Is there any difference between digital zoom and just cropping the picture afterwards?
moridin22
That depends on how exactly the digital zoom in your phone works - if your phone takes the same quality pictures when you're zoomed in and zoomed out, then cropping the zoomed-out picture afterwards can cause some loss of detail if you try to resize the image back to its original size (to make it look like the zoomed in picture).
tyleryath
If there is no change to the physical lens, I would think that digital zoom and cropping afterwards are the same, therefore it would be better to just take the full size image anyways to retain more information.
frankieeder
Yes it would depend on whether your digital zoom is actually a superresolution algorithm. If not, I think they would be identical.
dtseng
The 1/3 constant is actually pretty important in photography. For example, the Rule of Thirds is often used by photographers to make a great composition in a photograph. This works for all kinds of subjects: https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/rule-of-thirds
killawhale2
Am I wrong to think that zooming in with same size is equivalent to cropping and resizing, assuming that the same algorithm is used for both cases to recalculate the pixel values?
moridin22
That's correct @killawhale2, there's only a difference if different techniques are used in zooming vs cropping and resizing.
kingdish
It's not always true to make the subject take 1/3 place of an image. There are other ways to make the subject pop out, and I think it really depends on what the subject is. For example, if I want to take a picture to show the grandiosity of nature, I can zoom out to take a silhouette of a person and emphasize the contrast between the sizes of the person and the background (nature).
keirp
Perhaps using digital zoom is just so that you can actively try to correct the framing on the shot before you take it.
Is there any difference between digital zoom and just cropping the picture afterwards?
That depends on how exactly the digital zoom in your phone works - if your phone takes the same quality pictures when you're zoomed in and zoomed out, then cropping the zoomed-out picture afterwards can cause some loss of detail if you try to resize the image back to its original size (to make it look like the zoomed in picture).
If there is no change to the physical lens, I would think that digital zoom and cropping afterwards are the same, therefore it would be better to just take the full size image anyways to retain more information.
Yes it would depend on whether your digital zoom is actually a superresolution algorithm. If not, I think they would be identical.
The 1/3 constant is actually pretty important in photography. For example, the Rule of Thirds is often used by photographers to make a great composition in a photograph. This works for all kinds of subjects: https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/rule-of-thirds
Am I wrong to think that zooming in with same size is equivalent to cropping and resizing, assuming that the same algorithm is used for both cases to recalculate the pixel values?
That's correct @killawhale2, there's only a difference if different techniques are used in zooming vs cropping and resizing.
It's not always true to make the subject take 1/3 place of an image. There are other ways to make the subject pop out, and I think it really depends on what the subject is. For example, if I want to take a picture to show the grandiosity of nature, I can zoom out to take a silhouette of a person and emphasize the contrast between the sizes of the person and the background (nature).
Perhaps using digital zoom is just so that you can actively try to correct the framing on the shot before you take it.