Digital cameras forum: What is interpolated?

Basicly it's a way for a camera manufacturer to claim that their camera takes pictures with X number of pixels, when it can't actually "see" that number. Just because the picture has more pixels, doesn't make it better compared to a camera that can actually see that number of pixels.

Almost all of these deceptively advertised cameras are found on eBay or any auction site.

They usually include the specifications, which may or may not say "interpolated" in the Image Resolution part of the specifications.

Almost all seem to take pleasure in stating that the Image Sensor is the OmniVision 3610 1/2 inch CMOS.

This is a dead giveaway, as that sensor is 3 megapixels and it is the actual maximum sensors in the camera.

I just looked at an advertisement for a 10meg camera and it has that OmniVision sensor. So it is a 3 megapixel camera.

Another clue is......no one builds a small camera sensor above 7 megapixels.

There are 8 megapixel sensors in larger expensive cameras.....you will not find one in a $500 (or under) camera. All of these 8 megapixel sensors are made by Sony.

If anyone falsely advertises a camera, you should not buy from them.


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I could be mistaken here, but the last time I saw "interpolated" on a digicam, it was a 6-Mpixel model. It meant that the actual native resolution was lower (in the camera I saw, about 3 Mpixels) than the "interpolated" number. The extra pixels were derived with a mathematical formula, basically spreading out the pixels and calculating what's supposed to be in-between. I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like a cheat to boost the pixel count... I can't imagine such a camera would be the equal of a non-interpolated version. When you see "interpolated," think "interpreting what's inbetween instead of actually capturing it in the first place..."

going from, for sake of illustration, a 1" by 1" sensor to values for a 2" by 2" sensor. They would be doing that based on projections from within the 1" by 1" sensor. I doubt that they are doing that. What they are doing is doubling the number of points observed by the 1" x 1" sensor. That is, they are estimating a value between two real points. That is interpolation.

Photo enlargement of digital pictures is done through a process called interpolation: the computation of pixel color values between the pixels that already exist. A pixel is the smallest element of an image or picture on a computer screen - usually it is a single-colored dot. You can read more about photo enlargement and interpolation here: http://photoenlargement.imagener.com

Is there a link to a side by side graphic sample comparison between say, 3.2 non-int. and 6.1 int.?

Good idea!