Camera optical zoom?

Question

Im wanting a digital camera and all the ones I look at seem to have 3x optical zoom. Is this a good optical zoom? Does anyone know of a website that show the different optical zooms and what a picture taken with it looks like?

Answer 1

You will have to balance the features of the camera with the amount of money you are will/able to spend. The higher the optical zoom, the better. You will also have to decide what kind of picture taking you will be doing. If you will be doing a lot of far off photography, you will need the extra optical zoom, but if you will be doing mostly close in type casual photography, you may not need so much optical zoom. Don't even take digital zoom into consideration, it leads to grainy, pixellated pictures.

You might start with known camera maker's web sites. Maybe you can start at some of the box retailer's web sites like Best Buy or Circuit City and compare different models. If you need lots of zoom, you'll probably be looking at Digital SLRs....the cameras that look just like 35mm cameras with interchangeable lenses. If you have a 35mm camera now, you may be able to get a modern Digital SLR that accepts many different lenses....I know Sony's new Alpha does.

Good luck...

Answer 2

Although some will recommend a 10-12X zoom, you will find that MOST consumer point and shoot digital cameras have 3-4X optical zoom. This is actually plenty. You can see some samples from a Canon Powershot A620 at this site.

http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/canona620_samples/

The thing is, they will not refer to the power ("X") of the zoom, but the approximate focal length. The A620 zooms from 35mm to 140mm. This is a 4X zoom. (4 x 35 = 140) You will have to do the math. At the top of the page, you will see the focal length for that image. The first one is 35mm, so it's 1X. Click on "next" and you will see that the second one is 83mm, so it would be 2.4X. The next is 41 mm or 1.2X, and so on. (Focal length used divided by 35 yields the "X" power of the zoom.)

I am not sure HOW useful these images will be for you, because you have no idea how far away the subject was when the picture was taken, but it's exactly what you asked to see, so enjoy. There ARE several of the same subject and perhaps they were taken from nearly the same distance.

Answer 3

Most of the compact point and shoot camera have only 3X optical zoom except for a few good one like the Canon SD 700 IS which has 4X zoom. If you are looking for good zoom digital camera that has higher zoom range, you will be looking at those DSLR-Like camera which have as many as 12X zoom (Canon Power shot S3 IS). Both camera I've mention are good. Of course, someone else will have different opinion on brand.

To see sample picture, go to http://www.pbase.com/cameras and pick the model you want to view. These pictures are mostly taken by average consumers. Hope this will help.

Answer 4

Be aware, the longer the zoom the harder it is to get a sharp picture Those long zooms magnify camera shake.. One rule of thumb, your shutter speed needs to be about the same as your zoom length. To put it another way, to hand hold a 500mm lens, your shutter speed should be in the neighborhood of 1/500 of a second. Many of the longer zoom digicams have some form of image stabilization, which will give you a stop or two to play with so you can shoot at speeds a little slower.

Or you can plan on using a tripod often. (not a bad idea, but sometimes impractical!)

Answer 5

3x zoom is not good. For the hobbyist, 10x to 15x is a good range for optical zooms.