What makes a digital camera zoom really far?
I have a Canon PowerShot A95 and it has a 12x Optical and Digital zoom combined but to me, it doesn’t zoom very far at all. What is better…..a 3x optical zoom or a 12x optical zoom?? Which will zoom farther? What are maybe some cameras that will zoom really far?
It just says 12x Optical and Digital combined. I’m not sure if that means both are 12x or not. I just know that I’ve stood next to people at concerts over 150 feet from the stage. They have these little slim Kodak pocket cameras it seems and they are able to zoom all the way up on stage and get close up shots. My PowerShot will only zoom halfway to the stage and probably costs twice as much. idk, it’s just frusturating.
First of all, optical zoom is always better, in fact it’s all you should be using. Digital zoom is an electronic game the camera plays. It takes the pixels in the middle of your image and tries to duplicate them so that it can enlarge the image to full size from half its size. Very rarely does this result in even a reasonable image. Usually what you get is an image that is fuzzy, poorly exposed and grainy.
Your 12x zoom could be anything. Manufacturers usually multiply the numbers together. So if you have a 3x optical zoom and a 4x digital zoom, they’ll call this a 12x zoom. Similarly though you get the same 12x designation for a 2x optical and 6x digital zoom or a 4x optical 3x digital zoom. It’s important that you find out what the actual optical zoom is.
Now in terms of how far a camera zooms that depends on the user, not only the camera. People who aren’t very fussy about image quality will be really happy with whatever comes from a digital zoom. Those who are fussy will only use optical zooms and end up in the same bind as you are.
The way some cameras get longer zooms is by skimping on the wide angle setting. If the designer decides to give up on providing a wide angle capability, you’ll end up with a much more impressive optical zoom that can pull in distant objects. However the moment you try to take a group shot of something you’d be forced to step way back and even then you may not get the whole picture. Camera makers who do provide a wide angle capability for the same zoom range don’t pull distant objects in very far but you can do great landscapes.
You can get cameras with 10x and 12x optical zooms and these might meet your needs. The only way to know is to read the specs and see exactly what focal length is being zoomed. In 35mm camera terms ideally you’d want something like 28 mm (reasonable wide angle) to about 300 mm (good telephoto). If you can get one of those ranges you’d have the best of both worlds. Some cameras go 35 mm to 400 mm so their zoom range is even greater but at the cost of the wide angle, 35 mm is not very wide.
The simplest way to deal with your issue, but also the most expensive, is to acquire an SLR and then buy lenses that meet your specific needs. If you bought a 600 mm telephoto for a digital SLR, at 150 feet you’d be able to take a picture of the nose of a performer. With SLRs there is a diversity of lenses around that address whatever your problems are but of course each comes at a price.
The SLR is cheap enough, you can get entry models from Nikon and Canon for well under a thousand dollars. Some lenses are also cheap, running a few hundred dollars. But the moment you’re into specialized optics that deal with significant distances or very wide angles you’re into something that starts at a thousand dollars and escalates rapidly to several thousand for a single lens. But this is the best way to solve whatever photographic issue you encounter.
I personally use a Nikon D200 with four different lenses. I’m able to take a head shot of a bug, I can capture an entire performance stage from fifty feet back, I can also photograph a performer’s face from three hundred feet back. But to do all that costs about $7,000 by the time you have the camera and the lenses. You can reduce that cost by buying a cheaper model of SLR but you’re stuck with the cost of the lenses.
I guess for now if you really have to have a long zoom, look for a camera that offers a 10x or 12x optical zoom and make sure that you get one that has an image stabilizer. That kind of range inevitably results in camera shake problems that could ruin your picture without a stabilizer unless you’re prepared to use a tripod all the time when you zoom out.
I hope this helps a little.
Drive-By Truckers – One Of These Days
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