Scan your PC for monstrous errors now - Free scan! Look Mac, I'm just gonna tell you once - you have to back up to the web with XDrive Try it free

Miss your computer while away from home? Cheer up, GoToMyPC lets you access it from anywhere.

Learn How with Cyberwalker's Video Demos: Take your old records off the shelf and rip them to MP3 files. Learn step by step with a video how-to

Adding RAM is easy, learn how

Find out if there are bugs in your system. Click for a free scan with Registry Booster.

FAQ:
How to buy a Digital Camera

by Simon Walker

>>This is part of the Cyberwalker FAQ: How to buy a digital camera

Zoom - Getting in Tight

There are two zoom features you'll likely see on camera feature lists. One is "optical zoom" the other is "digital zoom". It's important to understand the difference.

Optical Zoom
If you plan on using the digital camera for capturing little Johnny playing on his Peewee hockey team, you should consider a good optical zoom lens. The lens is probably the most expensive part of the camera and usually the better the lens, the better the picture taken. Taken by itself, it is the feature of the camera that allows you to capture a scene and show close up detail without physically having to stand close to it. Optical zoom lenses are expressed by a number and the letter “X”. It refers to the number of times closer the lens brings you to the scene.

Most digital cameras start at 3 times or 3X optical zoom. The more expensive cameras however can have up to 10X optical zoom. This is ideal for capturing sporting events from the sidelines or taking intimate portraits of people without getting too close. The further away you are from the close-up subject, the more natural and calm their expression appears.

Digital Zoom
Some cameras in addition to optical zoom may have “digital zoom”. This is a feature where the camera uses the mini computer inside it to blow up or expand the size of the pixels in the image so that it appears closer. The camera does this by sacrificing image detail for image size.

In effect, when you use digital zoom, you are reducing the quality of the image from the original resolution. This may not be a problem if your camera is a high resolution camera, i.e. 6MP. By using the zoom in a 6MP camera, 3X digital zoom will reduce the image quality by three times to 2MP, which is still a decent resolution to print a 4x6 photograph.

However, if the camera starts out at only 3MP, the final resolution after using 3X digital zoom will be equivalent in detail to a blurry 1MP photograph, good only for sharing on the web.

Next>> Battery technology - No power, no pix!
Index >> Digital Camera FAQ
Buy>> Browse Cameras