CL Digital Zoom Feature

[michali]

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I've been playing around with this feature on the CL. To my surprise Digital Zoom works with all L mount lenses, the option is 1.3x or 1.7x.  On the zooms it kicks in at maximum focal length, on the VE 90-280mm L it kicks in at 280mm & on the Sigma 100-400mm L, it kicks in at 400mm. 

I took some images with the Sigma 100-400mm L @ 400mm with the 1.4x tele-converter mounted & Digital Zoom set at 1.7x.  

Unless I've miscalculated, @ 400mm the effective/35mm equiv. focal length should be:  400mm x 1.4 (TC) = 560mm x 1.5 (APC crop factor) =  840mm X 1.7(Digital Zoom setting) = 1428mm.  

The Digital Zoom of course only affects the Jpeg, with the 1.4x TC mounted & the lens set @ 400mm, the effective focal length of the DNG image is 840mm.

The above calculation aside, I understand that with Digital Zoom what happens is that the camera crops the Jpeg image. 

My question, does anyone know if there's more going on other than just in-camera cropping or is there some in-camera processing taking place as well?

I suppose the answer to my own question is that in my eyes, processing & cropping the DNG & converting to the same size as the Digital Zoom Jpeg, results in a superior image (it's difficult to gauge here with the image compression).  This would imply that there's no in-camera processing taking place with the Digital Zoom function enabled?

Digital Zoom Jpeg:

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DNG cropped & converted to Jpeg:

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by michali

[wda]

The answer to your final question is 'yes'. Digital zoom only works with jpegs.

[jaapv]

In general, I prefer to do my own cropping and resizing instead of leaving it to camera software. To me the digital zoom feature is a gimmick that belongs on smartphones.

[michali]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

In general, I prefer to do my own cropping and resizing instead of leaving it to camera software. To me the digital zoom feature is a gimmick that belongs on smartphones.

I agree Jaap. The bottom line is, as you say it's nothing more than a gimmick.....

[pocholin]

On 12/23/2020 at 10:42 AM, michali said:

I agree Jaap. The bottom line is, as you say it's nothing more than a gimmick.....

...but it comes handy when trying to quickly get closer and seeing immediate results. I like it because it is a single step/in-camera crop.

[tommonego@gmail.com]

If it doesn't work with RAW files, then it is almost useless. I can crop as needed, but I try to make the image fit my screen so I don't need the crop.