Expert: John Oliverio - 5/13/2004

Question
This is a general question. One continually hears about a digital camera with, for example, a 2.1 megapixel resolution "CMOS sensor interpolated" to 4.0 megapixel. The numbers vary, but what are they talking about, and more importantly, which is the real "meets the eye" resolution of the actual photo on screen or printed out? Is this a marketing gimmic to make the camera seem better than it is, or is this "interpolation" as good as the real thing?

Thanks in advance.

Answer
Steven,

I think you are probably talking about Fuji's Super CCD.  I'm not aware of a CMOS that interpolates.  The only company I know of even useing CMOS is Canon.

No, interpolation is not as good as the real thing, though it is a legitimate method to gain a larger file size.  Interpolation is a way to make a small image larger.  The interpolation software stretchs the size of the image and generates pixels to fill in the blanks. This is better than simply printing larger.  But the best thing is to have enough pixels to begin with.

John