Optical or Digital Zoom?
Digital cameras may be equipped with an optical zoom lens, optical and
digital zoom settings, or a digital zoom only.
Optical zoom works similar to the traditional camera where optical zoom
lenses actually “move” you closer to the subject of the photograph without
sacrificing quality. The higher the optical zoom rating on a camera, the
farther away you can be to take a photograph and still get a clear, close-up
image. You want to pay close attention to the optical zoom number as it’s
the zoom that will give you the quality results you want.
Digital zoom is not really zoom, in the strictest definition of the term.
What digital zoom does is enlarge a portion of the image, thus 'simulating'
optical zoom. In other words, the digital camera crops a portion of the
image and then enlarges it back to size. This results in a loss of quality,
and is no different than cropping and enlarging an image with editing
software. The benefit of using image-editing software instead of the digital
zoom on a camera is that you can decide how much to crop, and how much to
enlarge the image to where the quality is acceptable to you. When you use
digital zoom on the camera, the image quality is irreversibly lost.
Cameras with a 2X-3x zoom lens have established themselves in the medium
range. In short, compare optical zoom and ignore digital zoom. Optical zoom
capabilities make all the difference in the final product. The higher the
optical zoom, the farther away from the subject you can be and still get a
great, clear, crisp quality shot.
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