Optical vs Digital Zoom

When choosing a digital camera to purchase, you should focus less on advertised digital zoom magnifications and only look at cameras' optical zooms. Digital zooming performs an interpolation, or computer-based 'guesswork', of an image to try to increase the perceived zoom distance. These can result in "fuzzy" images or those with less than optimal clarity, especially if you blow them up into 8x10 or larger photos. However, optical zoom provides for a true zoom-in or zoom-out on your subject.

If you want an example of what a photograph may look like when taken with a digital zoom, take a photograph into a piece of photo-editing software and increase its size by 100% or 200%. Although the picture will look bigger on screen, you will start to see dots or imperfections in the image. That's what happens with digital zoom.

Higher optical zoom cameras can allow you to take a greater variety of pictures, but they do tend to cost more money, which is why lower-priced cameras tend to advertise their digital zoom capabilities a lot more. However, for many photographers, the enhanced image quality is well worth the higher price.

How Much Optical Zoom Do You Need?

Purchasing a digital camera with a greater optical zoom distance is more expensive than one with only a 2x or 3x zoom, so this decision can greatly affect your pocketbook. While there are no hard and fast rules, consider the following suggestions. Realize that even if you need a lesser zoom for most of your photos, there will always be times where a greater zoom may be useful.

• Are you primarily taking photos of friends and family, such as in parties or social situations? If so, a 2x or 3x zoom should be plenty. Just be sure to get up close if you need to record detail of a situation.

• Looking for photos of outdoor scenery, or interested in taking photos of architectural elements in a cityscape? A 5x+ zoom can help you take pictures from further away without sacrificing detail.

• Interested in taking photos of wildlife where you need to stand back to avoid scaring animals away, at sporting events where you may be situated in third level seating, from atop observation decks in large metropolises, or other situations where it will be difficult to get in close to your subject? That 7x+ zoom may be needed to get the photos you want.