Camcorder: The facts of zooming

Zooming is often seen as a great tool which could actually make a camcorder more expensive and valuable. Many times, we think a camcorder with a powerful zoom is much better than other which does not offer such characteristic, but not always this is such a great quality as we would think.

Many times, when we use our camcorder zoom, we loose image quality. Zooming increases the image size by amplifying pixels which actually causes the subject to loose resolution and quality. The more you zoom in, the more pixels become amplified and the more image quality you loose.

This way, whenever possible, it is always highly recommendable to actually approach the subject you wish to zoom in instead of using this camera feature in order to avoid loosing quality. Therefore, whenever possible you should try to avoid zooming and, instead of it, simply walk closer. Whether you are using an analog camcorder or a digital one, by moving closer to your subject you would maintain your video or image quality in a much higher level than if you used the zoom.

Digital zooming can be evaluated depending on the optical zoom level. According to the optical zoom a digital camera has, zooming in with it would allow you to have a good or a not so good image resolution and quality. The more powerful an optical zoom is, the less resolution you would loose. This way, if you wish to acquire a digital camera which would allow you to zoom in by loosing the less amount of quality possible you should pay attention to its optical zoom more than to the digital zoom itself.

Digital zoom numbers do not really tell much of a digital camera zooming quality. Actually, digital zooming has no limit; it is possible to create digital cameras which offer a digital zooming as powerful as they wish. The digital camera feature which allows us to measure its zooming quality is the optical zoom, and it is recommendable to pay attention to that characteristic rather than to the digital zoom numbers before acquiring a new digital camera.

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Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera & camcorder guide and learn how to take better pictures and shoot better movies.