zoom1

Now we can see digital artifacts! This shot is cropped from the image that used the digital zoom. To achieve this, the camera gathers a smaller number of pixels and then uses an interpolation technique to increase the captured pixel count up to the 1600 x 1200 capacity of the camera.

What we see is the result of that interpolation technique. It seems to do a particularly poor job along boundaries. The almost-shadow effect where the background water and the bird meet is particularly uncomfortable to look at.

To continue the discussion of effective magnifications, this one is 10 x 2.7 x 3.2 = 86.4:1. Considering the magnification we're achieving here, a little bit of fuzziness is to be expected!