Sony Alpha Cameras Clear Image Zoom (2 Viewers)

[RichardHoeg]

Sony makes the claim that in addition to optical zoom, their engineers have written algorithms which enhances a limited digital zoom that is equal to optical zoom. In other words, applying "clear image zoom", but not "regular digital zoom" on top of optical zoom yields results equal to cropped optical zoom photos. Clear Image Zoom may only be used up to a 2.0 enlargement factor. Last night while photographing my yard birds, nesting Great Horned Owls, I did a Clear Image Zoom vs Optical Zoom test. For Clear Image Zoom I used a 1.5 factor (not 2.0). For Optical Zoom I was fully zoomed. My camera is a Sony A6300, with a Sony 70-350 mm lens. These two images were taken moments apart ... thus the same lighting and camera settings (aperture priority) other than Clear Image Zoom of 1.5. The first image given below is the Clear Image Zoom pic
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I did crop my optical photo a minor amount to yield the same basic image. A full discussion of yesterday evening's test, and more pictures of the owls may be seen via my blog (no advertisements nor I am trying to sell anything). The owls nested in early March and I have been following them since that date. I have been watching this pair of adult owls for five years. I live in the Boreal Forest in northern Minnesota (USA).

I tried to attach the full sized images (about 20 meg per photo), but those uploads failed. These are 5 meg versions. If desired, I will be happy to email anyone the full sized. emails. My email address is: RichardHoeg {at} Gmail.com

Clear Image Zoom (1.5 factor)View attachment Y10-M05 Amity Great Horned Owls 42 Momma Off Nest CIZ 1-5.jpg

Optical Zoom Only (minor crop)View attachment Y10-M05 Amity Great Horned Owls 42 Momma Off Nest No CIZ.jpg

 

[omaksimenko]

Your blog is great and the owl pictures are awesome! Concerning this “clear zoom” - not sure if I see much difference. If you need more resolution (and, effectively, “zoom”) - take a look at topaz gigapixel or topaz photo ai. Topaz works pretty good of you start with a good picture.

 

[Mono]

All the camera is doing is cropping the image. This is great if you are not going to post-processing the image, but if you are it has no benefit.

Digital zoom is just making stuff up. You can call it interpolation or AI but a computer is just inventing pixel values that weren't there.