New Technology, New Buzzwords, New Headaches?

The advent of digital camera technology has brought us many buzzwords unheard of in the world of 35mm photography such as pixels, CCD chips, memory cards, digital zoom, etc.

In this article we’re going to focus (if you’ll pardon the photography pun) on digital zoom. Why? Because what you don’t know about digital zoom could hurt your images.

Optical Zooms

Most of us are familiar with the term optical zoom. It describes how, by 35mm Zoom Lens employing special optics, a lens gives us the ability to zoom in and out on a subject to make it bigger or smaller in the viewfinder and the subsequent images. When referring to a zoom lens as having a 3x zoom range, what we’re really saying is that we can make the subject appear up to 3 times larger than its normal size by using the zoom feature.

Digital Zoom Technology

Olympus Digital Camera Digital cameras incorporate an additional technology called digital zoom. Digital zoom is a way of electronically extending the zoom capability beyond that of a standard optical lens.

Although rarely used as the primary means of providing zoom capability, many digital cameras do incorporate it as a secondary method of enhancing the range of the optical zoom lens.

Why not build in an optical lens with more zoom power? Simple. Cost. Digital zoom technology is cheaper and easier to incorporate than an optical lens having significantly more zoom range.

About $8 Per “X”

Advertisements for $250 digital cameras now often tout a 3x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom for a combined optical and digital zoom range of 30x. That’s pretty awesome for an inexpensive camera!

But, like anything that sounds too good to be true, there is a trade off.

Where Did All My Pixels Go?

While an optical zoom allows you to zoom in on a subject to magnify its size, digital zoom technology electronically crops and blows up the image to make it only appear as if you’ve zoomed in on the subject. This electronic cropping means you lose pixels – and lots of them – resulting in a poor quality image. The more you digitally zoom, the worse the image quality. Not a great trade off, I’d say!

Digital Zoom Isn’t For Me

Since using digital cameras, I’ve yet to use the digital zoom feature. I don’t want to compromise image quality. People purchase my images because they like the composition and also because they appreciate the sharp, vivid, clear image quality. I couldn’t deliver on those expectations if I used the digital zoom feature while taking my photographs.

If the subject is out of the optical zoom range, I simply move closer to the subject until it is in range. And that’s my advice to you... plan your shot, move closer to the subject and don’t use digital zoom. Your pixels will love you for it!

Happy photography…

If you haven't already done so, why not...