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iPhone 14 Pro I read on the internet that iPhone 14 Pro does NOT use digital zoom for 2X but does it use digital zoom for 3X?
- Thread starter Hieveryone
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My understanding is that it uses the main cam for 1x and 2x, and it uses the telephoto cam for 3x.
Others, please correct this if I am wrong.
Others, please correct this if I am wrong.
Yes, it uses digital zoom for 2x, focusing on the center area of the sensor, providing a full 12 megapixel image- so it is not poor quality as a 2x digital zoom might typically be- it truly provides good results. This is possible because of the larger 48 megapixel sensor.
The 3x, though, just uses the 3x lens on the camera- this is not digital zoom.
The 3x, though, just uses the 3x lens on the camera- this is not digital zoom.
Ah, thank you for that clarification! That's what I was trying to say but completely whiffed on using the right terminology.
I would say yes. 13 Pro digital zoom is traditional digital zoom, which is just plain cropping 1x photo, thus the result is lesser quality. 14 Pro digital zoom is lossless, it's still digital zoom by cropping, but since the sensor size is bigger, the 2x still uses full 12MP pixels.
The 2x is the same exact thing as a when a full frame DSLR camera, I’ll use Nikon as an example. The Nikon D850 has a 45mp sensor. There is an option to shoot at a crop size (Apc format) which is 24 or so megapixels. It’s not a digital zoom, or a zoom crop, it’s actually using 24 of the 45mp sensor for an image. It is a smaller area, but it produces a clean image. Same for the new iPhone 14 pro, However you’ll probably get better results shooting at 48mp and cropping the image later where you want to crop because of the higher quality resolution. There are third party apps that allow for 48mp HEIF or jpeg images without having to use ProRAW. Here is a 2x example with crop
Full 2x
Crop
Full 2x
Crop
But the 2x have poor quality because of smaller CMOS area and smaller pixel size, which means that less light will be captured.
You have a point, but imo post processing can compensate. There are also a lot of tech on the newer sensor that pixel size is not necessarily a deciding factor. I mean we can look even at DSLRs/mirrorless, where today's high MP sensors technically have much smaller pixel size than the old sensors, but picture quality is still better due to other factors and technology improvements.