What's the diffrence between OPTICAL ZOOM and DIGITAL ZOOM in a digital camera??

Answer 1

Optical zoom is by physically moving the lenses to change the focal length. This is like a telescope or binoculars. Digital zoom is to digitally take the image and "zoom" by interpolating the pixels. Thus, the image has the same information, but just looks bigger. In general, digital zoom works very poorly (since the camera is essentially guessing at what the zoomed picture should look like) and in general you should buy a camera that gives you as much true optical zoom as possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_zoom

Answer 2

Optical Zoom vs. Digital Zoom

Digital cameras may have an optical zoom, a digital zoom, or both. An optical zoom literally changes your lens's focal length. In other words, the image is magnified by the lens. Light is spread across the entire sensor and all of the pixels can be used. The optical zoom is the "true" zoom that will improve the quality of your images.

A digital zoom uses interpolation techniques to add detail to the portion of the subject that you have zoomed in on. However, no additional image detail is gained. The end result would be the same as if you had shot the picture without the zoom, and then blowing up the picture using software.

In a nutshell, the digital zoom only changes the presentation of existing data, and the optical zoom actually augments the image collected by the sensor. Optical zooms are far superior to digital zooms and should be one of the first things you look for in purchasing a digital camera.

Answer 3

Optical zoom uses lenses to zoom in and out on your subject. Usually this requires a motor inside the camera to physically move the lens. It gives you better quality images when zoomed in than digital zoom.

Digital zoom just uses a portion of your camera's available pixels. When you zoom in with digital zoom, it just "blows up" the image electronically. The more you zoom in, the poorer the image quality gets.

Some cameras use both, optical up to say 3x, and digital zoom beyond that. This is a reasonable compromise. Very inexpensive digital cameras may not have an optical zoom at all. I'd probably stay away from those.

Answer 4

Optical zoom uses the actual lens to zoom in and is FAR more important on a digital camera for quality.

Digital zoom simply enlarges the photo, by digitally increasing the view. You can do this on the computer with less loss of quality.

A digital camera with out good optical zoom is like a day without sunshine. Spend the buck for optical zoom. You'll be glad you did.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Answer 5

You're probably referring to digital cameras. Optical zoom uses the alighment of lenses to make an image seem closer. Once the optical zoom has reached it's max, a digital zoom provides a vitrual zoom using electronic enhancement. Optical zoom gives better quality.

Answer 6

Brian is right about optical zoom, but digital zoom doesn't 'interpolate' the image; it simply reduces the area of that camera's sensor (or, center crops), which reduces your overall resolution (or megapixels), and can affect your quality as well. If you use x3 digital zoom on a 6 MP camera, you end up with a 2 MP image..

Answer 7

optical zoom is the actual limits for taking a photo...divide widest angle (MM) for example 38-380lens...into largest (zoom) in this case 38 divided into 380 gives an optical zoom of 10 to 1...digital zoom is only good for slight zooming just degrades image with large zooming

Answer 8

i think you got your answer!!