I have been using my digital camera now for about 4 months. One thing I commonly see in reviews and comments on digital camera is that the digital zoom is of little value except to crop the image in the camera to save memory space. I am beginning to think that this a quick judgment that need closer examination. I have found that when my subject is beyond my optical zoom range (3X in my case) that the digital zoom has several benifits. By restricting the cameras field of view the TTL focus, exposure, and white balance are more influence by the subject verses the area around it. These are all especially important for cameras that don't offer an uncompressed format since objects lacking in detail and sharpness tend to have more pixelation after JPEG compression. I found this to be the case of a deer walking in the shadows of a timber. There was an open area between the deer and me with full sun shinning on the tree trunks making for a very contrasty situation that the camera wanted to focus on instead. By using the digital zoom the bright nearby trees were no longer in the picture. I could then increasing the ISO setting to boost my shutter speed to reduce camera shake without overexposing the trees.

I am not saying I will use my digital zoom in place of my optical one, but if I see a moose at 300 yards or a deer walking in the shadows of a timber I won't hesitate to turn on the digital zoom to give me the selectivity I want. Any other opionions out there on this topic?

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), July 16, 1999

Answers

Bob, I do agree with your comments.

-- Fred (tabarrok@frontiernet.net), July 16, 1999.