Posts Tagged ‘Zoom’

The Difference In Optical And Digital Zoom On Digital Cameras

by Scootzsx

The Difference In Optical And Digital Zoom On Digital Cameras

Many digital cameras have both an optical and digital zoom function available for users to get a closer shot of a given subject from a distance. Often times a photographer cant get as close as he or she would like and this allows them to get a tighter photo even from a distance. There are many situations where this capability can come in handy to get a better photo.

A good example is when you go to concerts, sporting events, or any time that you cant get close to the action when you want to take photos. The inherent problem with taking a photo with any zoom function is that you need to deal with existing light unless you stay within the limits of whatever flash you have. So lighting can always be an issue inside with a zoom lens.

There are two basic zoom methods in digital cameras. The optical zoom lens is composed of several lenses that can be moved within the lens to capture a larger image. The digital zoom lens serves the same purpose but crops the image to a smaller size, then enlarges the cropped portion to fill the frame using a process called interpolation. This basically reduces the amount of pixels in the image and can impact the overall quality of the final photo.

Some digital cameras allow the use of both the optical zoom lens and the digital zoom capability at the same time. This would appear to be a great feature since it would increase the amount of zoom dynamically. In theory, that would be a good thing but in actual results it can be disappointing.

All digital photos are made up of pixels and most cameras have the number of pixels listed that it can record. The more pixels, the more you can enlarge the print without any loss of detail. So if you