Digital TC and Digital Zoom with the SX50

As I read a lot of posts on the results obtained by early adopters of the SX60, I often see a number of images based on use of the Digital TC or the Digital Zoom of the camera. Some people appreciate seeing the results these features can provide, some people state that using these features is not a valid representation of what the camera can do, and some people state that one should never use these features, period.

I'm in the first group and appreciate this information. Now I know it's early in the SX60's lifetime and it is easy to see that people are developing their techniques with the camera, so results with these features (as well as the camera as a whole) may not be shown at their best yet. But the data is still very valid for those of us still keeping a possible SX60 acquisition in mind.

It's well known on this forum that I like the Digital TC (both on the SX50 and SX40). I crop IN CAMERA 99% of the time, so I like the additional versatility the TC gives me when I can't use my feet to get the final composition or the angle would not be the same if I did. It's also well known here that I do not recommend the Digital Zoom to replace any optically available focal length unless you really need the extra available f-stop. Nor do I recommend the Digital Zoom over double the optical focal length, as stated in my December 2012 review of the SX50 on this site. To this day I can still not explain it, but to me as shown in my tests, the Digital TC does appear to give better results at 1.5x or 2.0x than the Digital Zoom at the same focal lengths, what I've often called "Canon's special sauce". Which is why I rarely use the Digital Zoom, but have the Digital TC set to my "S" button on the SX50.

With the Digital TC, I've been able to capture these SX50 images that are in my gallery (I didn't go looking for SX40 examples there). All are full size 16:9 images with no cropping, though they may either be SOOC or contain some post processing. All were taken handheld except for the tree frog (tripod).

Digital TC 2.0 handheld

Digital TC 1.5 handheld

Digital TC 2.0 handheld

Digital TC 2.0 handheld

Digital Zoom handheld, but elbow braced against a tree

Digital TC 2.0 on a tripod

As an example of the degree of detail that is available in these images, here is a further crop of the third image above, the dragon, resized back up to the same resolution as the original:

Cropped and resized back to the original resolution of the dragon image above.

So whatever your opinions have been about using these tools, I think that with the SX40 and SX50 that Canon has created a very good and obviously useful tool, mostly talking about the Digital TC but sometimes the Digital Zoom as well. And thus I would encourage everyone to try them to see how they can possibly simplify your workflow. Especially if you crop in camera like I do. Some may still believe that it is always better to shoot first and crop later, and that's fine. To me though, it's just not the only answer.

And I do appreciate those new SX60 owners who post the TC images as I think the feature to be an integral part of the personality of this type of camera.

Thanks for reading and comments, of course, are always welcome.

Ed