@jak.willis

Hi Jak.

Yes! You are dropping resolution all the time. If you were using 4K files and zooming in 50% you would effectively be producing an HD clip (1080 x 1920). You are effectively cropping away image data and enlarging each pixel within the image. This is why some YouTubers use 8K cameras. Although YouTube only presently supports 4K, if contributors want to have room to tidy up poor framing, unwanted detritus not noticed in the corners of a take at the time of filming they can crop down the image and not lose quality of their final production.

Anyone else could do the same assuming they have some headroom in their equipment to do this, such as filming in 4K and producing a 1080p video.

Ray.

Hello Ray,

Thanks for your reply to my question.

In my case I’m shooting in 1080p and was looking to zoom (or crop) in to the picture. So if I only zoom in a little bit, will you see a difference in the quality?

@jak.willis

Hi Jak.

It depends on how good your eyesight is 😂.

More seriously, it also depends on how it's filmed and whether the video comes from the same source or not and whether they were all shot under the same lighting conditions using the same camera. But my first comment although a bit tongue-in-cheek also holds up. As with stills photography, you will always get better results getting the result you want at the time of capture in the camera rather than in the editing suite unless you can do as I suggested in my previous reply.

The person editing is always going to notice unless their eyesight or their equipment has some deficiency, or they just can't see a difference. The casual observer almost never notices as much as someone who does a lot of editing. Then thee is the question of viewing distance. The closer you are the more easily you pick out differences. One reason I still prefer to see a good feature film at a cinema is the viewing of special effects is better than viewing from home where for me at least special effects are just annoying and distracting.

Ray.