Zoom is the ability of the lens to change its own focal length in order to adjust the scale of the photographed object. The presented property of the lens allows you to zoom in or, on the contrary, to zoom out the image without moving the camera in any way. To resize the object in the photo inside the lens, a kind of lens shift is performed. The presented permutation is responsible for zooming.
Varieties of zoom
What is optical zoom? The concept implies a rearrangement of lenses in the lens. In contrast to optical zoom, there is still digital. What does digital zoom mean? This is a change in the scale of the scene, but without any involvement of optics. We can say that this is a simple image frame and its increase digitally.
In practice, the difference is felt strongly between the digital and optical zoom of the camera. This can be seen when comparing, since the optical zoom allows you to take good and high-quality photos or videos, but the digital zoom creates, unfortunately, a “noisy” and poor-quality image.
Multiplicity and zoom are one and the same?
In budget amateur photographic equipment, zoom is a multiplicity. For example, a fourfold zoom indicates that the camera can change its own focal length exactly four times. In professional equipment, the magnification is not indicated, but only the minimum and maximum marks of the focal length are noted. Nowadays, amateur cameras often offer the user a larger zoom than in comparison with professional photographic equipment.
What is an ultrasound?
Amateur equipment also offers cameras with ultrasounds that produce ten or even twentyfold images. If you want to get high-quality images even with strong focal magnification, it is best to shoot with ultrasound in bright light or with a tripod. Now you know that this is the zoom in the camera.
What are the pros and cons of optical zoom?
Optical zoom is vital for people who are going to take beautiful, clear photographs, take photos at long distances, and possibly print their own pictures in large format. It is worth noting that the operation of the optical zoom of the lens is an indistinguishable operation of the optical zoom of the camera. What does this mean? The zoom zooms in several times, and the exposure of the frame and its focal length are modified, with each click of the zoom control button. Now there are good cameras with twentyfold zoom, allowing without loss of quality to photograph the paws of a fly or something else.
Benefits of Optical Zoom:
- Excellent sharpness, good color reproduction even with a large increase in the frame, small details are always visible, there is no blur at all.
- The resolution of the photos does not change when approaching, and this is extremely important for the subsequent printing of pictures in high quality.
- All photos are obtained as 300 dpi. This is enough to create an excellent calendar, a huge banner-banner or even a poster. The quality of the photo does not change at the same time.
Negative points:
- Techniques that have good optical zoom are expensive. Many manufacturers position cameras such as professional equipment, and this suggests that it is problematic to purchase such a camera in a regular store.
- Optical zoom does not turn on separately from digital, and this complicates the work with equipment.
What are the pros and cons of digital zoom?
Digital zoom is an excellent marketing strategy for many companies, because it is, in fact, not an approximation of the frame, but its stretching. Used during this is that area of the picture that you want to zoom in, and the pixels are just stretched to the distance you need. You press the shutter and get a more blurry, low-quality photo than expected before. That's right, the pixels "expanded" by the distance you specified, and this is digital zoom. Not everything is as bad as it might seem.
Advantages:
- The quality of this type of zoom is enough to make good photos for printing. You get somewhere 72 ppi or in other words 72 pixels per inch, which is enough for a blog or social network.
- The cost for photographic equipment with such a zoom is lower than for cameras with “pumped” optics.
Negative points:
- The quality of the photo is pretty low, and for professionals, a technique with such a zoom is completely useless.
- Due to a good advertising campaign, digital zoom costs significantly higher than it should in technical specifications.
What is the result?
When buying photographic equipment, you must be clearly aware of the purpose for which you need it. Are you going to use your own pictures as an advertisement, publish in magazines, create brochures from them, or just make money from them? Then you need the most good and affordable apparatus with optical zoom. In such cases, do not prioritize the presence of digital zoom in any case, because it is positioned as strong, which means that the optical will be “muffled”. If you need it, then check before buying whether it is possible to turn off the digital zoom and use the optical.
Do you just need a camera to create family photos and videos? Then you do not need professional photographic equipment and you can not watch expensive devices with optical zoom, you will only need digital. Always pay attention to the cost of the device, see the budget versions at the beginning, because among them there are a lot of good equipment, little “untwisted” through advertising.