Macro vs "Digital Macro" - what's the difference?

Bagshanty · Nov 30, 2006

I've been battling with the user manual for my new Ixus 850 IS (I like to have a full understanding of how an item works). One of the modes is "Digital macro". I've not come across this before, and I'm at a loss to know why I should use that instead of the normal macro mode.

Any ideas, anyone?

dholl · Nov 30, 2006

Shame there's no answer on this yet...I'm interested too.

--
dholl

sueanne · Nov 30, 2006

For my SD550, the macro is good for a certain 'macro' distance but think of 'digital macro' as even getting a closer macro like on my Pro1, digital macro = supermacro

Here is an example :

Very tiny tiny flowers, This little flower found in a bed of weeds, about 2 CM or 1" from including yellow part.
http://www.pbase.com/sueymarky/image/65631795/original

a mushroom with digital macro
http://www.pbase.com/sueymarky/image/68019892/original

http://www.pbase.com/sueymarky/image/68005829/original

-----------------------

Bagshanty said:
I've been battling with the user manual for my new Ixus 850 IS (I
like to have a full understanding of how an item works). One of the
modes is "Digital macro". I've not come across this before, and I'm
at a loss to know why I should use that instead of the normal macro
mode.

Any ideas, anyone?

--
----------------------------
My warmest regards,
sue anne

dholl · Nov 30, 2006

Nice one, Sue Anne...clear as a bell shots too.

You think Digital Macro is the same as Digital Zoom, only close rather than far?

I understand digital zoom as having the same effect as cropping on the pc...so if you use it you lose resolution. A x2 digital zoom on a 5mp pic will only use 2.5mp resolution.

So a camera with a focusing distance from 10cm but a supermacro from 1cm means that a 5cm shot will use half of the resolution one has selected.

Have I got that right or am I in a muddle?

--
dholl

sueanne · Nov 30, 2006

droll,

I am not sure if digital macro is the same as digital zoom.

I tend to turn off all my digital zoom in my cameras. I rather crop than use the digital zoom cause in my experience, the digital zoom gave me poor pictures.

-------------------

dholl said:
Nice one, Sue Anne...clear as a bell shots too.

You think Digital Macro is the same as Digital Zoom, only close
rather than far?

I understand digital zoom as having the same effect as cropping on
the pc...so if you use it you lose resolution. A x2 digital zoom
on a 5mp pic will only use 2.5mp resolution.

So a camera with a focusing distance from 10cm but a supermacro
from 1cm means that a 5cm shot will use half of the resolution one
has selected.

Have I got that right or am I in a muddle?

The concept is good but I am also in a muddle.

dholl said:
--
dholl

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----------------------------
My warmest regards,
sue anne

Graham Maynard · Nov 30, 2006

If you put an external close-up lens on a camera you can use both optical plus digital zoom to get a much larger magnification than using the camera Macro function alone.

I get 20mm object to fill the A640 image width on wide Macro, but 4mm to fill width by using both optical plus digital zoom with +16 close up lense, and the camera is far enough away to not interfere with subject lighting.

dholl · Nov 30, 2006

Hey, how's it going, Graham?

Nice one for the tip.

--
dholl

cathyryan · Dec 1, 2006

OK, here's my take on it from the SD600 manual. With regular macro, the minimum distance is 3 cm if you are not zoomed at all, and 30 cm if you are zoomed all the way (optical zoom). So digital macro lets you zoom (digitally) while still being only 3 cm from the subject. So the subject will be larger. But it's still no different from cropping a photo that had no digital zoom in Photoshop later, and blowing it up.

Cathy

Graham Maynard · Dec 1, 2006

Ah - much the same - quality time is not photographic at the moment.

Actually using the digital zoom on the A640 camera with close-up lenses is much superior to anything I acheived before using film due to being able to see the results as you go. With film I always had to take 2 or 3 close up pics to get one right, but you would not know which would be best until you the prints arrived; ie. you paid for rubbish too.

dholl · Dec 1, 2006

Graham Maynard said:
Ah - much the same - quality time is not photographic at the moment.

Nice phrase...
Hope you get back to some shooting soon.

---

Hey Cathy, I think that's probably spot-on.

--
dholl

Graham Maynard · Dec 2, 2006

Hi Cathy,

But there is something better with the digital magnification in the A640, maybe G7 and more recent Canons too ?

It is so much better than magnifying the optical image on a computer screen afterwards because there are more many pixels per unit of subject width already saved within the camera.

The picture does not become blocky before lens resolved detail becomes lost. The digital zoom lets you see to the limit of the lens; ie. better than the 10Mp sensor on full optical zoom only.

cathyryan · Dec 2, 2006

Graham Maynard said:
Hi Cathy,

But there is something better with the digital magnification in the
A640, maybe G7 and more recent Canons too ?

It is so much better than magnifying the optical image on a
computer screen afterwards because there are more many pixels per
unit of subject width already saved within the camera.

The picture does not become blocky before lens resolved detail
becomes lost. The digital zoom lets you see to the limit of the
lens; ie. better than the 10Mp sensor on full optical zoom only.

Um, I disagree. All that digital zoom does, whether during digital macro or just using the digital zoom any time, is crop the image and blow it up digitally - the same as photoshop would do. If a camera is 6 mp, it's not capturing more than 6 mp and cropping down to 6. It is capturing 6 mp, cropping off part of the image, and digitally enlarging it (blowing it up) back to 6 mp. The only way it could be better than doing it in photoshop is if the computer in the camera has a better enlargement algorythm than photoshop, which I doubt. It is also true that the exposure on a digitally zoomed image may be more appropriate since it is evaluating only the zoomed part (not the part that you would crop out later in photoshop).

Cathy

Graham Maynard · Dec 2, 2006

Cathy, I have the A640 and I've tried both ways.

The camera's digital zoom is better to look at, especially with Sharpness set to -2. The digital zoom file is also much larger for its 'cropped' size.

Review;-
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A640/A640A.HTM

Optical zoom. Try cropping and magnifying.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/message.asp?forum=1010&parent=21108760&thread=21079486&quote=0

Opt + dig zoom. (Looks like Sharpness not reduced.)
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A640/FULLRES/YIMG_0329.HTM

Bagshanty · Dec 3, 2006

cathyryan said:
OK, here's my take on it from the SD600 manual. With regular macro,
the minimum distance is 3 cm if you are not zoomed at all, and 30
cm if you are zoomed all the way (optical zoom). So digital macro
lets you zoom (digitally) while still being only 3 cm from the
subject. So the subject will be larger. But it's still no different
from cropping a photo that had no digital zoom in Photoshop later,
and blowing it up.

Cathy

Thanks Cathy - I'm the original poster of the query, and I have to say your reply is the one that seems most logical. It would have been nice if Canon had put that in the manual. I shall try some experiments along those lines, although natural light and good natural subjects are in short supply here at the moment (Dorset, UK).

Thanks everyone for some good and useful input. I've learnt a lot.

regards

Andy

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Macro vs "Digital Macro" - what's the difference?

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