Just Say No – To Digital Zoom
Photo by Scott Bourne
I know your fancy camcorder comes with a one to 12 kabillion mm zoom, but don’t be fooled.
As impressive as that monster digital zoom sounds, it comes with a price – very poor image quality. Now I know what you’re thinking…”But Scott, MY camera’s digital zoom is better than all the others. Heck I paid a grand for this thing.”
(Insert buzzer sound here.)
Sorry, there is no such thing as a good digital zoom – not on $1000 video cameras, $2000 video cameras or even $10,000 video cameras.
A digital zoom crops your image and magnifies the remaining pixels the same way you would blow up something in a photo or video editing program. The result simply always, always, always looks horrible.
Instead, concentrate on using your optical zoom. This zoom does not lose image quality. If you have a 10x optical zoom, you can shoot most typical scenes just fine. If you need more zoom than your camera’s optical zoom can provide, use that high-tech pair of legs you got and walk closer to the subject. Whatever you do, turn off the digital zoom feature in your camcorder.
