What's optical zoom mean?

Question

& megapixels?

Answer 1

Optical Zoom is the zoom using the lense where the light is magnified to give you a larger image.  It's the good kind.  Digital Zoom is a computer enlarged picture, it's not as clear as Optical Zoom.

Megapixel is the size of a digital picture.  The more megapixels the image is, the more detail can be had in it and the bigger you can blow the picture up to.  Pixels are what lights up on your monitor to show you an image in color.  The more pixels you can condense into an area, the more resolution your montior will have.

Answer 2

Optical zoom means the camera's lens changes so you get closer or farther from the image.  Digital zoom enlarges or shrinks the image, losing quality.

Megapixels are the basic measurement of the resolution of the image.  Anything 6 megapixels or above will give you excellent photos, including enlargements up to 8x10.