Reader Questions: EZ Zoom?

Here's an e-mail we received from a reader:

Hello, I've just bought a Panasonic FT1 camera.  What I don't understand, though, is why you didn't mention the EZ zoom technology in your test? Thanks,

Panasonic's Extended Zoom, or EZ, technology is a way of allowing the camera to 'zoom in closer' by reducing the definition of the image.  Or, to put it another way, by cropping it.

If your camera has 12 Megapixels, you can reduce the definition to 6 Megapixels and could out the edges of the frame before you even take the photo.  That can be useful if you know exactly what you want to photograph and are happy to give up on being able to crop your image later on using your computer.  It also means you end up with smaller files.

But what's the difference between that and the standard 'digital zoom' that we always tell you to avoid?  Well here, every pixel remains just that: a single pixel.  A digital zoom also relies on just the central part of the frame, but then blows it up to reach the theoretical maximum resolution, interpolating the 'extra' pixels, which can have some negative effects on the quality of the photo.  On the example above, look at how pixellated the arms of the subject's glasses are, for instance.  In  our example, the 6 Megapixel image has been increased using a 2x digital zoom to create a 12 Megapixel image, meaning the file is just as big.

To answer the original question, though: why didn't we mention this Extended Zoom?  Because it's actually nothing new.  It's been on Panasonic's cameras ever since 2005, and on Pentax digital cameras, where it's known as Intelligent Zoom, since 2007.  Nikon has a similar feature too.

Even on a camera that doesn't have this feature, you can achieve exactly the same effect by taking a full-resolution photo and then editing it using your favourite image-editing software.  And you can crop any part of the frame, not just the centre.