Digital Zoom

There are many mistakes the people make when they are taking digital pictures. Most of them our human error. The one I would like to talk about today is "Digital Zoom". When you print a picture, after using your digital zoom, it will most likely turn out in poor quality. If you are a photographer that enjoys the actual printed picture you never want to use the digital zoom.

Why does my picture not look good when I print it? The idea of the digital zoom is a great idea for getting super close to the subject. The only problem when you use the digital zoom is you are no longer using the camera lens, which gives the best result. The digital zoom is taking that picture that the lens sees and crops that picture hence changing the quality of the picture. When you click down on the shutter you are not getting the amount of mega pixels that you have in the camera. Mega pixels not only helps the sharpness of the pictures but the color also.

How do I make so I never use my digital zoom? In most cameras setup menus, you should be able to disable he digital zoom all together. If not there should be a bar on the either the right side or the top of the LCD screen that tell you how much of the zoom you are using. On that bar there will either be a line that has the letter D under it or on some models the indicator is a different color. This indicates you are entering into the digital zoom.

When is it O.K. to use my digital zoom? This is a difficult question for me to answer because of the business I am in I am bias. I believe you should print every picture that you take because you know its going to be a great shot. So to answer honestly, I'd make sure you know that you are taking this picture for the use of binoculars and you are not going to print it. If you are going to print it remember you are most likely not going to get exactly what you saw. It is a fun feature to play around with in scenic trips when you don't have a pair of binoculars and you want to see the animal that is to far away to see.

I hope this helped. If you have any other questions you can email me at brian@elmhurstcamera.com Until next time,
Brian Stalker
Elmhurst Camera
Manager \ Owner