FRIDAY TIP: Digitally Zooming a Bit Closer

What happens when your subject you are trying to photograph is just that little bit too far away for the lens you have on your camera?  Do you -

a) Not take the shot?
b) Curse the fact that you don't have that longer lens and not take the shot?
c) Go out and buy that £9000 600mm f4 lens to get the shot?
d) Take the shot and see what you can do in post production?

Well if you answered d) then give yourself a gold star.  If you answered a) or b) then I have to ask 'why not?' the only thing you've done is wasted a frame or two, which at worst, you will delete.  If you answered c) I will just think 'lucky person to have the money to go out and do that.  however I can recommend a good chiropractor which you will need after lugging that heavy bit of kit around.

Now all joking aside, it is always best to get the image right in the camera, BUT the beauty of digital photography is there are plenty of ways to improve a photograph in post production.  

I love my Nikon D800 for its massive 36mp sensor that allows me to crop the image - it's be a digital zoom!  Even a modest 16mp on the Fuji X-Pro1 and 12mp on the X100 can be cropped to good effect.  There are also programmes such as Photo Zoom Pro4 that allow you to blow up small areas of an image.

Of course the image needs to be pin sharp to start with otherwise any manipulation and cropping will just hightlight the flaws in the original image. 

Take the image at the top of the page of the Curlew on Belhaven Bay beach.  This was taken on the new Fujinon 55-200 f3.5/f4.8 lens for the X-Pro1.  The long end of the zoom range is the equivalent of 300mm in full frame terms and isn't really long enough for bird photography. 

I did't buy this lens for wildlife photography, it is for travel, landscape and street photography when I need a bit of pulling power.  BUT this lens can work for wildlife images in the right circumstances and sometimes with a bit of post production work. 

Below is the original shot for you to compare with the image at the top of the page, which was cropped in PSE11 using the 'Using Photo Ratio' tool.  

The image below is a crop using Photo Zoom Pro4 software to crop right into the image.  The result is a file that is still 4500 pixels on the long edge. The image is not perfect but bearing in mind the crop factor I feel the result is pretty good.

On the 13th January I posted a picture of a stag in Glen Etive taken on the 12mp Fujifilm X100 and cropped in PSE11.  This also demonstates the power of zooming in digitally on a sharp image.  CLICK HERE to see that blog.

The D800 has the advantage of being a much bigger sensor so the cropping is done more on the full size image.  Again a good example of this can be found HERE.

At the end of the day nothing beats a 600mm, or longer, prime lens with great optics but as these cost thousands of pounds and weigh a ton, the advantages of cropping in and using the latest software are clear to see.

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