Camera Dynamics Limited

The difference in optical and digital zoom on digital cameras

Many digital cameras have optical and digital zoom functions available to users to get a closer shot of a particular subject from a distance. Many times a photographer song as close as he or she would like and this allows get a stronger picture, even from a distance. There are many situations where this ability can be useful to get a better picture.

A good example is when you go to concerts, sporting events, or anytime you can not come into action when you want to take pictures. The inherent problem with taking a picture with any zooming is that you need to deal with existing light unless you stay within the limits of any flash you have. So always lighting can be a problem on the inside with a zoom lens.

There are two basic methods of zoom digital cameras. The optical zoom lens is composed of several lenses that can be moved inside the lens to capture a larger image. The digital zoom has the same purpose, but crops the image to a smaller size, then increase the cut to fill the frame using a process called interpolation. Basically, this reduces the number of pixels in the image and can affect the quality General final photo.

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

All digital photos are made up of pixels and most cameras have the number of pixels in the list that can be recorded. The more pixels, the more you can increase printing without loss of detail. So if you want to do an 8 x 10 print of the photo without losing quality or detail, you want to capture the image with a minimum of 3.4 megapixels. Everything but will impact the quality of printing. I am over simplifying this, because other factors, but this is just an example to show that the number of pixels recorded the impact of print size and quality of that impression.

An optical zoom lens focal length changes and expansion, and will be expanded and maintained good quality results across the range. A new digital zoom missing pixels filled with what the team thinks it should and loose detail and it shows in the final photo. The greater the amount of zoom, the biggest loss in quality digital zoom.

When using any zoom function (optical or digital) the number of recorded pixels can change depending on the amount pixel camera that can record and the amount of zoom. So any digital camera with a long zoom capability should be able to save enough pixels ensure quality results. In short this means you want enough pixels to handle the amount of zoom available.

In my humble opinion way too much attention is paid the amount of pixels in a digital camera can record. Like most casual photographers take pictures of their children rarely are more than 8 X 10 print or 3X optical zoom, 5-7 megapixels will suffice. The average point and shoot camera often have a 3X optical zoom and 2 to 3 times that the digital zoom.

So forget digital zoom, as it has some serious quality problems. When you are reviewing all cameras to buy to make sure that the catch numbers are in reference to an optical zoom and not digital zoom.

About the Author

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