Camera Labs

Hi,
I have a 10Mp compact/pocket camera. I am wondering if somebody can answer what is better for image quality, if using the digital zoom when needed or if on the other hand use the maximum optical zoom and then crop the picture in order to zoom more. When I use the digital zoom, I get pictures of about 6Mp size, but they don't look that great: just by looking at them (instead of looking at the photo size) I would probably had guessed that it was a 3Mp pic instead of 6. Would I be getting better results by zooming to the maximum optical zoom and then cropping the picture in my computer?
Thanks in advance.

I'd zoom to the limit of your camera's optical zoom, and then take the shot. Afterwards crop it out using a more advanced tool.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Hello!

I agree with Marijn, don't go into digital zoom, only use optical. The digital zoom problem is that the images look a lot noisier when you crop them, and they can then be ruined. I used a huge digital zoom once on my Canon Powershot, and I was blown away by how much noise there was!

If you really want to crop it, save that for post processing. If you save the cropping for later, you can decide whether you like it or not which isn't possible with digital zoom.

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-Evan

Gear: 7 Nikon Nikkor AI-S and AF-S lenses, SB-700 flash, Nikon D7000, Nikon FM, variety of accessories

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."
- Ansel Adams

Thanks guys, I think that you are right. I actually tried to compare this with 2 pictures (shooting the same subject) and what happened was that the digital zoom file was much larger, but the detail was awful and all blurred out. On the other hand, the picture file that used maximum optical zoom + computer cropping afterwards was much smaller in size but had much more detail and overall looked much better.

I remember I once shot a baseball game with digital zoom; it all looked fine and dandy on the Powershot's screen, although when I blew them up on the computer I felt like throwing up! So much noise!

_________________
-Evan

Gear: 7 Nikon Nikkor AI-S and AF-S lenses, SB-700 flash, Nikon D7000, Nikon FM, variety of accessories

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."
- Ansel Adams