What is the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom on a digital camera?

I want to be able to zoom in and take clear pictures, so do I buy a camera with more optical or digital zoom?

get optical zoom. optical zoom is a real zoom, where the lenses make the image larger. digital zoom is taking the whole picture, selecting a small part of that, and then enlarging that part without an increase in picture quality.

************************

Optical zoom is the cameras lens actually zooming in to see an object closer. Digital zoom is taking the last optical image and digitally enlarging it or blowing it up.

Optical zoom is what you want to have more of. Digital zoom is, quite honestly, a worthless feature.

**************************************...

Optical zoom means the lens of the camera is moving and providing the magnification. Digital zoom is the same as cropping your picture and degrades the quality.

Optical zoom is with the actual lens, while a digital zoom is used
via digitally. Ditgial zoom is not as clear as optical. You probably
can find more info on these websites...
_
_
_
_
_

Optical zoom is like a telescope that zooms in on things using magnification.

Digital zoom uses extrapolation to make pictures clearer. If you zoom in on a picture, you'll notice that it gets blurry. So, optical zoom attempts to fix this blurriness by collection the surrounding information, such as colors, brightness, etc, and tries to fill in the pixels so that the picture looks clear.

You should go for something like a high optical zoom because that's what the camera can actually see.

Optical Zoom is done by adjustment of Lens's.

Digital Zoom is done Electronically. Thus: 5.1 Pixels
etc. The more Pixels the clearer the Picture.

Optical Zoom will give better Pictures unless you
can afford a Professional Camera.

In optical zoom the you change the zoom manually, in digital zoom, the computer inside the camera changes the zoom and the pixels on the image become more obvious. You don't get good quality.