600D digital zoom

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mumrar

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So, ahead of my purchase of the above (primarily for still photography) I noticed lots of videos about with digital zoom, something that makes the 600D differ from the 550D. Now I'm sure there is a very reasonable technical reason behind this, but why can't the digital zoom start from 1, so it's 1-10x or 1-5x instead of 3-10x? It would make shooting with a prime a good prospect, because in a wide depth of field scenario you effectively make the prime become a zoom lens. With the current setup a 28mm lens can be 45, 135-450mm lens (adjusted for crop sensor), I just think it would be much better as a 45-225mm option, rather than prime and then a seperate, higher zoom range.
 
mumrar said:
So, ahead of my purchase of the above (primarily for still photography) I noticed lots of videos about with digital zoom, something that makes the 600D differ from the 550D. Now I'm sure there is a very reasonable technical reason behind this, but why can't the digital zoom start from 1, so it's 1-10x or 1-5x instead of 3-10x? It would make shooting with a prime a good prospect, because in a wide depth of field scenario you effectively make the prime become a zoom lens. With the current setup a 28mm lens can be 45, 135-450mm lens (adjusted for crop sensor), I just think it would be much better as a 45-225mm option, rather than prime and then a seperate, higher zoom range.
Click to expand...

The 600D can zoom without touching the lens??
 
If you look here an answer is indirectly suggested.. in that a x3 zoom is a straight pixel crop from the sensor, anything greater than this is either dropping resolution or interpreting pixels. If there was anything in the 1-<3x range it would also be an interpretation to shed unwanted pixels.

I've personally always viewed "digital zoom" as something to be left switched off on any camera or device.
 
Alastair said:
If you look here an answer is indirectly suggested.. in that a x3 zoom is a straight pixel crop from the sensor, anything greater than this is either dropping resolution or interpreting pixels. If there was anything in the 1-<3x range it would also be an interpretation to shed unwanted pixels.

I've personally always viewed "digital zoom" as something to be left switched off on any camera or device.
Click to expand...
I agree with the usual switching it off approach, but full HD is only just over 2MP and from an 18MP sensor, if you are going to lose quality then switch it off, but in this case it would seem not, it just seemed a shame that you couldn't progress to 3x, rather than 1x or 3x, as you lose quality above 3x digital zoom.
 
mumrar said:
I agree with the usual switching it off approach, but full HD is only just over 2MP and from an 18MP sensor, if you are going to lose quality then switch it off, but in this case it would seem not, it just seemed a shame that you couldn't progress to 3x, rather than 1x or 3x, as you lose quality above 3x digital zoom.
Click to expand...

Is there not also a potential for compromise in quality below x3 zoom?

I presume the in-camera processing is optimised for x1, and then x3 is a straight pixel-for-pixel crop. Above x3 you're in standard digital zoom territory, but between x1 and x3 there's an odd situation for digital zoom (too many pixels rather than too few) that perhaps the processing struggles with.

Just guessing.
 
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