Page 221 - Friedman Archives

Zoom 221

perimeter rather than between pixels.) Furthermore, I’ve heard from lots of
readers over the years who love it because it lets them shoot sports without
needing an expensive telephoto lens; or it lets them shoot from the back of
an auditorium and still get nice close-ups of their subject. Different
features for different kinds of users.
So before I talk about how you use this feature, let me explain the two
zoom features in greater detail.

TIP 1: "Smart Teleconverter" and "Zoom" are mutually exclusive features. If
Smart Teleconverter is assigned to any button, then the "Zoom" menu function
will be greyed out.

TIP 2: When either Clear Image Zoom or Digital Zoom is enabled, the focus points
become inactive and the camera switches to a Contrast-detect AF method which
is a little slower and a little less sure. So this may not be the best tool for when
you're shooting sports and don't have a long enough lens.

Normal 1.4x 2.0x

Figure 5-64: The “Digital Zoom” function just throws away pixels in an attempt to
simulate “zooming in” more than what your lens can provide. The image it
captures is smaller, because it only captures what’s in the middle of the sensor.
Then it upsizes it again, lowering the quality of the image a little.
The A77 II lets you decide how aggressive a digital zoom you want the
camera to provide via MENU  3  Zoom Settings. Here are the
choices it gives you: