When I first became interested in photography in the 1960’s anyone that said that they had a zoom lens was either a millionaire or a liar. Now every digital camera comes with a lens with both optical zoom and digital zoom capabilities. What is the difference and should I use one as opposed to the other? Simply, optical zoom uses the optics of the lens to bring the subject closer. Digital zoom uses internal software to digitally enlarge a chosen portion of the image. In other words it simulates the action of the zoom lens.

Which is better? Optical or digital.

In short digital zoom is not really a zoom lens. All digital zoom does is take a part of the image and enlarge it back to full size. The consequence of this is loss of quality because of the enlarging process. The same results are much better obtained using photoshop or whichever imaging software you are using. This way you can crop and enlarge much more selectively and not lose as much quality.

The answer is to use optical zoom only! If you do need to get closer use your optical zoom to its full capacity and then enlarge when you get home using Photoshop.

Your camera will always use the optical zoom first and then turn to digital zoom. Most digital cameras will notify you when you are starting to use the digital zoom. My advice is to look up in your camera manual how to turn off your digital zoom altogether.