Digital vs. optical. 6 things you should know

When you want to do a close up shot, you want to zoom in to get the perfect picture. Should you use digital or optical zoom? Here are 6 things you should know about both.
A digital camera can appear to zoom in a little to make a faraway object a closer. An optical zoom can get really close since the lens is being moved to make an object appear much closer. Here are some things you should know about both types of zoom.
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1. Digital zoom
Digital zoom is where the image is zoomed in by the camera from the inside. It makes the image larger by cutting off the sides, similar to when you cut away the edges of a picture in an editing program, making the image a little larger than the original.
2. Optical zoom
An optical zoom can really zoom in on an area, creating a true close up of a subject. This zoom is very familiar to the zoom on a film type camera. The images are much better quality than when you use a digital zoom.
3. Fake zoom
Digital zoom is not really zooming into an image at all, its enlarging it. This can cause problems, such as a fuzzy image or one where the pixels can be seen when enlarged. This is why the pictures do not seem as high quality as shot without digital zoom.
4. Resolution
Both optical and digital zoom come in different resolutions. When a picture from a digital camera is zoomed in enough, you can see the pixels, which will make the shot look unsightly. The resolution of an image with optical zoom does not change, which is why the shot looks the same quality as one that is not zoomed in.
5. New digital zoom
Safe, intelligent, and smart zooms are a new variety of digital zoom now available. These digital zooms have better resolution on them and don't have as much pixels, improving the image quality verses regular digital zooms. Keep in mind the size of megapixels you are saving the images with, since this can effect their resolution.
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6. Megapixels
Megapixels can determine the quality of photos you produce when using the newer digital zooms. Instead of getting rid of the megapixels due to cropping the photo, newer digital zooms will take out the megapixels from the cropped part of the image, instead of the entire image. This helps keep the resolution acceptable and not take away too much of the quality of the photos.