extra optical zoom in GF1

Hi, just got my GF1, my first serious camera. I got the 20mm F1.7 with it. There is a feature in GF1 to simulate optical zoom if the image resolution is not set to the highest. But I found it not nice to use. Seems it is not really a "zoom" function, as it must be either activated (then it has fixed to the far end) or not activated (stayed at the wide end). And toggling this is not convenient as well.

Any advice/suggestion?

I've never seen someone try and use it with a prime lens so it must work differently when you don't have a zoom ring on the lens. Interesting point! You are really doing a crop and using the cent of the sensor. This is useful with a long lens because you are metering out much further and you can in theory get a better exposure off the smaller field of view. With the 20mm lens I would say turn it off and simply crop the picture.

This mode is only available for jpegs.
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terry
http://tbanet.zenfolio.com/

Frantsy-

I use EZ zoom often with the GH1... I am not sure if the GF1 is the same...

First, I activate in the menu.

Then, when you use the "quick" menu button, you have several choices of resolution... as you change resolution downwards, the zoom factor goes up.

I find changing it on the fly pretty easy.

You should be able to double the reach on the 20 to 40mm, retaining f1.7, but at lower resolution.

I use it mostly to assure focus and exposure, rather than cropping the picture later.

SteveG

frantsy said:

There is a feature in GF1 to simulate optical zoom if the image resolution is not set to the highest. But I found it not nice to use. Seems it is not really a "zoom" function, as it must be either activated (then it has fixed to the far end) or not activated (stayed at the wide end). And toggling this is not convenient as well.

Any advice/suggestion?

Click to expand...

I'm another Expanded Zoom lover (and user). It works as a in-camera crop and allows to compose and crop simultaneously.
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DSC-R1, DMC-G1(14-45)

Frantsy-

By the way, test out the digital zoom... I almost never use it, but I tested it on the GH1 and it was very good...much better than on any previous cams I have used.

Your 20mm can be doubled to 40 with EZ zoom, then doubled again to 80 with digital for less critical shots...

Regards,
SteveG

Where did you get it with the 20mm lens? All I ever see online are the 14-45mm.

Thanks for the advice. I see how you use it. But for me, I would normally use the medium resolution ( 5M pixels), so I thought with this extra zoom, I could conveniently zoom up to 2x in a continuous way, but apparently this is not the case (at least for the prime lens).

Perhaps, I should switch to largest resolution and the crop it out afterwards instead of using this feature.
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Hi there, I bought this here in Hong Kong. They are selling 2 versions of body + lens. One is with this 20mm pancake, another is with the standard zoom lens. Since they are selling at the same price (HK$ 7490), I bought this prime lens.
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