The zoom, or magnification, features on a camera are determined by its focal length. The focal length is the distance between the lens and the camera’s sensor. The greater the focal length, the greater the camera’s ability to shoot a clear, close up image from a distance. Conventional film cameras have only optical zoom while digital cameras may have both optical and digital zoom features.

Optical zoom lenses are far superior to digital zoom lenses. A camera with an optical zoom feature is much like any conventional camera. The lens is like a telescope that magnifies your subject and then captures the enlarged image. Digital cameras are manufactured with varying optical zoom capabilities. If you are an avid photographer or you have the desire to take quality photographs from afar, then consider the level of magnification for optical zoom features on a variety of cameras before choosing one.

Digital zoom is not as effective. In addition, using this kind of zoom feature without understanding how it works can produce some very disappointing photographs. Digital zoom works the same way that cropping an image using photo editing software works. For example, if you have a photograph that you took at a distance and you want to crop it to enlarge some aspect, you would probably notice that it loses its resolution resulting in a fuzzy or grainy image. A digital zoom lens does the same thing but as the image is being captured. Therefore if you see a great shot from a distance and you use the digital zoom feature, you are likely to get a poor image.

Why digital zoom is included is a mystery to some, since the same effect can be achieved using software, which can always be corrected if the outcome is poor. Once a photo is taken using digital zoom, then what you see is what you get. It may be surmised that digital zoom is a marketing technique intended to make one company’s product seem better than another’s without sacrificing the overhead associated with adding a quality optical zoom feature.