[hpnotiq]

would anyone like to explain to me exactly what they are?
cus i have no idea & i'm trying to buy a better camera cus the one i have only has 3x zoom.

& recommendations of camera's that have good zoom would be nice too.

[Tepper]

Optical zoom is the lens moving in order to make an object appear larger. (Like moving a magnifying glass, or a pair of glasses)
Digital zoom is just taking the image that the lens sees and zooming in on the center of the image, losing quality due to pixelation, thus optical zoom is superior since no image quality is genereally lost. Stick to optical.

[erure]

with optical zoom, the lens actually moves closer to focus in on the picture. with digital zoom, the camera basically crops out the image and zooms in on it, causing it to lose picture quality. just think of it as optical zoom being incomparably better than digital zoom.

[hpnotiq]

so the higher then optical zoom is better right?
then how come some camera's have both? actually all camera's that i've looked over.

[mangujowa]

optical zoom. You don't lose picture quality. Canon SD700 Has 4x optial I think.... >__>" my SD550 only has 3x optical 4x digital. 12x pictures come out grainy and ughhhh. but up to 3x, the picture is perfect.

the optical zoom just zooms in, but the digital zoom MAGNIFIES the optical zoom's picture, which loses picture quality =]

[Tepper]

Most point and shot camera have both so that they can claim they have a really high zoom, by combining the optical and digital zoom factors together. (eg: 3x optical + 4x digital = 12x zoom ... 12 is a big number, but you really only get 3x zoom out of it.)

[hpnotiq]

ooh okay.
thanks everyone.

but too bad i still don't know which digital camera to buy. haha

[Tepper]

Heh.. ya theres lots to choose from really with both optical and digital zoom, just try to stay away from one that only has digital.

Good cams: Canon's A-series and SD-series , Nikon's CoolPixs are decent but not as good as the canons at some junk , and other brands like the casio exlims and stuff are nice as well.

[mangujowa]

If you're buying based on zoom, the Canon SD700 sounds nice. 4x optical. Man, I wish my 550 had more optical zoom. =/

[NASRI22]

digital zoom is pretty bad.. it's pretty much zooming up into a picture .. bad quality imo.

[lovejyk]

so the higher then optical zoom is better right?
then how come some camera's have both? actually all camera's that i've looked over.

Someone already explained why camera's have both so I wont explain it again . Most cameras have a camera setting where you can turn off digital zoom.

[aznfishyfart]

also like my camera the zoom bar has a white section (optical) and red (digital)...generally u should get a camera with more optical zoom than digital zoom....going with a brandname camera would be a good bet...canons r nice like everyone else said