Digital Zoom question

Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron

wrote in message
...
Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron

Are you sure the focus is going or could you be seeing a drop in quality
simply due to the use of digital zoom?

My advice would be to switch off digi-zoom if you can possibly do without
it.

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:15:54 +0100, "John Ortt"
wrote:


wrote in message
t...
Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron

Are you sure the focus is going or could you be seeing a drop in quality
simply due to the use of digital zoom?

My advice would be to switch off digi-zoom if you can possibly do without
it.

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

There is not a lot of grain in the photo, so I'm sure it is a focus
issue. I agree with simply not using the digital zoom, but since the
camera is under warranty I was wondering if the poor focus was
inherent of any small digital camera.

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:15:54 +0100, "John Ortt"
wrote:


wrote in message
et...
Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron

Are you sure the focus is going or could you be seeing a drop in quality
simply due to the use of digital zoom?

My advice would be to switch off digi-zoom if you can possibly do without
it.

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

There is not a lot of grain in the photo, so I'm sure it is a focus
issue. I agree with simply not using the digital zoom, but since the
camera is under warranty I was wondering if the poor focus was
inherent of any small digital camera.

Could you put an example on the web and give us a url to the image?

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:15:54 +0100, "John Ortt"
wrote:


wrote in message
t...
Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron

Are you sure the focus is going or could you be seeing a drop in quality
simply due to the use of digital zoom?

My advice would be to switch off digi-zoom if you can possibly do without
it.

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

Is this right?
Many people opine that 'smart' digital zoom is better than
cropping.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:48:43 +0000, ronnienospamholland wrote:

Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron

I don't know for certain: but I would expect the actual focus should not
change for digital zoom. Basically, digital zoom == crop. The digital zoom
throws away pixels, so picture quality will decrease. IMHO you're better
off not using digital zoom. If you want the effect of more zoom, crop in
you farourite photo editing software - same difference.

wrote:
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:15:54 +0100, "John Ortt"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron
Are you sure the focus is going or could you be seeing a drop in quality
simply due to the use of digital zoom?

My advice would be to switch off digi-zoom if you can possibly do without
it.

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

There is not a lot of grain in the photo, so I'm sure it is a focus
issue. I agree with simply not using the digital zoom, but since the
camera is under warranty I was wondering if the poor focus was
inherent of any small digital camera.

It's easy enough to test: shoot with no digital zoom, then zoom or crop
in software and see if it's still blurry in the same area.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:35:40 -0700, irwell wrote:

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

Is this right?
Many people opine that 'smart' digital zoom is better than
cropping.

Then opinions are not always right.

--
Neil

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:38:07 -0500, Carl Neil Ellwood
wrote:

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:35:40 -0700, irwell wrote:

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

Is this right?
Many people opine that 'smart' digital zoom is better than
cropping.

Then opinions are not always right.

Until you know exactly how a camera is implementing any form of digital zoom,
and it is very different from maker to maker and even model to model, you
cannot, with any certainty, ever claim that digital-zoom is either useless or
beneficial.

It all depends on how it is implemented. In some cameras you actually can get
more resolution from its digital zoom. In many others you won't loose detail but
you wont' get anything better than what you can do in post processing.

If your camera has RAW file capability then you won't be able to get any more
detail out of any of the cameras' digital zoom modes than what you can do on
your own by using the RAW data. IF, however, your camera only saves in JPG then
there's a very good possibility that the digital zoom is being applied to the
RAW data before JPG conversion. In that case you MIGHT be able to get more
detail out of the camera's various digital zoom methods. It varies, as I said,
from model to model. You will have to test this to see if your camera is one of
them where digital zoom is beneficial. One of my cameras (jpg files only) shows
a marked increase in detail by using the digital zoom compared to any method I
have found to upsample the non-digital-zoom data to the same resolution. Another
camera I have does not show any detail increase with digital zoom in its jpg
files. But it does have RAW capability so I am able to accomplish the same
detail recovery and upsampling in post processing to get the same benefit.

If you think you can make a blanket claim about all digital zoom being useless
it only shows everyone that you are a blind following idiot that only knows how
to parrot the urban legends started long ago by that huge squad we
affectionately call the Self-Appointed Professional Idiots. SAPI for short.

irwell wrote:
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:15:54 +0100, "John Ortt"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
Hello all.
I bought a Casio Exilim 8 meg camera with a 3x optical and a 4x
digital zoom.
Focus is perfect in the optical area, but when I go into the digital
zoom area, the focus starts to slip at the lower end and is completely
blurry at fully extended. Is that the norm for digital zooms in these
tiny cameras?
TIA,
Ron
Are you sure the focus is going or could you be seeing a drop in quality
simply due to the use of digital zoom?

My advice would be to switch off digi-zoom if you can possibly do without
it.

You can get essentially the same result by cropping an image from your
maximum optical zoom.

Is this right?
Many people opine that 'smart' digital zoom is better than
cropping.

Smart digital zoom is better than digital zoom without the
'enhancement', usually. However, you can achieve better effects, with
more control with a good image editor, and some patience.