Digital Zoom confusion.

[Anbesol]

Beyond the obvious - that a digital zoom is merely a crop. What is up with digital zoom nd optical zooms numbers being confused? even by manufacturers. they will say, "oh 12x optical, 4x digital, 48x combined." but from where i see it, it would be 12x + 4x, not multiplied. may be all the x's confuse the people who write this crap. but i'll tell ou what, there is no way that, at full zoom, the S3 is capable of a 1780 mmfocal range, which is what the combined values would imply. it would be 576 mm, 16x. So. best buy, compusa, etc etc etc amongst many manufacturers misleadingly mislabel - possibly on purpose, their products to give them falsely inflated numbers. in addition to that - digital zoom has, even amongst your general consumer, such a minimal value - why do they still put it in cameras? is it just the gmmick that will continue along with the industry? or will there ever be a "whoops, my bad, sorry guys - our engineers didnt mention to our marketting staff that you dont multiply, but rather, add, we will stop mislabeling our stuff"...

[Rocket_Scientist]

Well, my Cannon S3 User Manual asserts that the max zoom, using digital, is approximately 48x. I never thought that meant the same thing as 48 times the focal length, and I admit I do not fully comprehend the focal-length-to-zoom relationship, but I thought the amount of digital zoom was just that much magnification, if you will. I tried a small experiment, and I do not how valid it is. I took a photo of a wall clock (with the S3) at normal setting, then zoomed to "48x" (full optical and digital zoom). I then took the normal photo, cropped it, and resized it to 48 times its size. Of course the quality suffered enormously, but the digits on the clock did appear to be roughly the same size when displaying both photos at 100%. So, it may not really be 48x, but it does not seem like 16x would be right, either.

[Anbesol]

Well, my Cannon S3 User Manual asserts that the max zoom, using digital, is approximately 48x. I never thought that meant the same thing as 48 times the focal length, and I admit I do not fully comprehend the focal-length-to-zoom relationship, but I thought the amount of digital zoom was just that much magnification, if you will. I tried a small experiment, and I do not how valid it is. I took a photo of a wall clock (with the S3) at normal setting, then zoomed to "48x" (full optical and digital zoom). I then took the normal photo, cropped it, and resized it to 48 times its size. Of course the quality suffered enormously, but the digits on the clock did appear to be roughly the same size when displaying both photos at 100%. So, it may not really be 48x, but it does not seem like 16x would be right, either.

thats true - it seems like it would be somewhere between the two... still, 16x seems a bit more real than 48x...

[espressotalk]

When you zoom an object 12x optically it makes it 12x larger.

Then your digital zoom kicks in and makes that same object 4x even larger. 12 x 4 = 48

Hope this clears it up.