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Are anybody else's video's automatically zoomed in a little? (iPhone 4)
- Thread starter mrat93
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Maybe if you turned on your brain and thought about it for awhile, you might realize it explains everything.
Example:
Draw a 10x10in square. (This is the picture mode resolution)
Now draw in a little happy scene inside the box. Maybe a hill, a house, some flowers. Oh, don't forget the sun!
Now, draw another box inside that box. Make it 5x5in square. (This is the movie mode resolution)
No matter what you do, you can't put that entire scene inside that little box!
Voila!
I understand what you're saying, but then why does the 3GS not have this issue? The dimensions of pictures and videos are completely different there.
...Because the 3G/S didn't record in 720p. That's why it zooms in. It's not an 'issue' and there's nothing you can do about it.
Oh, I figured you knew you could "zoom out." They do this to "fill" the viewing screen but you can still double tap and zoom out.
It probably has something to do with the image capture process itself and/or how the sensor adapts to capturing different resolutions. You'll notice that the front camera on the iPhone 4 behaves the same way as the 3GS camera.
The HD camera on the iPhone 4 appears to just shut off pixels on the sensor around the outside of the video that would normally appear in a still photo. This has the effect of narrowing the field of view of the video camera, which gives the appearance that the image has been zoomed in compared to a still photo. Of course in reality the picture is still being scaled down to fit in the iPhone's display.
The 3GS camera and front iPhone 4 camera do something different. I don't know what exactly, but one possibility is that the sensor is actually capturing full resolution images (and therefore getting the same view as the still camera), but they might be lower quality readings to allow it to capture at frame rate and then the images are scaled down to VGA....or it might be something else. The moral of the story is that there is something different happening during the capture process.
The HD camera on the iPhone 4 appears to just shut off pixels on the sensor around the outside of the video that would normally appear in a still photo. This has the effect of narrowing the field of view of the video camera, which gives the appearance that the image has been zoomed in compared to a still photo. Of course in reality the picture is still being scaled down to fit in the iPhone's display.
The 3GS camera and front iPhone 4 camera do something different. I don't know what exactly, but one possibility is that the sensor is actually capturing full resolution images (and therefore getting the same view as the still camera), but they might be lower quality readings to allow it to capture at frame rate and then the images are scaled down to VGA....or it might be something else. The moral of the story is that there is something different happening during the capture process.
It records in 720p but the screen is not 720p.
It's like when you divide a fraction and have a remainder. Remember widescreen movies on 4:3 TVs? There were huge black bars on top and bottom so you could see the whole picture without being zoomed in.
It's the same thing here, but there are only small black bars because the ratio is pretty close. You can zoom in to eliminate the black bars, but you lose some of the image on the left and right sides.
It's like when you divide a fraction and have a remainder. Remember widescreen movies on 4:3 TVs? There were huge black bars on top and bottom so you could see the whole picture without being zoomed in.
It's the same thing here, but there are only small black bars because the ratio is pretty close. You can zoom in to eliminate the black bars, but you lose some of the image on the left and right sides.
So basically, what you're saying is that the dimensions of the videos taken in 720p and pictures taken with the 5mp camera are not proportional, whereas on the 3GS pictures' and videos' dimensions are proportional?
Sorry, I have absolutely no knowledge on how camera technology works.
Yup.
The reason for the zoom difference is because Apple wants to maintain the 720p mode which basically "restricts" the sensor to only display a width that maintains the 16:9 ratio (1.777777).
They COULD maintain the ratio with the still photos, but then you would just be wasting ~500 pixels on the sensor. (2592*.5625 = 1458)