Pinky

When taking pictures is it better to take pictures at its max resolution and NOT Zoom in.(optical zoom) Then once on the computer crop it to make it closer. Or crop the picture and blow the picture up a little?

Just currious. I am using the camera at its middle setting but wonder the advantage of using its full capacity when I am only going to reduce the size down anyways!

Bieg

Always take pictures at the max resolution.
Buy a larger memory card if you have to.
Never use the DIGITAL zoom as it just enlarges the pixels.
ONLY use the OPTICAL zoom.
Resize your pictures after the fact in Photoshop or other image editing program.

Remember you can't restore resolution that was never captured in the first place.

chazzy

Bieg is exactly right ... I always take pictures at the maximum resolution using lossless compresion (no JPGs). The picture that comes out is the closest thing you can get to a digital negative: it is exactly what the CCDs picked up. After that, I can do all the filtering, cropping, adjusting, and balancing that I need to do, but only after the original is safely tucked away. The downside is that each picture is about 2.2-2.5 MB in size. I bought a 1 GB Microdrive to keep up.

s2ktaxi

If you are going to zoom a lot - say if you are taking pictures of a car on a runway very far away... and you still need to crop, then you need to get a camera with a high resolution and a good lens.

ironwedge

What he said! Memory is cheap these days