Cameras have become even more popular after the rise of digital images. The demand for digital cameras has risen, allowing manufacturers to offer a wider range of products to an ever-ready-to-consume market. Digital SLRs, point and shoot cameras (instamatics) and even mobile camera phones now have larger file formats, better light compensation capabilities and automatic color correction and white balance functions to boot. Because of the many camera functions and properties to choose from, consumers may feel overwhelmed with the decisions they have to make in order to get the right gear for them. Do any of these specs really make sense to the user? Let’s take the ZOOM property of your camera as an example. Zoom is the capacity of your camera lens to move in closer to your subject, therefore, magnifying its size in relation to your distance from the object to be shot. Your camera may boast of either of two things- optical zoom or digital zoom. Which one do you choose? Let me break it down for you.
OPTICAL ZOOM
Optical zoom is basically dependent on the focal length of your lens. If the standard lens that shoots what-you-see-is-what-you-get is at 35mm, a higher number in the focal length brings you closer to your subject. In other words, an 85mm lens can shoot portraits and a 10mm lens can shoot landscapes better. Depending on the focal length of your camera (check the side or the rim of your lens to find out your focal length) you can move your lens closer or further from your subject. Optical zoom allows you to shoot an image, manually bringing the lens closer to your subject, therefore creating a clearer, sharper image.
DIGITAL ZOOM
Digital zoom is a bit of a cheat. What it does is that it takes the picture of the image at the default focal length (measured in mm.) After the picture has already been taken, only then will it zoom in on the image. You may think that this won’t make a difference to the image but it does. The concept is the same when you zoom in on a picture in your computer monitor. The closer you move into the image, the bigger the pixels become and the more detail you will lose. In other words, it compromises the sharpness and quality of the image. Usually, manufacturers make sure that the file sizes of the cameras that have digital zoom are relatively bigger in order to compensate for the pixels lost in the process.
WHICH ONE IS BETTER?
Lenses are very expensive. If you wish to take images just for keepsake and you won’t be printing your images anyway, a camera with a digital zoom will come in cheaper and more practical for you. On the other hand, if you’re seriously in to photography and you need to print out your shots with crispness, detail and clarity, go for a camera with optical zoom. It may be more expensive but the measure of its quality remains unparalleled.
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