What is optical zoom?

Question

Is it the zoom when your taking a picture or the zoom when you are viewing a picture that has been taken.

Answer 1

optical zoom is 'zooming'  by use of optics: lenses

digital zoom uses software to zoom in on an area -- doesnt use additional lenses

Answer 2

Ahh the famous question. Well, it's pretty much been answered already.

Optical zoom uses the glass lenses like a magnifying glass or binocular to make your subject appear closer than it really is.

Digital zoom basically selects a small portion of what you are looking at and uses mathmatic algorithms to stretch the image to be larger than it actually is. In doing this, you actually lose picture quality, sharpness, and color quality. I would never use digital zoom.

If you absolutely need to get closer, use a computer program to do some cropping. Most computer software will do a much better job than a cameras internal computer.

Answer 3

Its the zoom when you're taking a picture, and it happens within the lens. When the lens moves, that is the optical zoom. Digital Zoom makes the picture quality worse, but you can get a lot closer.