. Well, you can test it and see what you think, but I don't really buy that argument. This can be a controversial subject, but I think most folks agree that digital zoom should be avoided.
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calbirder said:
No, it merely picks out the central section of the picture and records that, you can do exactly the same at home using software to pick out any section of your picture. It can be useful if you only require a small section of normal view fom the camera so that you can more easily enable the camera to focus on a smaller objest, and take a light reading from a smaller area.
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
Bill's dead right, but manufacturers will try and suggest that by providing a 3.6x digital as well as a 10x optical they're giving you 36x of zoom in total...
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Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
No problem - I've edited my post: you can delete your latest then I'll delete this one!
Cal, if you want to stay with an all-around digital camera fit for more than one purpose but not too pricey, I went for the panasonic FZ20 (5megs), it has a x12 zoom, with OIS, and I added a 2.2 telephoto from raynox. It is still nowhere near what people get here with digiscoping, but it brings me to roughly 920 mm. (18.5x in 50 mm).
And you can still use it to get great pictures when you are not scoping. Gives you the chance to do wide angles if your field of photography includes other interests.
look around for other cameras before biting the bullet.
And you can still use it to get great pictures when you are not scoping. Gives you the chance to do wide angles if your field of photography includes other interests.
look around for other cameras before biting the bullet.
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