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"In camera" magnification
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Jan 29, 2020 10:49:31   #
Streets Loc: Euless, TX.
 
Like many cameras, mine (Sony A65) has 2 levels of image magnification. I can select 1.4x or 2x. My sensor is rated at 24MP. Going to 1.4x lowers the image to 17MP. This is still very good pixel count for producing great photos. A real benefit of this is that the auto-focus becomes 1.4x more critical, and sharper images are thus gained. Have any of you noticed similar results?

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Jan 29, 2020 10:59:07   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
Streets wrote:
Like many cameras, mine (Sony A65) has 2 levels of image magnification. I can select 1.4x or 2x. My sensor is rated at 24MP. Going to 1.4x lowers the image to 17MP. This is still very good pixel count for producing great photos. A real benefit of this is that the auto-focus becomes 1.4x more critical, and sharper images are thus gained. Have any of you noticed similar results?


As a SONY shooter, you should be using Clear Image Zoom unless you are hung up on shooting raw. With CIZ you loose NO pixels. Well, maybe I should say you do loose them, but then they are replaced - IN CAMERA.
.

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Jan 29, 2020 11:55:04   #
Streets Loc: Euless, TX.
 
The A57 has the clear image zoom, but the A65 just has the 2 settings of , what they call, "teleconverter mode". Both methods affect pixel counts in like manner.

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Jan 29, 2020 12:25:03   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
Streets wrote:
The A57 has the clear image zoom, but the A65 just has the 2 settings of , what they call, "teleconverter mode". Both methods affect pixel counts in like manner.


I am pretty sure ALL reasonably late model Sony's HAVE CIZ - but I will tell you it is buried in the menus and you do have to be shooting JPEG to enable the selection !
.

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Jan 29, 2020 14:28:39   #
amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA
 
Streets wrote:
Like many cameras, mine (Sony A65) has 2 levels of image magnification. I can select 1.4x or 2x. My sensor is rated at 24MP. Going to 1.4x lowers the image to 17MP. This is still very good pixel count for producing great photos. A real benefit of this is that the auto-focus becomes 1.4x more critical, and sharper images are thus gained. Have any of you noticed similar results?


I looked up info on this and... sorry to say... it appears to be nothing more than a 'digital zoom'. Basically, the camera, which is already an APS-C cropper (i.e., not 'full frame'), further crops the image in either the 1.4X or 2X mode to digitally emulate adding an actual teleconverter to increase the focal length of the lens. This crop essentially 'throws away' a significant portion of the image, making the camera lower resolution and not using it to its full potential.

You can accomplish exactly the same thing by NOT using this feature in-camera and instead cropping your images later in post-processing. By doing the image crop in post-processing instead, the results would be identical but you have a lot more control over it. For example, you may see things on your larger computer monitor that you didn't notice in the viewfinder or on the camera's 3" LCD screen, and then can adjust your crop as needed.

For this reason, one reviewer called the so-called 'smart teleconverter' feature "pointless" and noted that better use of the button is to reassign it to provide viewfinder or live view magnification (which DOES NOT actually crop the image), in order to more closely check focus accuracy, if and when you're shooting subjects that allow for slower shooting process this will require.

A longer lens focal length or moving closer to the subject... better 'filling your viewfinder' and using the entire sensor for 24MP images... will ALWAYS make for better image quality, compared to the results using a digital zoom and reducing image resolution significantly.

I'm not familiar with CIZ, but that doesn't appear to be what's being used in this case. It sounds as if CIZ does a similar crop, but then 'interpolates' the image back up to the full 24MP size (in this case). Correct me if I'm wrong. But if that's what's happening, any for of 'interpolation' basically means the camera (or software, if being done in post) 'makes up' data to replace what was lost in the crop.

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Jan 29, 2020 19:20:55   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
Streets wrote:
The A57 has the clear image zoom, but the A65 just has the 2 settings of , what they call, "teleconverter mode". Both methods affect pixel counts in like manner.


Teleconverter mode is NOT the same as CIZ !
.

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Jan 29, 2020 20:04:34   #
Streets Loc: Euless, TX.
 
imagemeister wrote:
Teleconverter mode is NOT the same as CIZ !
.


OK: So tell me how CIZ knows what to fill the missing data with.

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Jan 29, 2020 20:16:48   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
Streets wrote:
OK: So tell me how CIZ knows what to fill the missing data with.


It uses proprietary SONY algorithms - otherwise known as artificial (AI) intelligence - one of the earlier uses of AI as applied to photography - IN CAMERA. Quite amazing when you think about it.
.

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Jan 30, 2020 10:37:54   #
MichaelH Loc: NorCal via Lansing, MI
 
imagemeister wrote:
It uses proprietary SONY algorithms - otherwise known as artificial (AI) intelligence - one of the earlier uses of AI as applied to photography - IN CAMERA. Quite amazing when you think about it.
.


Yes, but couldn't Sony provide this proprietary "AI" pixel adding algorithm to Sony users in its proprietary RAW editing software. One could then use it on any part of the image one cropped to or the whole image if one wanted to. It seems that would be a better and more useful tool. It does not seem this "AI" algorithm would need to be applied in camera but could be applied at the point in the process where one is editing the file at their computer.

I agree that what modern digital cameras do is amazing!

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Jan 30, 2020 10:45:34   #
Streets Loc: Euless, TX.
 
imagemeister wrote:
Teleconverter mode is NOT the same as CIZ !
.


I agree with this statement. I have searched the net for info and the unanimous answer I get is that the Sony A65 does NOT have a CIZ function.

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Jan 30, 2020 10:49:32   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
amfoto1 wrote:
I looked up info on this and... sorry to say... it appears to be nothing more than a 'digital zoom'. Basically, the camera, which is already an APS-C cropper (i.e., not 'full frame'), further crops the image in either the 1.4X or 2X mode to digitally emulate adding an actual teleconverter to increase the focal length of the lens. This crop essentially 'throws away' a significant portion of the image, making the camera lower resolution and not using it to its full potential.

You can accomplish exactly the same thing by NOT using this feature in-camera and instead cropping your images later in post-processing. By doing the image crop in post-processing instead, the results would be identical but you have a lot more control over it. For example, you may see things on your larger computer monitor that you didn't notice in the viewfinder or on the camera's 3" LCD screen, and then can adjust your crop as needed.

For this reason, one reviewer called the so-called 'smart teleconverter' feature "pointless" and noted that better use of the button is to reassign it to provide viewfinder or live view magnification (which DOES NOT actually crop the image), in order to more closely check focus accuracy, if and when you're shooting subjects that allow for slower shooting process this will require.

A longer lens focal length or moving closer to the subject... better 'filling your viewfinder' and using the entire sensor for 24MP images... will ALWAYS make for better image quality, compared to the results using a digital zoom and reducing image resolution significantly.

I'm not familiar with CIZ, but that doesn't appear to be what's being used in this case. It sounds as if CIZ does a similar crop, but then 'interpolates' the image back up to the full 24MP size (in this case). Correct me if I'm wrong. But if that's what's happening, any for of 'interpolation' basically means the camera (or software, if being done in post) 'makes up' data to replace what was lost in the crop.
I looked up info on this and... sorry to say... it... (show quote)


Alan, Clear Image Zoom is not the same as digital zoom. With digital zoom your pixel count diminishes as you enable digital zoom, which is nothing more than a crop, and as you pointed out, pixels are lost. With CIZ, pixels are not lost. In simple terms, the image is processed to show a narrower field of view, just like a digital zoom, but it is scaled and interpolated to retain the original pixel count. Part of the interpolation includes referencing a database of common objects and reconstructing the missing parts (pixels) to make a more pleasing image. The pixel count with CIZ is EXACTLY the same as without.

If you had a Sony camera you could confirm this but this may clear up any questions you might have about clear image zoom:

https://www.redsharknews.com/technology/item/2921-what-is-really-going-on-with-sony%E2%80%99s-clear-image-zoom
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/sony-clear-image-zoom-the-most-amazing-shooting-mode-you-never-heard

Though it produces images that look better than when digital zoom is used, the image quality is not as good as optical zoom, and if you do wildlife, you can really see the difference. It really does a number on fine detail and texture.

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Jan 30, 2020 11:02:04   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
Streets wrote:
OK: So tell me how CIZ knows what to fill the missing data with.


Read my post below and the two articles it links to. CIZ is NOT a go to choice or a substitute for longer lenses. But in a pinch it's better than digital zoom.

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Jan 30, 2020 12:32:26   #
Streets Loc: Euless, TX.
 
Gene51 wrote:
Alan, Clear Image Zoom is not the same as digital zoom. With digital zoom your pixel count diminishes as you enable digital zoom, which is nothing more than a crop, and as you pointed out, pixels are lost. With CIZ, pixels are not lost. In simple terms, the image is processed to show a narrower field of view, just like a digital zoom, but it is scaled and interpolated to retain the original pixel count. Part of the interpolation includes referencing a database of common objects and reconstructing the missing parts (pixels) to make a more pleasing image. The pixel count with CIZ is EXACTLY the same as without.

If you had a Sony camera you could confirm this but this may clear up any questions you might have about clear image zoom:

https://www.redsharknews.com/technology/item/2921-what-is-really-going-on-with-sony%E2%80%99s-clear-image-zoom
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/sony-clear-image-zoom-the-most-amazing-shooting-mode-you-never-heard

Though it produces images that look better than when digital zoom is used, the image quality is not as good as optical zoom, and if you do wildlife, you can really see the difference. It really does a number on fine detail and texture.
Alan, Clear Image Zoom is not the same as digital ... (show quote)


I got my old standby A57 out of mothballs and verified that the pixel count does not change when using CIZ, even so, the result is not as perfect as moving closer to the subject.

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Jan 30, 2020 14:06:35   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
Gene51 wrote:
Read my post below and the two articles it links to. CIZ is NOT a go to choice or a substitute for longer lenses. But in a pinch it's better than digital zoom.


It is also better than using TC ! and cheaper and lighter than a longer lens ! oh, and did I say it is FREE and works with ALL lenses ? !
.

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Jan 30, 2020 14:07:46   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
Streets wrote:
I got my old standby A57 out of mothballs and verified that the pixel count does not change when using CIZ, even so, the result is not as perfect as moving closer to the subject.


NOTHING is more perfect than getting closer !

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