Manufacturers don’t make it easy to figure out exactly what you get when looking at a compact digital camera with zoom. The worst case scenario is a total “zoom factor” that can seem extraordinarily high, like 24X. If you read the fine print you see 3X optical zoom, and 8x digital zoom. As you’ll discover claiming a 24X compact digital camera zoom is not entirely accurate.

You probably want the simple explanation to what this means so here it is:

Optical zoom is real, digital zoom is fake.

Optical zoom uses the lens glass and mechanical adjustments to capture the light. There are several pieces of glass (elements) to a lens that are precision made to capture the most light, and the sharpest image, possible for the specific model of compact digital camera being made.

The internal mechanisms inside the lens are precision calibrated as well. By moving the internal pieces of glass and adjusting the shutter just right the picture captured using the optical zoom of your digital camera is as true to what you see as possible.

Digital Zoom, on the other hand, uses software inside the compact digital camera to guess at what certain parts of the picture should look like (called interpolation). This process damages the original image by removing, adding, and changing what was captured by the lens.

Digital zoom is the same as enlarging your picture in an image editing package like Photoshop Elements or iPhoto. The fact is you will get the same or better results with these software packages than any camera will give you.

Bottom line? As far as compact digital camera zoom is concerned, ignore and never use the digital zoom. Get as much optical zoom as possible.