Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Photography question, Zoom important?

Again, digital zoom is worthless. Run one's optical zoom up as far as possible and take the pic. That will capture as much data as the camera is capable of handling. Subsequently, one can crop that image and elect to print it at any desired resolution. Best is at least 300 pixels per linear inch but one can get some reasonable images going down to maybe 200. Less than that, and one is looking at ragged lines and lots of optical noise.

On the posted pics: In Photobucket the first image is 1000 pixels wide. The second is 842, and the third is 405. Those dimensions, however, will not translate to this web site, because the maximum allowed width here is 600 pixels. If an image exceeds 600 pixels in width, it is resampled and reduced to a 600 pixel width for posting. The third image is the only one rendered in it's true dimensions. The original image as it came from the camera was 4609 pixels wide. I would produce an excellent print being 15.36 inches wide at a 300 pixel per inch resolution. If we printed at 200 pixels per inch, we could boost the image to 23 inches in width.

One can right click on an image here and then click "properties" to see what it's dimensions are on this site.

My computer screen does about 94 pixels per inch, so the last image is about 4 inches wide.


As to zoom factor: For example a 18-55mm lens would have a 3x optical zoom, and a 18-200mm lens would have a 11x optical zoom. Lesser value divided into the larger. If we assume the standard 50mm is 1X and we purchase a 500mm lens, it's the equivalent of doing a 10X zoom.

With digital cameras it can get more complicated, as many are equipped with what are called cropped sensors. The sensor used is actually smaller than a standard 35 mm slide. In these instances, one gets a multiplier effect. In Cookies cameras it a 1.6 multiplier. If one has a 35 to 200 mm zoom on a crop sensor unit, it is effectively a 56 to 320 mm unit.

Cookie has a prime 500mm lens. On her camera it's the equivalent of a 800mm unit on a full frame camera.

A little further: If we assume that a 50 mm lens (pretty much the standard on single lens reflexes) is 1X and we divide that into 800, Cookie is essentially carrying a 16X lens when the prime is installed (800/50).

I grabbed the 1400 tonight, the 1400 seemed to make the most sense.

Underwater I'll ignore the optical zoom unless lighting conditions can handle it,

the digital zoom will be turned off.

On land the 1400s optical zoom will be useful, and since the 2000 had no optical zoom at all, it couldn't be considered a decent land camera.

Then the dive shop was more than gracious with add ons, free additional charger and then 3 more additional battery's for a total of 4 battery's, and then even a 16 mg SD card.

It's a close out model, but were talking 50% off here.

In a few weeks upon return from this dive trip, I'll try to post a few pics.

Appreciate all the help Guys. Ken.

Small plastic bag.

Dog food.

Slip it inside your BCD.

Open underwater.

No need for zoom.