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Digital zoom is when your camera zooms in by using digital technology to increase the apparent size of whatever it’s pointed at. This technique is used to digitally enlarge an image so that you can see more details. The downside is that it can also make images look distorted and unnatural, especially if they were shot in low light conditions.
Optical zoom is a different technique — one that doesn’t use digital technology at all. Instead, the optical properties of the lens are responsible for the magnification effect. For example, a 50 millimeter (mm) lens will produce the same magnification effect as a 100 mm lens which has twice as much magnification power. Therefore, cameras with a 50 mm lens have optical zoom equivalent to a 200 mm lens.
How Optical Zoom Works
Optical zoom is achieved when the camera lens actually changes its focal length. This is accomplished by adjusting the lens’s aperture, which controls how much light passes through the lens and hits the camera sensor.
It’s also possible to zoom in by moving the lens towards the subject, but this would also cause the camera to move back, which would require moving the tripod as well.
Zooming in is helpful when you have a subject that’s too far away to capture with the camera’s wide angle lens. For example, if you’re trying to take a photo of a landscape, you’ll likely need to zoom in to get the whole scene in the frame.
Optical zoom occurs when the glass elements inside the lens move to change the focal length of the lens. This is what people are referring to when they mention a “zoom lens.” With optical zoom, you are able to retain more image quality than with digital zoom.
Digital zoom, on the other hand, is not as ideal because it doesn’t provide the same level of quality as optical zoom. With digital zoom, the camera essentially crops the image and then enlarges it, which can result in a loss of detail or pixelation.
Digital zoom
Digital zoom is like zooming in on a computer screen by increasing the screen resolution. However, once you zoom in digitally, you can’t zoom back out again. Digital zoom is typically used when you’re too far away from the subject, and there’s no way to get closer.
However, there’s one big downside to digital zoom – namely, it just enlarges the image by cropping it. This means that the image loses some of its quality because you’re cutting off parts of the photo.
In fact, as you zoom in, more and more parts of the photo get cut off. As a result, images that are zoomed in digitally might look pixelated or blurry.
What’s the Difference between Optical and Digital Zoom?
A zoom lens allows you to adjust the “lens focal length” to zoom in and out, while zoom buttons on a camera allow you to zoom in and out without touching the lens. When you are using a zoom lens, you are zooming in and out using the lens itself.
This means that it is physically moving inside the camera, which allows the photographer to zoom in and out. When you use a zoom button on a camera, there is a motor behind the zoom button that moves the lens back and forth.
When you are using a zoom lens, the quality of the image that you are taking does not degrade. However, when you are using a Digital zoom button , the quality of the image degrades because the camera is taking the original image and doing something to it to make the zoomed in version of it.
Conclusion
The difference between optical and digital zoom is that optical zoom uses the lens to adjust its focal length, while digital zoom uses software to enlarge the image. Digital zoom is useful for getting closer to a subject when you can’t physically move any closer. However, it’s important to remember that you won’t be getting any better quality; you’ll just be taking a larger version of the original image. If you want to get a better quality image, it’s best to use the optical zoom and get as close to the subject as you can.
