Using Digital Zoom on Sony W Series Digital Camera?
 

I know there is a Photography forum but tbh past threads havent seen much response. Probably as not about a nice uber 20 gazillion megapixel slr :)

Anyway just got the girlfriend a Sony W80 Digital Camera for her birthday. The product bumpf from their website says:

DSC-W80
Optical Zoom 3x
Precision Digital Zoom 6x
Smart Zoom up to 14x (with VGA)

Now the manual that comes with it is quite frankly naff and tells me nothing. When using the zoom the camera indicates that it goes to 3.0x and then stops. It wont then zoom any further. From what I can see Digital Zoom is enabled in the settings (set to Auto but also tried precision and made no difference).

My old canon ixus would go to full optical then stop. If you pressed zoom button again then it would use Digital Zoom as well (if enabled).

Any Sony camera users out there know how to use the extra digital and smart zoom?

Cheers,
Simon

[quote=P1Fanatic;7011055]I know there is a Photography forum but tbh past threads havent seen much response. Probably as not about a nice uber 20 gazillion megapixel slr :)

or maybe nobody reading it recently has your camera?
I don't, so I'd need to read your manual.

Digital zooms just crop the image though, which you can do later in any photo software. Cropping later also means you can choose where to 'zoom' in on. Of course when you crop, or use digi zoom, you loose resolution, but that only matters if you want to print large.

There's quite a bit of kiddology regarding consumer cameras - like having a digital zoom, and having 8 mega pixels, when actually many have 4MP, plus 4 'interpollated' - ie made up ones. You can upsize a 4MB image yourself, and buy a cheaper camera.
A bit of a con IMO.

Digital zoom will only work if you are taking a picutre under the max res. In other words, if your camera is a 7MP, set the picture resolution to , say , 3.1MP, then you will get digital zoom.

That's the way it works on my Sony point and shoot anyway.

Worth bearing in mind that digital zoom is utterly ****ing useless by the way.

Agreed. Digital zoom is a complete waste of time - all it does is throw part of the picture away, it doesn't achieve anything that you couldn't do by printing out the photo a bit bigger and then taking a pair of scissors to it (or cropping it first in your favourite photo software, of course).

I know that doesn't answer your question about why it doesn't appear to be working - maybe another Sony owner will come along to answer that one - but at least it's not something you really need to worry about.