The difference between digital- and optical zoom on a camera
Most digital cameras today will offer you both digital and optical zoom to choose from. These two are often not known by the average camera buyer. Many people don’t know the difference of the two, or simply what it is. Optical zoom works pretty much like the zoom lens that you would have on a 35mm film camera. It basically changes the length of your camera’s lens, in such a way that your subject will be drawn closer to you. The very good thing about optical zoom is that it won’t reduce the quality of the picture. Digital zoom on the other hand can be dangerous to use when you want good looking images, and who doesn’t want that right? Digital zoom works a little differently; it takes the picture, crops it, and then enlarges the left part of the picture. Because of this process of cropping and enlargement, it can greatly reduce the image quality. What this means is that you will have a larger view of an object with digital zoom, but the risk is that you could get unfocused pictures. If you want to use digital zoom be careful and not overdo it.
Actually a good tip would be to completely turn off the digital zoom on your camera if you can. This way you will be prevented to automatically overdo the zooming. When the optical zooming of your camera reaches its limit, it can automatically go over to digital zooming, since it is often an extension of the optical. Our advice is still to only stick with optical zooming if you want really good quality in your pictures.
There are some things you could do if you want to really get a close view of your subject, and at the same time wish to have good quality pictures. The best tip is to physically move closer before you take your picture. Usually only a foot or two will do wonders. If you are in a situation were this isn’t possible, you can simply set your camera to take the picture at the highest file size that your camera offer you. When you do this, you can then take a picture that can be cropped later on to include only the subject you desired in the first place. The picture will still be clear and good to watch at, since you didn’t do any digital zooming.
Digital zoom has some uses however. If you only are taking pictures that are meant to be posted on the internet, then high quality isn’t necessarily the most important thing. It is good to remember that pictures online can be a much lower quality in the camera, and still look very acceptable when posted in an online image gallery, or sent in an email. If however you are going to print your images never use digital zoom. Follow this advice and all your images will look better in the end.
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