I currently have a Powershot S1 IS with 10x optical zoom and 3.2 megapixels. I wonder what other combinations of zoom and megapixels would give equal quality. For example, suppose I get less zoom, but greater megapixels. Could I crop the photo to the same pixel dimensions and get as good a picture? Could anyone illustrate with sample photos taken with different cameras?
2007-02-23 17:27:22 · 3 answers · asked by robertpauljr 1 in Consumer Electronics ➔ Cameras
It's hard to beat that zoom!
Check www.dpreview.com, great site. Try the Buying Guide, Feature Search.
2007-02-23 19:00:57 · answer #1 · answered by Jim 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Zoom is a linear measure. Let's say you take a picture of a brick wall at widest angle, and the frame width covers 10 feet of the wall. If you zoom in all the way, you will get only 1 foot of the wall in the frame.
The pixels of a picture are arranged two dimensionally, so the number of pixels used is the square of the zoom factor.
In other words, if you wanted to get a picture of the whole 10 feet of wall with the same quality as the 1 foot of wall at 10X zoom, you would need a 320 mp camera.
2007-02-23 23:51:27 · answer #2 · answered by Rando 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you bought the Canon PowerShot S2 IS it has 5 megapixels and 12X optical zoom; ditto Powershot S3, it has 6 mp and also 12X optical zoom. So you're gaining megapixels by buying either one and keeping lots of zoom.
2007-02-24 00:47:15 · answer #3 · answered by Vintage Music 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋