Digicam Buying Guide: Zip, Zap, Zoom

Optical and digital zoom are among the most prominently advertised features of digital cameras but the two are very different in their value and camera buyers should be aware of the difference.

Optical zoom is when the camera magnifies the image through the physical movement of the lens and it is achieved without any significant loss of quality. Digital zoom, on the other hand, simply means that the camera digitally magnifies the portion of the image that you want to zoom in on. It is like enlarging the image through a software package and will similarly lead to a loss of quality. The bottom line is that you should pay attention to the optical zoom on a digital camera but you can largely ignore digital zoom.

While some low-end digital cameras come with no optical zoom at all, a typical model comes with 3X optical zoom. This offers a moderate amount of magnification allowing you to frame the picture in the manner you want without resorting to software enlargement. However for serious zoom capabilities for shooting sports or wildlife you should consider cameras with 10X optical zoom like the Nikon Coolpix S4.

Next post: Shooting options

Technorati Tags
Digicam | Digital Camera | Kodak