zoom in camera or in post?

[akdrone]

Modern smart phones like the iPhone do some interesting magic when zooming in that provides for a better image when using the phone to zoom in than you would find if you shot with the standard lens and then enlarged in Photoshop. This page discusses it a bit. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/iphone-13-pro-digital-zoom/17856/13 . Does DJI do any such kind of manipulation? Does anyone have any comparisons between a photo made by zooming in while in flight and as opposed to shooting with the normal lens and then enlarging in Photoshop or other app? I'm particularly interested in the Mavic 3 but the question potentially applies to other drones although I recognize that it may vary greatly.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Considering its only 300 pictures it does not look to bad.
I have seen one done my @zeusfl with 20 thousand and it looked amazing but it needs a lot of computer power.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

 

[Dave Maine]

Digital zoom is problematic both in drone and in post processing. Both attempt to intelligently guess missing pixel information in the zoom. Doing zoom in post processing has a couple of advantages.

1. In post the user has afar more powerful computer to use, so that more sophisticated processing can take place.

2. The application of AI techniques in post are starting to make some headway in more intelligent guessing about the missing pixel information. Topaz Labs makes AI guessing software for both still pictures and video. It is a long way from perfect, but can often make major improvements. It is very compute intensive, and requires major operator interaction to get the best result.

 

[FLDave]

I would give the advantage to live digital zoom rather than in edit, although I'll admit I don't know technically what takes place. In edit zoom working with a JPG file you'll be working with a file which has lost some detail as a JPG is not a lossless file. This puts you at a disadvantage as you interpolate the data to crop and enlarge.
I assume that the onboard digital zoom crops the visual image, not a saved file. This allows interpolation of live cropped view enlarged to the reset dimensions. When the file is saved it then only goes through one loss stage. Furthermore, I assume DJI's digital zoom is maximized for the digital scaling and interpolation of the zooming.
On the other hand, if you want a full size image for other uses and not just a finished zoomed image, that's a personal choice, not based based technical capabilities.
If you start with RAW DJI full size image, that would have some advantages but you would also have to optimize the image for final picture quality.

 

[Dale D]

Modern smart phones like the iPhone do some interesting magic when zooming in that provides for a better image when using the phone to zoom in than you would find if you shot with the standard lens and then enlarged in Photoshop. This page discusses it a bit. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/iphone-13-pro-digital-zoom/17856/13 . Does DJI do any such kind of manipulation? Does anyone have any comparisons between a photo made by zooming in while in flight and as opposed to shooting with the normal lens and then enlarging in Photoshop or other app? I'm particularly interested in the Mavic 3 but the question potentially applies to other drones although I recognize that it may vary greatly.

I frequently try zooming videos on my iPhone 11 Pro Max. The problem is that I run out of screen space and have to re-position my zooming fingers, which makes for a jerky zoom. I do not have tat problems I zoom in Adobe Premiere Pro. (post).

Zooming with the new M3 is smooth using the zoom wheel at the bottom right.

Dale

 

[retiredNH]

I would give the advantage to live digital zoom rather than in edit, although I'll admit I don't know technically what takes place. In edit zoom working with a JPG file you'll be working with a file which has lost some detail as a JPG is not a lossless file. This puts you at a disadvantage as you interpolate the data to crop and enlarge.
I assume that the onboard digital zoom crops the visual image, not a saved file. This allows interpolation of live cropped view enlarged to the reset dimensions. When the file is saved it then only goes through one loss stage. Furthermore, I assume DJI's digital zoom is maximized for the digital scaling and interpolation of the zooming.
On the other hand, if you want a full size image for other uses and not just a finished zoomed image, that's a personal choice, not based based technical capabilities.
If you start with RAW DJI full size image, that would have some advantages but you would also have to optimize the image for final picture quality.

This is why you should shoot in raw if you expect to do much in post, such as extreme cropping.
I agree that trying to resize a jpg is a fool's project unless you like visual artifacts.

The OP raises an interesting point, but I would think the easy answer is "it depends", and it would be easy to shoot two pics in raw, one digitally zoomed, one not, so one can compare in post. Previous poster Dave Maine is right, that with the right computer and software, "zooming" in post will probably be better, but not everyone has the software or computer.