I have a new digital camera with 12X optical zoom. I.ve heard that using the digital zoom is ill advised but how best to use this 12X zoom is asked. For posting here the less megapixels the better and for blow ups use more, but where do I set the zoom? It is a Panasonic Lumix camera and I have purchased an external flash for it.
Thanks for any hints you may have.
BB
I’ve a fair amount of such info in my model railroad photography website, see the link in my signature below.
I have an HP 4mp camera yeah I know not snazzy like a 12x but oh well. I think the same would apply to your camera. If I dont have to I never use the digital zoom I get as close as I can to keep it at 4mp. For photographing my layout I try to use a tripd unless I’m using down the rails photos. I set the speed to 100, make sure the settings is set at macro and a 10 second timer I mostly get great shots I do hover get limited depth at times when theres an item close by.
The optical zoom is a function of the lens basically allowing you to place the camera at a given distance from a subject and then make a photograph that appears closer or farther from the subject. Pixals have to do with the resolution of the photograph and has nothing to do with the optical zoom. However, pixals do have a lot to do with the digital zoom, often degrading the image and that’s why you don’t want to use it. To really understand all this you really need to pick up a book on digital photography and educate yourself or maybe just read your owners manuel.
This was discussed at great length just two weeks ago, maybe a day or two less.
Optical zoom takes a smaller portion of the visible area presented to the camera and enlarges it. By doing so, as with any image it takes, it used reflected light. Only so much light density is reflected off a given surface, so enlarging a small portion of a lighted area has the effect of reducing the light density in the image. So, if you wish to use a smaller portion of a given area, by all means, use optical zoom…just so you know that you may need more light on the subject to get decent contrast. Also, depending on the quality of the lens elements, however many are stacked to make your lens, you may see enlarged errors in the surface showing up as distortions in the image.
Digital zoom, on the other hand, takes whatever image the lens provides to the CCD chip, the recording device at what would be the film plane, and selects an area of that image to enlarge. Unfortunately, that image, being digital, is much coarser than the image rendered on film, so when the image is englarged digitally, also will be the non-“seeing” parts of the CCD pixel array…you’ll see more of the rows and columns of substrate between the pixels. Another way of looking at it is that an optical image will have more visual data in the file, while a digitally enlarged/zoomed image will have more “nope, I got nothing recorded here” type data.
Digitally zoomed images will usually look just fine on the low resolution display of a computer monitor, and probably quite good up to about 5X8 (depending on the CCD density/size), but if you want a 18 X 24" poster…it will look very grainy.
Wow. Wish I had optical zoom! I’m using a 3.2mp Canon PowerShot A300, so with no optical zoom, I have to move the camera around a lot. Fortunately the camera’s lens center is only 7 scale feet above the bottom of the camera, so I can rest the camera on the layout and get pretty good shots, without the zoom. Check out the photo gallery on my FHN web site - URL in the signature, I hope.
I never use a flash, as it makes for unrealistic color and lighting on the layout. I try to get the camera (which fortunately isn’t much larger than a pack of cigarettes) right down to the eye level of my population on the layout. Most cameras nowadays have, I believe, a “macro” or close-up) setting (mine is indicated by a icon of a tulip), which is great as long as you remember the depth-of-focus issues which may be involved. Also, I use the highest-resolution settings (the most pixels per photo) my camera will take. You can always resize them in Photoshop or other image-processing software. Oh, and get a high-capacity memory chip for the camera, as well. 1gb chips can be had for as little as US$10 at Micro Center and other computer and camera stores.
Above all, don’t be discouraged if the first photos don’t turn out perfect. Any professional photographer will tell you that you’ll need to take dozens of pictures to get that one good shot. Experiment, and have fun!
I have one of these excellent cameras and I love it. Mine is the Lumifix FZ30, 8 mp. I have many pictures taken with this camera and others on the PBase link in my signature.
Your best bet is to set the autofocus on the left side of the lens barrel to the Macro mode. (The middle position) It will automatically give you tremendous close ups, but when your not shooting up close in it reverts back to normal Autofocus. I sugest that you experiment as much as you can and see what looks good to you. Compose your trains in the viewfinder/screen and try to use a smaller f stop for greater depth of field. You use the “A” setting on the exposure dial and rotate the little wheel in front of the shutter release. The screen will tell you what the f stop is. It will stop down to f/16 for great depth of field.
Good luck and you made an excellent choice, btw.
Here are a few examples form my camera. All were taken with the lens set to Macro mode as described above.
Macro mode.
Macro mode.
Probably about 50 mm>
Full 12X zoom or 420 mm.
Here is that link from the last time:
Good! Thanks for that.
Use a tripod.
The single worst thing about my early layout photography was trying to hand-hold the camera steady. Since my camera doesn’t have a tripod mount or trigger cable, I try to brace it against something. I also use the timer, because that takes away the “jiggle” of pressing the shutter.
Because of poor depth of field with lenses in the zoom position you should take model photos in the wide angle end of the focal scale. In some cases you may even want to go into macro mode. If you are familier with computers software such as Helicon focus or CombineZ5 (free) will work wonders for depth of field. Also flash in not always the best for model photos.
Most of the fine points brought out in this thread are covered with examples in my model photo website, as mentioned previously: http://arailfan.googlepages.com/
I’ve been doing this for a long time, first with film cameras and now with digital. My work has been published in most model railroad magazines.