What is the best resolution for a web camera?

Digital Camera: Digital Zoom vs. Optical zoom. Quality

• For a digital camera: I am looking at Canon SD10 My question relates to what I can expect from the quality of a digital zoom only camera. Here is my criteria: A: I travel a lot, and want the smallest camera possible. (e.g Canon Powershot SD10) B: 95% of the time, the only thing I do is post pictures on my web site. While I only need low resolution 800 x 600/ 1024 x 768 I want excellent quality at these resolutions. I rarely print, but if I need to I would like decent quality. C: I do zoom a lot, nothing telephoto. I want to get peoples faces better, zoom on a 2nd story of a building, etc. It is very important to me to be able to do my normal zooming without noticeable degradation in quality of picture. In the past I have used a S330, with a 3x optical zoom and have been happy. Quality is important to me. Here is what I would like from an answer: To my satisfaction, based on above criteria: Can I use the cannon SD10 which is a 4 mega pixel camera with no optical zoom? (digital only) If the answer is no, any recommendations would be appreciated. Again compact size, and quality at low to average resolutions w/zoom is what I am interested in. Thanks, Chris

• Answer:

  Hello chrisdelz, The answer to your question: ?Here is what I would like from an answer: To my satisfaction, based on above criteria: Can I use the cannon SD10 which is a 4 mega pixel camera with no optical zoom? (digital only) is ?NO? Here?s why: When you were a kid, did you ever write on an un-inflated balloon with a ball point pen? If you did, let?s suppose you made the letter ?O?. The ?O? is made of a measurable amount of ink on the balloon. If you were then to inflate the balloon, the ?O? would be larger, but it would not be as sharp as the original ?O?. You have enlarged the letter, but not increased the amount of ink. Simply put. this is what happens when you use digital zoom. With digital zoom, your camera enlarges the pixels in the image, resulting in a loss of resolution, similar to the ?O? on the balloon. It?s true that some software and some cameras can interpolate extra pixels, in an effort to improve the image. But interpolated images lose detail, and don?t compare to images using optical zoom. Optical zoom, on the other hand has more pixels to begin with. Optical zoom allows an image to be enlarged to 8x10, 11x14 and larger, depending on the camera?s megapixel size. Digital Camera Buying Guide does a good job of clarifying my ?balloon? explanation: http://www.digital-camera-buying-guide.com/digital_camera_pixels_resolution.php Photoxels says ?For our purpose, digital zoom is not really zoom, in the strictest definition of the term. What digital zoom does is enlarge a portion of the image, thus 'simulating' optical zoom. In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size. In so doing, you lose image quality. If you've been regularly using digital zoom and wondered why your pictures did not look that great, now you know.? And ?Optical vs. digital zoom? There is no contest. Only optical zoom matters when selecting a digital camera.? http://www.photoxels.com/article_zoom.html This About site echoes my feeling to a tee: ?If your digital camera offers a digital zoom option, go get your camera right now and turn this option off! Don't use it... ever!? http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/digitalimaging/f/digitalzoom.htm The Digital Camera Buying Guide concurs:?Optical zoom is what you should be looking at as digital zoom is basically just a marketing trick.? http://www.digital-camera-buying-guide.com/best_digital_cameras.php A few years ago, I made what I considered a large investment ($750, a bargain price from an obscure site I found) to buy an Epson 850Z Photo PC camera. It has only 2.1 megapixels, and 3x optical zoom. I have never seen photos from any digital camera that equals the resolution and clarity of this camera. Sadly Epson no longer makes these well- designed and excellent quality cameras. I use mine several times a week, and almost feel it is an appendage of mine! What makes this camera so good are the lenses! Low end cameras may have lots of megapixels and zoom, but if the lens of poor quality, you will get poor quality prints. This site pertains to Video cameras, but it emphasizes my opinion of digital zoom. Scroll down the page to the paragraph below the hot pink text, just above the middle of the page. (Internet Video magazine) http://www.internetvideomag.com/articles2002/zoomwars.htm Camera Recommendations: Here are three cameras with over 3 megapixels and good optical zoom lenses. I would prefer one of the first two. Even though the Olympus has 3.2 megapixels, it has a great lens. The HP 850 has a nice ?chunky? feel, which is important to some. (My Epson is similar in shape and size, and it fits nicely in your hand, allowing a steady grasp for less ?shake? in the picture). Sony cameras use a proprietary memory stick- works fine, but disallows memory sharing between cameras. If you have more than one camera, having a compact flash size that all share is very handy! For this reason, I have left Sony?s out for this question. Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom 3.2 megapixels, 10x Optical zoom, just slightly more expensive than the Canon you asked about. This Olympus can produce photos even larger than 8X10. Plus, Olympus is known for its quality lenses (They also make microscopes!) This is the smallest of this quality camera on the market, per this web site: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/c730uz.html More information: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/olympus/c730uz-review/ HP 850 4.1 megapixels, 8x optical zoom, produces photos as large as 20x30. Weighs 0.85 pounds. $300-$500 http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/hp850.html More specifications: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/ho/WF06b/15179-64213-64342-12117-f30-75970-75972-75973.html Nikon Coolpix 4300 4.0 megapixels, 3x optical zoom, Hexanon zoom lens. Around $400 http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/nikon4300.html More information: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/CP4300/C43A.HTM Steve?s Digicam is a great digital camera review source. 4 megapixel cameras http://www.steves-digicams.com/cameras_dig4.html 3 megapixel cameras http://www.steves-digicams.com/cameras_dig3.html Sample Photos from various cameras: http://www.steves-digicams.com/closeups.html A good ?pixel/resolution chart: http://www.digital-camera-buying-guide.com/digital_camera_pixels_resolution.php A bit about resolution: http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/digitalimaging/qt/camerares.htm A series of pictures taken with digital zoom: http://www.cplab.com/digital_zoom_sample.htm A comparison of digital vs. optical zoom in pictures: http://catcode.com/comments/kbpics.html To summarize, chrisdelz, A: I travel a lot, and want the smallest camera possible. (e.g Canon Powershot SD10) The Olympus C-730 is the smallest of the good quality cameras I found, weighing only 11.1 ounces. The Canon Powershot SD10 IS smaller, at 3.5 ounces however. For quality, I would opt for the extra 7.6 ounces. B: 95% of the time, the only thing I do is post pictures on my web site. While I only need low resolution 800 x 600/ 1024 x 768 I want excellent quality at these resolutions. I rarely print, but if I need to I would like decent quality. You will NOT get excellent photo prints with the Canon Powershot, nor any camera at low resolution. What is good enough for the web, is considered very poor for printing. 72DPI is all that is needed for web publishing. You can use the lower resolution setting for your web pictures, on any of the recommended cameras above. You can also do what I do, and what I recommend: I use the highest resolution camera setting for all my pictures. Using photo-editing software such as Paint Shop Pro and/or JASC Photo Album, the image can easily be optimized for the web. By doing this, you preserve the original high resolution image for possible printing later. Make a copy to optimize for the web, and you have the best of both worlds. Software like JASC Photo Album will allow batch photo optimization, saving a great deal of time. Photo Album retails for about $28 for the downloadable version , and Paint Shop Pro sells for under $80 for the download version. Both can be downloaded for a free 30 day trial version at www.jasc.com . C: I do zoom a lot, nothing telephoto. I want to get peoples faces better, zoom on a 2nd story of a building, etc. It is very important to me to be able to do my normal zooming without noticeable degradation in quality of picture. Using an optical zoom, you will be able to zoom as much as the camera you chose allows, with NO degredation of the image. Using digital zoom will cause visible degredation of the image. These cameras also have "Macro" modes which allow good closeup shots. Again compact size, and quality at low to average resolutions w/zoom is what I am interested in. The above cameras are compact in size, have plenty of optical zoom power and will produce quality prints. Using the lower resolution setting for web photos, and the highest settings for photo printing is one way to solve your dilemma. The second way is using the software I described above. I hope this information makes your decision easier! If any part of my answer is unclear, please request an Answer Clarification, before rating. This will allow me to assist you further, if possible. Regards, crabcakes-ga Search Terms optical zoom vs. digital zoom Steve's digicam reviews digital zoom photo examples