Smart Digital Zoom In Sony DSC-P73

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/p73.html' target='_blank'>http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/p73.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"I usually advise folks to avoid using the digital zoom feature. In most camera’s, it simply enlarges the central area of the image sensor by interpolating it up to the full sensor image size, degrading image quality. The DSC-P73, however, has a “Smart” digital zoom feature that crops the central portion of the image and produces a high-quality uninterpolated image of smaller size. The smart digital zoom expands the 3x optical magnification to 3.4x when shooting 3-megapixel images, 5.4x when shooting 1-megapixel images and 10x when shooting VGA-sized images."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/p73_front.jpg" /><br /><br />Steves Digicams has a long review on the brand new Sony DSC-P73, a 4-megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom. Of course, what makes this camera special is that smart digital zoom feature. I have always completely ignored the digital zoom numbers because essentially the camera just magnifies the image to give the illusion of zoom, giving rise to a highly pixelated image. But I guess one would have to reconsider the feature if this truly does what it claims. Unfortuanately the review does not have any images of the smart zoom in action. Has anyone played with this camera yet?

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Just use a photo-editing application to do the same thing. Results are likely to be better too.

[marlof]

Smart Zoom already exists in some devices, like the Sony DSC-F828. The way I understand it works in short is the following:
- your sensor has 8 MP
- if you shoot 5 MP and use SmartZoom, the camera doesn't use the complete size of your sensor; the part that isn't used is used to enlarge the picture;
- if you shoot 3 MP, you get some extra size to spare, so you can SmartZoom in further;
- etc.
The results of Smart Zoom are better than digital zoom, but in my experience you could effectively get the same result by shooting in 8 MP, and cropping, as Lee Yuan Sheng suggested. The results of Smart Zoom are not worse than the cropping, and you have the advantage (esp. in action shots) that you immediately can see the framing etc. Of course, cropping has the advantage that you get to edit the framing later on. There's a thread (with sample pictures) about this feature in the DPReview Sony Forum (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=7482951).

[Tobias]

The digital zoom on my Fuji S602 works like this too. The only time I could imagine using it would be if I was so short of media that I didn't have space to take a high-res image for cropping later.

I figure it's an easy feature to implement in software, and it's another feature for the salesman to list while he's persuading you to upgrade.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I figure it's an easy feature to implement in software, and it's another feature for the salesman to list while he's persuading you to upgrade.

Welcome Tobias. I quite agree. Not a feature to exite really. :?