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Apparently the camera is "2 in 1" that does 2x zoom with "optical quality" but they never actually say it's true optical zoom. I'm guessing that it's just digi

by parsimo2010 2y ago

Apparently the camera is "2 in 1" that does 2x zoom with "optical quality" but they never actually say it's true optical zoom. I'm guessing that it's just digital zoom with some fancy processing. Does anyone know for sure?

xuki 2y ago
They cropped it out from the center of the 48MP photo. It’s the same on 16 and 16 Pro.
tomduncalf 2y ago
It's a 12mp crop of a 48mp sensor, so it's not digital zoom but it is a crop. It's just that that crop is still of good resolution.
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > It's a 12mp crop of a 48mp sensor, so it's not digital zoom but it is a crop. I'm curious what you think digital zoom is if not cropping.
  - Tagbert 2y ago
    The distinction between optical and digital zoom get a little blurred by this kind of camera setup. No pun intended.
    - dbtc 2y ago
      Nice pun though. It's because when the camera is set to record 24 or 12mp photos at default zoom, then you can crop the 48mp sensor and still get the same resolution.
  - nicoburns 2y ago
    Typically cropping and then upscaling. While I don't think it's right to call these crops "optical zoom", the quality is typically pretty good.
  - parsimo2010 2y ago
    To be fair to the above poster, normally "digital zoom" implies that your standard (un-zoomed) image is at the native sensor resolution, and the zoomed image has reduced resolution because of the crop. Presumably the standard image on the 16e converts the 48 MP sensor into a 12 MP image with less noise because they bin 4 sensor pixels into 1 pixel in the image file. So a 12 MP crop on the 48 MP sensor would result in a zoomed image with the same 12 MP resolution as the standard image. A major drawback would be higher image noise, but nobody will see a reduction in image pixels. At the end of the day it's probably somewhere between true optical zoom and a 12 MP native sensor with a crop.
kemayo 2y ago
It's probably the same as the 2x zoom in the iPhone 16 line. The 1x pictures are a 48MP sensor that does some pixel-combining to output a 12MP image. The 2x pictures are a crop of 12MP in the center of the sensor, that doesn't do any combining. So it's still "optical", but it's lower-quality.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

xuki 2y ago

They cropped it out from the center of the 48MP photo. It’s the same on 16 and 16 Pro.

tomduncalf 2y ago

It's a 12mp crop of a 48mp sensor, so it's not digital zoom but it is a crop. It's just that that crop is still of good resolution.

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
> It's a 12mp crop of a 48mp sensor, so it's not digital zoom but it is a crop. I'm curious what you think digital zoom is if not cropping.
- Tagbert 2y ago
  The distinction between optical and digital zoom get a little blurred by this kind of camera setup. No pun intended.
  - dbtc 2y ago
    Nice pun though. It's because when the camera is set to record 24 or 12mp photos at default zoom, then you can crop the 48mp sensor and still get the same resolution.
- nicoburns 2y ago
  Typically cropping and then upscaling. While I don't think it's right to call these crops "optical zoom", the quality is typically pretty good.
- parsimo2010 2y ago
  To be fair to the above poster, normally "digital zoom" implies that your standard (un-zoomed) image is at the native sensor resolution, and the zoomed image has reduced resolution because of the crop. Presumably the standard image on the 16e converts the 48 MP sensor into a 12 MP image with less noise because they bin 4 sensor pixels into 1 pixel in the image file. So a 12 MP crop on the 48 MP sensor would result in a zoomed image with the same 12 MP resolution as the standard image. A major drawback would be higher image noise, but nobody will see a reduction in image pixels. At the end of the day it's probably somewhere between true optical zoom and a 12 MP native sensor with a crop.

kemayo 2y ago

It's probably the same as the 2x zoom in the iPhone 16 line. The 1x pictures are a 48MP sensor that does some pixel-combining to output a 12MP image. The 2x pictures are a crop of 12MP in the center of the sensor, that doesn't do any combining. So it's still "optical", but it's lower-quality.

deleted 2y ago
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