The quality of digital point and shoot camera photographs has improved dramatically in recent years, making it the camera of choice for most travelers today.
It is therefore, all the more unfortunate, that more and more digital point and shoot camera manufacturers have chosen to describe their cameras’ zoom capability as “total zoom,” instead of quoting the camera’s optical and digital zoom capability separately.
The result, in my opinion, is that travelers think their camera has a greater quality zoom capability than is really has.Most people are familiar with the concept of zooming, but I’ve found that few understand the difference between optical and digital zooming. As a result, many travelers are devastated when they come home from a fabulous trip, with highly digitally zoomed photographs, to find them blurry, with the jaggies, and lots of noise.
In optical zooming, the individual pieces of glass (They are the glass elements -seen above in the cutaway view of the lens; the vertical pieces in the photo having convex and concave shapes.) in the lens are mechanically moved to manipulate the image the photographer wants to capture. By realigning the glass elements of the lens, the subject of the image is either magnified or reduced in size, with the angle of view either narrowed or expanded.
When zooming optically, all the magnification or reduction of the subject in the image is manipulated by the lens itself, so the photograph captured uses the entire sensor area of the digital camera. This is true from the widest angle shot, with the least magnification, to the narrowest angle telephoto shot, with the highest magnification.
In the photo to the left, of surfers at Hookipa Beach State Park in Maui, Hawaii, note how sharp the image of the surfers and the water is. The photograph was taken from more than a quarter of mile away, with an 80–400mm zoom lens set at 400mm. Because the zooming was completely optical, the quality of the image was maintained, even at the longest possible focal length of the lens.
In the strictest sense of the term, digital zooming is not really zooming at all. When you use the digital zoom in a camera, the camera enlarges a portion of the image. It simulates optical zooming. The camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to the full size of the camera’s sensor, thus “magnifying” the subject of the image.
In the camera’s digital zoom magnification process, in order to fill the sensor with the cropped image (The size of the cropping is determined by the camera’s zoom setting; the higher the zoom, the smaller the cropped portion of the image.) the camera interpolates the image as it spreads it out, creating new pixels to fill-out the image. As the magnification, due to the zoom setting, increases, the more spread out the original image becomes, causing the camera to need to create more and more pixels to complete the image.
More often that not, this results in a noisy, blurry, digitally zoomed image with jagged edges. The more digital zoom used, the worse the quality of the photograph.
If you don’t need digital zoom, but have been generally using it instead of, or to augment optical zoom, without realizing how it works, and wondered why your pictures didn’t look that great, now you know.
Sacrificing image quality by using digital zoom to capture the moment is sometimes more important than not getting the picture at all, however I’ve found that most of the time, using digital zoom is unsatisfactory for any reason.
In the photo to the left, of the same surfers in Hawaii, I’ve simulated the use of a moderate amount of digital zoom. To me, the photo is wholly unsatisfactory, and in truth, if someone tried to capture this shot with a digital point and shoot camera, using digital zoom, the photo would be far worse. The detail of facial features is gone and there is a great deal of noise in the photo. The small size of the image in part belies just how bad it is.
A few years ago I was taking a photography seminar. I remember the instructor’s words well when he talked about digital zooming. “Don’t be fooled. Digital zoom is all about selling cameras. It’s strictly a marketing scheme to entice newbies who don’t know any better, to buy their cameras because of a huge zoom number.”
I tell anyone who asks me about digital zoom, “Turn if off and forget about it, but … if it’s the only way you can capture an image you’ve got to have, try it, but the odds are you’ll throw the photo away later.”
Ned Levi is a long time professional photographer with a passion for wildlife and travel photography. You can view some of Ned’s travel and other photos at NSL Photography or get more travel photography advice at the NSL Photography Blog.
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I agree – switch digital zoom off. I somebody want digitaly “zoom” picture, it can be done at home with software.
Thanks for this article. Just returned from vacation and experienced some of what this article was written about. My main problem though, was getting good, clear nice NIGHT shots on my Olympus Stylus 710 point and shoot.
I increased the ISO, way too high and ALL 500 my photos from the Cotswald in the UK were HORRIBLE!! I was soooo.. upset. They look great on the camera screen but NOT when uploaded.
Can anyone suggest a point and shot camera NOT above 300.00 USD, that takes clear NIGHT shots. Any suggestions will be so welcomed, for I need to change cameras for my next vacation in a couple of months! I don’t know what to believe when I go online and read reviews.
Thanks!
You’re welcome Pat. Don’t throw out your Olympus Stylus 710 just yet. I don’t think it’s your camera as much as how you took the photos.
I think that most professional photographers would say that there is a particular key to taking clear, color-balanced, well focused night photos. Take a look at my Paris at Night gallery at nslphotography.com to show you what you can get.
The key to night photography is a tripod or some kind of solid camera support. My camera is a professional DSLR, yet I always use a tripod or some kind of support for holding my camera rock-solid while taking night photos.
The problem with high ISO is it introduces a lot of noise into night photos, especially in the darker areas, and is very distracting. If your ISO is too low and your shutter speed too slow, that can cause noise too.
You don’t need an expensive tripod like mine. You could use a Joby Gorillapod (about $25) which can do a great job. You could use a bean bag too.
I’m writing an article about night photography coming up either here at CT or at my blog. I think it will help you.