When it comes to Digital Camcorders - what is the simple difference beween the terms digital and optical zoom?

Question

I read somewhere once, digital zoom is actualy of secondary importance to a camcorder enthusiast and that to get a sense of the power of a cam, you find out its 'optical zoom' , fine I suppose.

So whats the difference between digital zoom and optical zoom ?

Answer 1

One of the easiest ways to explain it is to open a picture on your computer using any photo software you have, then zoom in using the relevant zoom in tool.

Thats digital zoom. The more you zoom in the worst the picture gets. So it's not really that useful.

Optical zoom is all done with the lens rather than the electronics, so you zoom in at the same picture quality.

Answer 2

Firstly a picture is made up of pixels (lots of little dots) The more pixels, the higher quality of picture.

A digital zoom will strech each of the pixels as it zooms in - imagine a picture on a balloon, if you stretch the balloon the picture will also stretch and will become distorted.

An optical zoom however will create more pixels in the area you have zoomed in on, so the quality is still high.

Hope this helps x

Answer 3

ya its true that digital zoom is of no or secondary importance. the main difference comes when you want to take a picture which is a distance and you want to take a pic.now optical zoom actually can zoom to the object (as prescribed on the cam or video cam like 4x or 6x etc.. ) you will no lose the picture clarity. where as the digital zoom can be larger then the optical but actually coming to truth the digital zoom never takes the picture of the distance objects but instead it zooms the picture in the optical zoom.ie if the picture has a tree and u want the see it clearly a fruit on it you zoom in the picture viewer the clarity of the fruit drcreases the same thing happens in digital zoom. so opt for cam with larger optical zoom never worry about the digital one. go to the source below get the clear picture.