Digital Zoom is a Scam

Cameras advertise that they have 15x digital zoom, which means absolutely nothing! All digital zoom does is enable the camera to blow up the picture and crop the edges. You can do the same using photo editing software on your computer or even through some print providers. (I’ll also cover this later). They say this is a big feature, and even advertise the camera as having tons of zoom. Don't fall for it. Let me show you the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom.

Here are some examples of optical zoom I stood in the same place and took pictures of this water bottle.

This image with 1x optical zoom:



This image is 3x optical zoom:



This is "real" zoom. You can notice that with the 3x optical zoom, the image is still sharp and clean. This is because it contains the same number of pixels as the 1x optical zoom.

Now, this is an example of digital digital zoom. I used the digital zoom on the camera and went to 15x:



You can see in the image, that it has lost some of its sharpness. Look under the red band of the label and you will see some jagged edges, as well as the lettering in crystal. The interesting thing is that I can produce the exact same image with the exact same sharpness by just using a crop tool on my desktop:



This picture just a crop of the picture above from 3x OPTICAL zoom. Notice how is just as sharp as the 15x digital zoom.


Please, don't be fooled by digital zoom!

Buying a Digital Camera

If you are like me, then buying a digital camera is an overwhelming process. There are literally hundreds of cameras on the market and dozens of places to buy. Prices can range from under a hundred dollars to a several thousand. I’m not an expert on camera selection, but here is the thought process and learning I had when I selected my camera.

I’ve broken the digital camera market down into four “styles” of cameras:

1. Point and shoot compact cameras
2. Consumer model cameras with advanced settings
3. Consumer style D-SLR cameras
4. Pro level D-SLR’s

Each camera has a distinct purpose and situation that they are best suited for. The best advice I have is to choose the one that makes the most sense for your photographic needs, but that also fits in your budget. Buying the most expensive camera isn’t going to make you a better photographer. Knowing how to use the camera you have is what is most important. As the week goes on, I’ll create an entry for each segment of camera and walk you through the defining characteristics of each. I’ll also share what I bought, and why.

For now, a couple resources to check out are:

• DP Review (www.dpreview.com): Checkout the buying guide and camera database
• Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org): Good for reliability and feature comparison, but the site charges to see everything
• CNet Digital Cameras (www.cnet.com): This link takes you to the digital camera section. There are a lot of good reviews here.

Just a note here, I’m exclusively talking about digital cameras. If you are interested in traditional film I don’t really have any advice for you.