I know that optical zoom is normal zoom but when do I use digital zoom and will it degrade performance of the picture? Optical zoom is actually performed by the movement of the lens itself (by adjusting the focal length) and so no matter how much you zoom in optical, you get the same high quality picture.
However, the digital zoom is what is performed by the CCD, the sensor inside the camera, digitally. It just enlarges the normal image it gets from the lens, digitally. Think of it as resizing a small image to a big one on your computer, in, say photoshop or something. You can immediately notice the lack of sharpness of the image. It doesnt degrade the 'performance', but the quality of the picture you are taking. It again depends upon the CCD and the amount of digital zoom you are using.
So if it is 1x or 2x digital zoom, it wont be that bad a quality difference. At higher levels, you will surely notice the difference quickly. Also, if the CCD is a high-quality one, you can get a better quality out of digital zoom, but never ever can digital zoom be a substitute for optical zoom.
Hope I answered your question. dude.
digital zoom is basically worthless.
i would stay away from using it, becuase as soon as you do, the picture quality goes down a ton. Most, if not all people would never ever use digital zoom. And yes, photo quality will be degraded.
So...ALWAYS use 'Optical' zoom only.
And ONLY use 'digital' zoom if you desperately want to get in just that bit closer...but don't mind having lousy photo quality. The short answer to your question is NEVER! If the camera menu allows you to, then turn it off.
As you suspect, yes it will degrade the quality of the picture. If optical zoom doesn't get you there, then take the shot anyway and crop it later, you will still end up with a better quality shot.
For your next cameras purchase you may want to consider optical zoom as the most important feature of the camera. It matters more than megapixels. WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO TAKE A PIC YOU NEED TO GET A GOOD ZOOM FOR BETTER QUALITY OF PIC |
