Saturday, 9 May 2015

zoom - What is the difference between zooming in and cropping?


If I take a photo by zooming in (optical) and cropping a photo without zoom. What would be the difference between the two?


I know cropping reduces the photo quality but I'm interested in other differences, if any.



Answer




Adjusting the focal length of your lens (ie, optical "zooming") will impact the depth of field of your image. This will change how much of the scene is in focus.


It will also subtly change aspect of the distortion of the image in order to project it on to a rectangular surface as lenses don't quite perfectly project their image and the exact variations change as the lenses are reconfigured for the different focal length.


It may also result in an increase in motion related blur indirectly as many consumer lenses may reduce their maximum aperture as you move towards the higher focal lengths. If you were shooting with the aperture wide open, this reduction in aperture may result in a longer shutter speed needing to be used to expose the scene.


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