What's the difference between an optical zoom and digital zoom? Does it effect the quality of the picture?

Answer 1

Optical zoom uses the lens, and not digital pixels, so it's more clear and precise. The digital zoom digitally enlarges the optical image, which has a negative impact on the resolution.

Answer 2

Optical zoom uses a lens and focal length to zoom in the picture. Digital zoom is artificially created by the computer in the camera. Think of it this way - optical zoom actually brings in more information to the camera and therefore will create a high quality picture, while digital zoom is just interpolating with the information that is there to make the picture easier for you to see, and there is no additional information to the camera, so the picture will be lower quality. If zooming is necessary for you, buy optical zoom even though it's more expensive.

Answer 3

Optical zoom uses lenses to change the focal length of an image so that the image view (picture taken) can be framed as intended. Analog cameras (regular film cameras) have only optical zoom, while digital cameras have both optical and digital. The digital zoom is an interpolated resolution that is computed by software from the image captured (or using software on a PC using the digital picture) to produce a final picture. Depending on subject matter, the use of digital zoom can be quite acceptable or mediocre. It is often preferable to have a camera with a high optical zoom capability and not use digital zoom.

Answer 4

Optical zoom is possible with a good quality lens. The quality of the larger picture will be as good as the smaller picture. Digital zoom is a software trick to enlarge part of the original picture. The quality will go down, not improve, as some television programs would have you believe.

Answer 5

everybody is right. Optical zoom = great. Digital zoom = terrible.

Never ever use the digital zoom. If you want to crop the picture later on, that may be okay. But don't ruin the picture from the get go.

Answer 6

Optical zoom is good and digital zoom sucks. Optical zoom is "real" zoom done with the camera lens. Digital zoom is really just a way to enlarge pixels and degrade the image. Ignore it completely when you are comparing cameras.

Answer 7

the difference between them is one is manual and one the camera sets the zooming. As a prior videographer we would use optical to pan in on where we needed to be then used the digital zoom to focus. Another helpful tip is always move the camers zoom in slow and pan the camera vs. fast and immediatly into the image you want, this will cause you to over zoom, which will cause unsightly cropping.

Answer 8

yes it does,

Optical is better because it uses the lens to actually zoom in on the picture,

Digital zoom is just like blowing up a image on your computer, it will come out all pixely. I never use Digital zoom, if i have to zoom in i will make that change on my computer to make sure it comes out well.

Answer 9

Pat: well : Opitical is full wide angle which pictures comes like
side ways and digetal zoom differes much by how focused
that gets better each time camera uses flash bar too see
http://www.camera/opicallens or http://yahoo.yahoo.ditgetalzoom.com

Answer 10

Optical uses the ocular which is mechanical and creates a better zoom. Digital uses uses digital enhancement technology which does not give as good a quality. You will notice the difference when you use the digital feature on your digital camera.
Best advice..............
Buy a camera with the best "non-digital" zoom. If you choose a camera with a great optical zoom and also has digital cool, but try to purchase the most u can with optical.

Optical vs. Digital Zoom
More and more camera manufacturers are choosing to label their digital cameras with the total (optical x digital) zoom. This is an unfortunate development and only serves to confuse consumers.

Most people who have used a 35mm camera or an APS camera are aware of only optical zoom. Optical zoom uses the optics (lens) of the camera to bring the subject closer. Digital zoom is an invention of digital video cameras. It is not uncommon to see digital videocams with 300x digital zoom.

For our purpose, 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 camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size. In so doing, you lose image quality. If you've been regularly using digital zoom and wondered why your pictures did not look that great, now you know.

Is digital zoom therefore all bad? No, not at all. It's a feature that you might want in your digital camera (in fact, all digital cameras include some digital zoom, so you can't really avoid it), especially if you don't care about using (or don't know how to use) an image editing software. So, as far as digital zoom is concerned, you can do it in camera or you can do it afterwards in an image editing software. Any cropping and enlarging can be done in an image editing software, such as Photoshop.

So, when a digital camera is advertised with 3x digital zoom, no big deal. You can achieve the same 3x (and in fact as much as you want) digital zoom effect in an image editing software. The advantage of doing it later is that you can then decide exactly which portion to crop and how much to enlarge (3x, 4x, ...). If you do it in camera, image quality is irreversibly lost.

Someone in a digital camera forum once mentioned that he uses digital zoom because it might mean the difference between capturing a great shot or not at all. Umm, let's think about this a bit. True, if by zooming digitally in camera you get to see what your subject is doing and thus can capture the shot at the right moment. Not quite true, if it's something like a landscape shot, and the mountains ain't going nowhere fast, because you can achieve the same cropping and enlarging effect after the fact in your image editing software. So, it's really up to you, if you know what you're doing.

What, therefore is the rule of thumb, when it comes to using zoom? Here it is: Always use optical zoom. When buying a camera, choose one that warns you that you are about to use digital zoom or that allows you to disable digital zoom (most do). If you do use digital zoom, use it only if it does not appreciably impact your image quality. If you rarely print past 4x6 in. photos, digital zoom may not adversely affect you.

When comparing cameras, you should always use optical zoom. There is no point in comparing digital zoom with digital zoom or optical zoom with total zoom. Always compare optical zoom with optical zoom.

Optical Zoom vs. Resolution

What about optical zoom vs. resolution? Sigh! Now y'all know that we cannot and should not be comparing apples 'n oranges, but we still try. The question I often read about goes something like this: "Which is better: 2 megapixels resolution with 3x optical zoom or 3 megapixels resolution with 2x optical zoom?"

The megapixels resolution of a digital camera can be thought of as the number of pixels available to capture an image. With a 2 megapixels camera, you have 2 million pixels to record an image. With a 3 megapixels camera, you have 1 million extra pixels to record the same image -- in other words, you are able to capture the image in more detail.

Whether you zoom or not does not affect how many pixels are used to capture the image. So, zoomed at its maximum, a 2 megapixels 3x optical zoom digital camera will still have captured a 2 million pixels image. Likewise, a 3 megapixels 2x optical zoom digital camera will always capture a 3 million pixels image.

The real question behind the question is, "So now if I use digital zoom to zoom in with the 3 megapixels camera and simulate a total zoom of 3x, will the resultant image quality be less, the same, or still better than the one I captured with the 2 megapixels 3x optical zoom camera?" You follow so far?

With a 2 megapixels digital camera, you can make good 4x6 in. prints, and maybe even 5x7 in. prints. With a 3 megapixels digital camera, you can make good 8x10 in. prints. So, as far as image quality is concerned, the 3 megapixels camera is better. Unless you are always going to take pictures at max. zoom, the 3MP camera is better because at 2x optical zoom and less, it is always capturing images with more detail than the 2MP camera.

What we are really trying to say is this: do not compare. You've got to decide what is more important to you: resolution or optical zoom? If the answer is both, then find a digital camera that has both. It's that simple. If it's outside your pocketbook range, then choose a digital camera for what is more important to you.

We usually recommend buying a digital camera with at least 3 megapixels resolution because of the better image quality. A 2x optical zoom is disappointing, but not necessarily a show-stopper. A 3x optical zoom is standard with most consumer digital cameras. Some ultra-compact digital cameras may be able to provide only 2x optical zoom. We never bother to check how much digital zoom a camera provides, and ignore the marketing hype surrounding it. We always disable digital zoom in camera, choosing to do our own cropping and enlarging in an image editing software.

Optical vs. digital zoom? There is no contest. Only optical zoom matters when selecting a digital camera.

Added September 16, 2004:

Smart Zoom

Recently, a new type of digital zoom has appeared on the market, pioneered by Sony, called "Smart Zoom." Smart Zoom can be viewed as an "ethical" digital zoom which avoids interpolating the image and so avoid degrading image quality. Smart Zoom works only if you select an image size smaller than the full available image size. So, for example, if your digital camera is capable of producing a 5MP image, Smart Zoom is available only if you select to save your images as 4MP or less.

Say, your digital camera is 5MP and you select to save your images as 3MP. So, in effect, you are forfeiting 2MP of image data (extracted from all over the image area) that the digital camera's sensor has captured and now has to throw away [you hope the camera makes the right decision and does not throw away important image data]. Enter Smart Zoom that says, "Hey, instead of throwing away 2MP of good data from all over the image area, why don't I crop out all the pixels starting from the outside perimeter? When I've cropped out 2MP of image data all around, I have 3MP left over and that's what you want, right?" Notice, the 3MP image does not have to be interpolated and enlarged back to 5MP as traditional digital zoom does (because you elected to save it as 3MP, remember?). So, in effect, you've basically more or less retained the same image quality but you have to save your resulting simulated zoomed image in a smaller image size. Of course, if now you turn around and enlarge it in post-processing, you will be limited to what a 3MP image can be enlarged up to without image degradation.

I call Smart Zoom "ethical digital zoom" because it is not made available at full image size -- this would cause image degradation. The smaller you elect to save your image, the more smart zoom power you have available (folks, you're basically just cropping the image without re-enlarging, which you can also do at any time in post-processing). I would personally not recommend cropping down below 3MP, which means that Smart Zoom is useful only in digital cameras with 4MP and above.

So, our recommendation still holds. If you want zoom power, only optical zoom matters! Smart Zoom is the better form of digital zoom, but what you gain in simulated zoom power (again, you're just cropping), you lose in image size. There's no free lunch.

Again, don't buy a digital camera based on digital (traditional or smart) zoom. Always compare optical zoom with optical zoom. If you are comparing 2 digital cameras with the same optical zoom, but one has smart digital zoom and the other has traditional digital zoom, then the smart zoom has a slight advantage. But personally, I wouldn't even look at that because there are a lot more important features to differentiate the cameras.