10 June 2009
When purchasing a compact digital camera, it's very important to understand the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom. More and more camera manufacturers are quoting a combined (optical + digital) zoom to help sell their products. This is bad news for the consumer as it may only lead to confusion and misinformation.
Optical zoom is true zoom. It works by moving optical lenses so that the object appears closer than it actually is. Just as a magnifying glass, or binoculars enlarge an image. The image is brought closer with no loss of quality as the camera sensor still captures at maximum resolution.
Digital zoom is an invention of the digital era, and simply crops an area of the full image, then enlarges it to appear closer, but does so at the expense of image quality. Digital zoom can in fact be achieved on any photo editing software, once the image has been uploaded to your PC. It's no real feature, and it's only advantage is to actually see more of what you're snapping, or for those that don't want to process their images later. Digital zoom may also be considered useful with a high megapixel digital camera, as the quality is so high to begin with, you can afford to lose some resolution during the digital zoom process.
So remember next time you're comparing digital cameras with the intention of making a purchase, you can pretty much ignore digital zoom. It achieves next to nothing, and most home PCs can do exactly the same, or in fact better. The real decider should be the optical zoom capabilities. This can give you a true zoomed in picture at maximum megapixels.
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