Super-telephoto for consumer camcorders?

[J. Stephen McDonald]

Doing a digital zoom to 1.5X would leave only about 40% of the original pixels that came from the sensor (2,073,000. down to 833,000). The processor would have to extrapolate to bring the number back up to 1,440 X 1,080 (1,555,200), for encoding as HDV. About 46% of the pixels would be from extrapolation. That would degrade the image, but it might be acceptable for some subjects. I would never do a digital zoom on anything I wanted to look like true HD. As I mentioned previously, you can get just so much magnification out of these small lenses, even if it's an entirely optical process, without bringing down the picture quality. If you magnify with digital zooming, it's much worse. HDV, due to its high compression rate, would suffer more than many other SD and HD formats by digital zooming.

[Pat Reddy]

The loss of information with digital zoom is inevitable, but sometimes I'm willing to have less information if I can zoom in on a small bird and have something that is between HDV and DV resolution. Do you know if the HV10 and HV20 digital zooming occurs before HDV encoding? If it does, than it may make more sense to zoom in the camera than in post processing; and these Canon cameras would have a slightly more usable digital zoom than one with a 1440 x 1080 sensor image.

Pat

[J. Stephen McDonald]

Originally Posted by Pat Reddy

Do you know if the HV10 and HV20 digital zooming occurs before HDV encoding?

I can't tell you for sure, but because of the way HDV is encoded, using a key frame with a string of other frames dependent on it, I'd guess that a digital zoom would take place on the signal before encoding.

[Brendan Marnell]

Originally Posted by Per Johan Naesje

Oliver it's time to start to save up money for the real stuff! I think only camcorders like the Canon XLH1 will give you the picture quality you are looking for at least when we are talking about 1500mm +++ focal length.

When I read this, Per Johan, I get a serious itch to use an XLH1 ... what I want to see is a few tiny clips of bird flight footage shot using XLH1 with super lens and with standard lens ... any chance, please, whenever you have a little spare time??

[Brendan Marnell]

Originally Posted by J. Stephen McDonald

... I would never do a digital zoom on anything I wanted to look like true HD. As I mentioned previously, you can get just so much magnification out of these small lenses, even if it's an entirely optical process, without bringing down the picture quality. If you magnify with digital zooming, it's much worse. ....

Any chance of getting informed opinion on this standard of digiscoping equipment (from adorama.com), please ....

Barska 15 - 45 x 60 Blackhawk DSS60, Angled Spotting Scope with Built-in 3.1 Mega Pixel Digital Camera with 2.5" TFT Color Screen

... can't find reference to Barska on Flickr

[William Estes]

Is Oliver Reik still around?,
Does any one know how to contact him via e-mail?.
I have tried though DVi, but no response.
I may have the lens adaption he's looking for.
Regards
William Estes
william_nell2@hotmail.com